(BETHLEHEM, West Bank) — The mysterious street artist known as Banksy has displayed a politically charged Nativity scene in Bethlehem, the town revered as Jesus’ birthplace, just in time for the busy Christmas season.

The artwork, named “Scar of Bethlehem,” depicts the birth of Jesus under Israel’s West Bank separation barrier with a bullet hole shaped like a star. The piece is displayed at the “Walled Off Hotel,” a Palestinian guesthouse in Bethlehem that was designed by Banksy and is filled with his artwork.

Wisam Salsaa, the hotel manager, said the British artist recently sent the new piece to the hotel.

“We see there is a scar,” he said. “A hole on the wall marks the wall and the life in Bethlehem.”

The hotel, which overlooks the separation barrier, sarcastically boasts “the worst view in the world.” Since its opening in 2017, it has become a popular tourist draw.

“Banksy is trying to remind the world that people of Bethlehem, where Christmas was started, are not celebrating C..

(DIRIYAH, Saudi Arabia) — Supermodels and social media mavens, their makeup artists and hair stylists in tow, posed at a concert in leather pants, chunky sweaters and trendy black combat boots. What was unusual about these Instagram posts was that they were all deliberately tagged in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The bevy of Instagram stars, former Victoria’s Secret models, including Alessandra Ambrosio, and Hollywood actors like Ryan Phillipe, Ed Westwick and Wilmer Valderrama were invited to Saudi Arabia over the weekend to promote the kingdom’s most eye-popping effort yet at showcasing the dramatic changes taking hold in this country, where more than half of its 20 million citizens are under 25 years old.

The efforts are aimed at boosting the economy while polishing Saudi Arabia’s image abroad and appealing to the young. It’s a staggering pivot from just three years ago, when religious police would storm restaurants playing music and harass women in malls for showing their face or wearing..

(TOKYO) — Japan’s economy and industry ministry has proposed gradually releasing or allowing to evaporate massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water at the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.

The proposal made Monday to a body of experts is the first time the ministry has narrowed down the options available to just releasing the water. It is meant to tackle a huge headache for the plant’s operator as storage space runs out, despite fears of a backlash from the public.

Nearly nine years after the 2011 triple meltdowns at Fukushima Dai-ichi, the radioactive water is still accumulating as the water is needed to keep the cores cooled and minimize leaks from the damaged reactors.

For years, a government panel has been discussing ways to handle the crisis and to reassure fishermen and residents who fear potential health impacts from releasing the radioactive water as well as harm to the region’s image.

In Monday’s draft proposal, the ministry suggests a controlled releas..

Russia is blaming the World Anti-Doping Agency’s star witness for modifying key laboratory data. His lawyer says that’s nonsense.

The Russian Investigative Committee, a major law enforcement agency, alleges that former Moscow anti-doping laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov remotely changed test results from abroad after fleeing to the United States in 2015.

“All the evidence obtained by the investigation shows that Rodchenkov and unidentified persons intentionally made changes in the electronic database to distort the parameters and indicators of Russian athletes’ doping samples,” Russian Investigative Committee (IC) spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement Saturday.

Since leaving Russia, Rodchenkov has become a key witness for WADA, which ruled this month that the doping data — known as the LIMS database — was doctored to protect Russian athletes who failed drug tests while the data was in the custody of the IC.

Handing over the files in January was meant to be a Russi..