An Indian guru said Friday he hopes to set a world record this weekend by practicing yoga with millions of other people, including opposition election frontrunner Narendra Modi.

Swami Ramdev, who heads a huge yoga empire and is a household name in India, has thrown his support behind Modi, the prime ministerial candidate for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, tipped to win the polls due to kick off next month.

Whatever you're doing this Sunday, wherever you might be, take a moment to reflect on the most popular word in the English language, OK?

It will be 175 years since OK -- or, as some prefer, okay -- first appeared in print, on page two of The Boston Morning Post, then one of the most popular newspapers in the United States.

Kenya's parliament has passed a bill allowing men to marry as many women as they want, prompting a furious backlash from female lawmakers who stormed out, reports said Friday.

The bill, which amended existing marriage legislation, was passed late on Thursday to formalize customary law about marrying more than one person.

A German panel ruled Thursday against the heirs of Jewish collectors seeking to recover a trove of precious medieval church artifacts, saying its sale in 1935 was not made under Nazi duress.

The dispute centers on the Guelph Treasure or "Welfenschatz" of gold, silver and gem-studded relics believed to be worth hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) in total.

Australia's new wave cooking has long been admired in the English-speaking world, and now it seems chefs from the land of haute cuisine are finally waking up to its uninhibited charms.

Drawn by a no-holds-barred culinary culture that has produced creative East-West blends, French Michelin-starred cooks have been travelling to Australia for stints at kitchens Down Under.

A Norwegian museum says it has agreed to return a Matisse once looted by Hermann Goering to the family of Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg.

The 1937 painting, Woman in Blue in Front of a Fireplace, has been among the highlights of the Henie Onstad Art Center near Oslo since the museum was established in 1968 through a donation by shipping magnate Niels Onstad and his wife, Olympic figure-skating champion Sonja Henie.

Ancient manuscripts in the Vatican library penned from East Asia to the Pre-Colombian Americas will be digitized by a Japanese company as part of a global project to make the collection available for free viewing by the public.

Japan's NTT DATA will digitize 3,000 historical works and put them online over a four-year period in an initiative costing 18 million euros ($22.6 million), the company said at a press conference in the Vatican on Thursday.

Luxury jeweler Bulgari on Thursday answered the Italian government's appeal for help in financing a renovation of Rome's famous Spanish Steps.

Bulgari, which was bought in 2011 by French luxury giant LVMH, will put 1.5 million euros ($2 million) towards the refurbishment which will begin in 2015 and last two years, Rome's mayor Ignazio Marino said.

Japan on Thursday marked the 19th anniversary of a Tokyo subway nerve gas attack with ceremonies to honor the 13 people who lost their lives.

Staff at the central Kasumigaseki metro station held a moment of silence at 8:00 am (2300 GMT Wednesday), and some commuters offered floral tributes at a remembrance stand erected there.

Senegal is failing to protect thousands of boys in Islamic boarding schools from forced begging and torture at the hands of their teachers, a global human rights organization said in a report released on Wednesday.

At least 50,000 boys known as talibes -- the vast majority aged between four and 12 -- are forced to beg in Senegal's streets most of the day, every day, by often brutally abusive Koranic teachers known as marabouts, according to campaigners.