A new Chinese translation of "Finnegans Wake", renowned for its linguistic difficulty in the original, is proving a hit in China -- although one academic called the author James Joyce "mentally ill".

The first-ever mainland Chinese edition of the novel sold out its initial print run of 8,000 copies just three weeks after being launched in December, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Evangelical churches are blooming in Angola, a traditionally devout Catholic nation, as its impoverished people turn to the promises of proselytism and Protestantism.

In a country of about 19 million people, Pope Benedict XVI drew a crowd of one million faithful when he visited the former Portuguese colony in 2009, and three in five Angolans belong to the faith.

The Fendi fashion house is financing a €2.18 million ($2.93 million) restoration of the Trevi Fountain in Rome, famed as a setting for the film "La Dolce Vita" and the place where dreamers leave their coins.

The 20-month project on one of the city's most iconic fountains was unveiled at a city hall press conference Monday featuring Fendi designers Karl Lagerfeld and Silvia Venturini Fendi, who said the project combined a love of Rome's past with a need to preserve its future.

Israel's health ministry has warned that immigrants must not be given contraceptives without their proper consent, after allegations that Ethiopian women were coerced into taking contraceptive jabs.

The allegations surfaced in December, when an investigative news program looking into the declining birth rate of Ethiopian immigrants to Israel uncovered claims that would-be migrants were told they would be refused entry to the Jewish state if they did not take Depo Provera contraceptive injections.

Sri Lanka's president Sunday urged nationalist Buddhist monks not to incite religious hatred and violence as he moved to stem a wave of attacks targeting minority Muslims.

President Mahinda Rajapakse met with monks with the group known as "Bodu Bala Sena", or Buddhist Force, and urged them to help maintain religious harmony in a country emerging from decades of ethnic violence, according to a statement released by his office.

Authorities in Vienna are refusing to return to Italy the remains of composer Antonio Salieri, Mozart's putative rival, after his native town Legnano launched a new bid to have them repatriated, press reports said Sunday.

"Salieri is part of Vienna's musical history," a spokeswoman for the Austrian capital's culture authority told the Oesterreich daily.

Syria's 22-month war, despite its dehumanizing effects, is teaching ordinary people to pull together and come up with innovative ways to survive without electricity or their daily bread.

"Buying bread or stepping out to collect water can be deadly," said Abu Hisham, a young resident of Aleppo, the strife-torn country's main northern city and one-time economic capital.

Italy's gaffe-prone former premier Silvio Berlusconi sparked outrage Sunday with remarks praising wartime dictator Benito Mussolini despite Il Duce's persecution of Jews and allowing thousands to be deported to Auschwitz.

"The racial laws were the worst mistake of a leader, Mussolini, who however did good things in so many other areas," Berlusconi, who is angling for a return to politics in elections next month, said on the sidelines of a ceremony marking Holocaust Remembrance Day in Milan.

In Hanoi, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the best pho noodle soup is found in the grimiest restaurants, where the staff are rude, the queues long, and the surroundings spartan at best.

Pho, a simple soup of beef broth, herbs, spices and rice noodles, emerged some 100 years ago in north Vietnam and has since acquired a global following, beloved by French celebrity chefs and cash-strapped American students alike.

The world's largest annual migration began Saturday in China with tens of thousands in the capital boarding trains to journey home for next month's Lunar New Year celebrations.

Passengers will log 220 million train rides during the 40-day travel season, the Ministry of Railways estimates, as they criss-cross the country to celebrate with their families on February 10.