In the 1980s, French sociologist Michel Maffesoli coined the term "urban tribes" to describe small groups of people defined by shared interests and lifestyle preferences around which modern societies are organised.

Comics are serious business in the land of of Tintin and The Smurfs, and nowhere more so than in Europe's biggest and oldest museum dedicated to the art form as the venue celebrates its 25th birthday. 

Enter the Belgium Comic Strip Center and you pass a giant model of the red and white moon rocket used by the ginger-quiffed boy detective, along with other life-size replicas from other famed comics.

U.N. experts have concluded that a wreck off Haiti is not Christopher Columbus's flagship from his first voyage to the Americas, UNESCO said Monday, contradicting claims by a U.S. marine archaeologist.

"There is now indisputable proof that the wreck is that of a ship from a much later period," the U.N. cultural body announced in a statement.

Two million Muslim pilgrims begin leaving the holy city of Mecca on Monday, concluding the annual hajj during which Saudi leaders lashed out at Islamic extremism.

The call to prayers, a fixture across Egypt at sunrise, sounded more jubilant than ever as a country weary after years of turmoil began marking the three-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

In Cairo, typically smog-filled streets of honking cars stood empty and quiet, aside from the occasional bleat of a ram.

Greek police say two Russians, both aged 23, were arrested Sunday for scaling a wall on the Acropolis and damaging it while doing acrobatics.

The two were observed by a guard preparing to scale the wall and were warned against it. They ignored the warnings, police say. As they scaled the wall and were doing acrobatic moves, several stones fell off of the wall, which is a medieval addition.

Nobel season opens with speculation rife over fugitive U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden's prospects for the peace prize and whether the first award announced Monday -- the medicine prize -- could go to research into chili, heat and pain.

U.S. physiologist David Julius has been touted by Sweden's leading daily Dagens Nyheter to win the medicine prize for discovering that pain receptors have the same reaction to pain, temperature and the spicy component of chili.

Since the creation of the Nobel prizes in 1901, six children have followed in the footsteps of their parents, becoming Nobel laureates themselves.

A seventh won the award jointly with his father in 1915 at the tender age -- in Nobel terms -- of 25.

Raising his arm, Yousef Ali hugs his elderly father in front of one of Islam's holiest sites as they grin for a selfie -- a craze that has hit this year's hajj.

But not everyone is happy about young pilgrims from around the world constantly snapping "selfies", photographs taken of one's self, as they carry out the rites of hajj which are the high point of a Muslim's spiritual life.

Yuri Lyubimov, a director who dominated Russian theater for half a century, has died at 97, after being admitted to hospital last week with heart failure.

Lyubimov founded and headed Moscow's Taganka Theater for 50 years, winning worldwide renown for his hugely visual and inventive shows, and influencing a new generation in post-Soviet Russia.