While 20 years ago Eritreans danced to celebrate their newly gained independence, on May 24 this year few have much to smile about other than fond memories of happier times.

"There is so much to be proud about as a nation," said Emmanuel Tesfai, a former fighter who battled during the 30-year war to win his country's freedom from Ethiopia.

Bernard Waber, the author of such children's favorites as "The House on East 88th Street" and "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile," has died.

Waber died May 16 at his Long Island home after a long illness, publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced Monday. He was 91.

The debate in Britain over legalizing gay marriage took a surreal turn on Tuesday after a senior politician said it could result in a lesbian queen giving birth to an heir by artificial insemination.

Norman Tebbit, a member of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative party who sits in the House of the Lords, also joked that it could see him marry his own son to escape inheritance tax.

The Chapman brothers presented their latest epic installation featuring thousands of little figures in violent conflict Tuesday at the sidelines of Art Basel in Hong Kong, but dismissed the renowned fair as a "shop".

"The Sum of all Evil" by Jake and Dinos Chapman builds on previous works "Hell" (1999), and "Fucking Hell" (2008), which showcased innumerous miniature Nazis soldiers in various states of diabolical torment.

The Vatican on Tuesday denied that Pope Francis had performed an exorcism after an Italian religious television channel said footage of the pontiff blessing a boy in a wheelchair showed he had.

"The Holy Father did not intend to perform any exorcism," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement, after the claims by TV 2000, which is owned by the Italian bishops' conference.

Opera houses the world over are scrambling to pay tribute to Richard Wagner, the controversial German composer often referred to as Hitler's favorite, who would have turned 200 this year.

More has purportedly already been written about Wagner than any other artist and composer in history, but publishers are churning out countless new biographies, critical studies and books.

A Jordanian military tribunal acquitted five university students of incitement charges on Sunday leveled over accusations they had engaged in "devil worship" and desecrated the Koran, a court official said.

"The court declared the students innocent and ordered them freed for lack of evidence," the official told Agence France Presse, without elaborating.

Egypt's liquor stores are under growing pressure to stop selling alcohol, they say, not from the country's Islamist government, but from society itself.

The shelves of Amir Aziz's central Cairo premises are stacked with beer, wine and spirits, but they are invisible from the street.

British Prime Minister David Cameron faces further dissent from within the ranks of his Conservative Party as a bill to legalize gay marriage returns to Parliament Monday.

Cameron faces a setback in the lower chamber, the House of Commons, if the opposition Labor Party joins forces with Tory rebels in a vote on his bill.

More than 500 valuable paintings and works of art have been stolen from a Budapest apartment belonging to a deceased collector, Hungarian police said Saturday, in series of robberies that apparently went undetected for years.

"The police has opened an investigation into a case of theft concerning works of art of exceptional value," a police statement read, adding that it was in the process of determining how much the missing items -- including an untitled sketch by Gustav Klimt -- were worth.