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Hamas Same Sex Schools Ban Takes Effect

A law banning same sex schooling in the Gaza Strip has entered into force, education minister for Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory, said on Monday.

The law, which was issued on February 10, was approved by the Islamist movement's legislative council and went into effect on Sunday, Osama Mazini told a news conference.

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Caroline Kennedy Returns to Poetry for 10th Book

Beginning work a few years ago on her latest book, an anthology of poems for young people, Caroline Kennedy found herself looking through one of her mother's scrapbooks. She burst into laughter, she says, as she came across a poem that her brother John, as a youngster, had picked out and copied as a gift to their poetry-loving mom.

"Willie with a thirst for gore, Nailed his sister to the door," went the poem, by an unknown author. "Mother said with humor quaint, 'Careful, Willie, don't scratch the paint!'"

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Anglican Leader Warns of 'Hero Leader Culture'

The new Archbishop of Canterbury warned against "pinning hopes on individuals" to solve all of society's problems in his first Easter Sunday sermon.

Justin Welby said a "hero leader culture" in which all trust was placed in one person only led to false hope.

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Pope Francis Could be Godsend for Reviled Czech Jesuits

Pope Francis could be a godsend for his fellow Jesuits in the Czech Republic, where the religious order is still reviled for its brutal re-imposition of Catholicism in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Dogged by a serious image problem ever since, the Jesuits -- known formally as the Society of Jesus -- have just 55 members in the Czech Republic, a largely secular ex-communist EU country of 10.5 million people.

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China 'Two-Child Policy' Town Shows Scope for Reform

A few places in China give parents a rare right to have two offspring rather than one, but many stop at a single child anyway -- fueling demands to end what critics call an unnecessary, harmful rule.

"If you have too many kids then it becomes difficult," said Lu Xiuyan, a 42-year-old restaurant manager in Jiashan, a dusty village of low-slung buildings a few hours north-east of Beijing, who has one son.

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Bulgaria Muslims Commemorate Communist-Era Repressions

Bulgaria's Pomak Muslim minority marked on Saturday the 40th anniversary of the crackdown on a revolt against the then communist regime's assimilation drive to forcefully change their names to non-Muslim ones.

Members of the 200,000-strong minority -- whose Christian ancestors were converted to Islam while Bulgaria was ruled by the Ottomans between the 14th and 19th centuries -- gathered at a square in the southwestern village of Kornitsa in memory of the five people killed there on the night of March 28, 1973.

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Newly Found Sudan Pyramids Show 'Democratisation'

People power may have come to modern-day Egypt and not Sudan, but the unearthing of ancient pyramids in Egypt's southern neighbor shows that greater social equality existed there 2,000 years ago, a French archaeologist says.

Three years of digging by a French team at Sedeinga, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) from the Egyptian border, has unearthed 35 pyramids that emphasize the contrast between the two ancient cultures, said Claude Rilly, director of the mission.

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Pope to Celebrate First Easter Vigil

Pope Francis is to celebrate his first Easter vigil Saturday after praying for peace in a Middle East "torn apart by injustice and conflicts" during Good Friday's ceremonies.

The newly elected Argentine pope will preside over a mass at St Peter's Basilica Saturday evening, baptizing four adult converts to the Catholic Church during the service -- an Albanian, an Italian, a Russian and a U.S. national of Vietnamese origin, according to the Vatican.

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'I Love Paris' May Soon be Passe for Chinese Tourists

Mass muggings and attacks on Chinese tourists in Paris have spawned alarm and warnings of a decline in the number of free-spending visitors from the Asian giant who swarm to France.

More than one million Chinese visitors come every year to France, a country which for them epitomises luxury, romance and quality products.

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Cutting Edge Art Movement Emerges in Ethiopia

Under a canopy of trees in a park not far from Addis Ababa's National Museum, home of many of Ethiopia's historic national treasures, a contemporary art revolution is quietly afoot.

It is here at Netsa Art Village that the experimental work made from shoelaces by Merhet Debebe can be found, or the vibrantly-coloured work of Tamrat Gazahegn, who uses tree trunks as canvases.

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