MUZDALIFAH, Saudi Arabia, Lynne Nahhas- Massive throngs of pilgrims on Thursday headed for the town of Muzdalifah to collect stones for the final ritual of the Muslim hajj which marks the first day...

STOCKHOLM- Scandinavian scientists have discovered a new species of snake in a Copenhagen museum, which they have called the Mosaic sea snake, a Swedish university said on Thursday. The new sea snake...

BRUSSELS- Money, sex and violence: Belgium's royal family loses much of its blue-blooded lustre in a tell-all book mainly based on anonymous sources that hit bookshelves in French- and Dutch-speaking...

LONDON- Kate Middleton's younger sister Pippa describes her stardom -- and the attention paid to her behind -- after last year's royal wedding as "startling", in a book to be released this month. "It...

Mo Yan is "a state poet (who) withdraws to his world of craftsmanhip whenever necessary," added Liao who will receive the peace prize of Germany's book trade during a ceremony in Frankfurt on Sunday....

FRANKFURT, Frederic Happe- The digital world is knocking at the classroom door, but it is not simply a matter of shifting from paper to screen, educational experts and interactive content producers...

STOCKHOLM, Pia Ohlin- Mo Yan, one of China's leading writers of the past half-century, on Thursday won the Nobel Literature Prize for his writing that mixes folk tales, history and the contemporary,...

MUMBAI, Rachel O'Brien- India's favourite film star Amitabh Bachchan turned 70 on Thursday, marking his birthday with a lavish celebrity party and drawing hundreds of fans to cheer their hero outside...

MOSCOW, Anna Malpas- British singer Sarah Brightman revealed on Wednesday that Russia will launch her as a space tourist to the International Space Station (ISS) in a multi-million dollar voyage...