| Islamic State claims responsibility for Kabul wedding hall blast | Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a bombing at a wedding hall in Kabul that killed at least 63 people and injured more than 200. Survivors said the bomber was standing by a stage where children and adults were dancing and clapping when he detonated his explosives vest. | |  | |
| Buddhist temple in Japan puts faith in robot priest | A 400-year-old temple in Japan is attempting to hot-wire interest in Buddhism with a robotic priest that it believes will change the face of the religion despite critics comparing the android to "Frankenstein's monster". | |  | |
| Eid Al-Adha in Egypt: Egyptians celebrate start of three day feast | Muslims around the world are taking part in Eid Al-Adha festivities. The holiday commemorates the story of Ibrahim who Muslims believe was told by God to sacrifice his son as a test of his faith. They believe that God then told Ibrahim to sacrifice a sheep instead. Yasser Hakim looks at how Egyptians spend the three-day feast. | |  | |
| Guimet Museum in Paris Hosts Historic Exhibition, “Buddha, the Golden Legend” | The Guimet Museum in Paris is hosting an extensive exhibition of 159 artifacts highlighting a wealth of iconographic and stylistic collections of Buddhist antiquities from various periods of Asian history—From India to China to Southeast and East Asia. The exhibition, titled “Buddha, the Golden Legend,” was inaugurated on 19 June and will run until 4 November. | |  | |
| Saudi security forces getting ready for Hajj | Saudi Arabian security forces took part in a military parade in Mecca on Sunday (August 4) as pilgrims around the world started to converge towards the Muslim holy city for the annual Hajj pilgrimage. | |  | |
| Divers find temples and treasure in Egypt's ancient city of Heracleion | Gold jewellery, coins and parts of an ancient temple are merely some of the artefacts divers uncovered in Egypt's ancient sunken city of Heracleion. Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery off the coast of the Nile Delta this week. The city is thought to have been built in the 8th century BC. | |  | |
|
|
|
| Scholars Inch Closer to Understanding and Sharing Ancient Buddhist Manuscripts | Researchers at the University of Sydney may be a step closer to helping Buddhist scholars understand and share the ancient wisdom contained within 2,000-year-old Gandharan manuscripts, and through their painstaking work, digitized versions of the centuries-old texts should soon be made accessible to the public.* | |  | |
|
|
|
|
| Agreement Signed Between Holy See and Burkina Faso | ‘The two Parties, although safeguarding the independence and autonomy that are their own, are committed to collaborate for the moral, spiritual and material wellbeing of the human person and for the promotion of the common good’ | |  | |