Friends Samson and Olu share a beer and a moment of confidence after a game of pool at a typical Ugandan bar.

"Olu, you know I'm gay," Samson confides haltingly, with the admission sparking a chain of events that tears his existence as a successful businessman apart.

The Pentagon and a former U.S. Navy SEAL are at odds over a book that offers the first eyewitness account of the May 2011 raid that took out Osama bin Laden, with a potential court battle looming.

Amid a wave of publicity, the Defense Department is warning the ex-commando and his publisher not to release "No Easy Day" next week, saying the author violated non-disclosure agreements he signed while in uniform.

Feminist writer Shulamith Firestone, who argued that women are oppressed by having to bear children, has died in New York, her sister said Friday.

Laya Firestone Seghi, told Agence France Presse a funeral took place Friday and a public memorial would follow for Firestone, who was found dead at her apartment on Tuesday.

Ethiopia has had a long line of leaders dying in secret, hidden behind closed doors, but not a long history of funerals.

In 1913, one of Ethiopia's most renowned emperors, Menelik II, died. His death remained a secret until 1916 when officials finally announced that he had succumbed to a stroke years earlier.

In a remote valley in Vietnam, U.S. investigators sift through piles of red soil. Despite recovering the remains of hundreds of fallen troops, the hunt goes on for many more still missing in a race against time.

With witnesses ageing, acidic soil eating into remains, and rapid development encroaching on areas where troops died during the Vietnam War, investigators warn there is little time left before all evidence is lost.

The fishing villages have become chic resorts and the yachts of the wealthy dominate the waters of the French Riviera, but the 300 odd fishermen who remain on this sunny coast are determined to keep up a tradition that is also their livelihood.

These fiercely independent men in their seven-meter (23-foot) boats bring a touch of authenticity to a region that has largely dedicated itself to tourism and luxury in resorts like Cannes, Nice or Saint-Tropez.

The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR) organized a seminar Wednesday on the Gulf Cooperation Council amid confederacy and federalism. The lecture was presented by Dr. Abdullah K. Alshayji, Professor of Political Science Dept., Kuwait University.

Alshayji stressed that the reasons for founding the Council were realistic and pragmatic, noting that it was established in an area that lacks regional balance in an attempt to find a unified system for collective security of the GCC states.

French fashion designer Pierre Cardin's billion-euro (dollar) plan to build a giant tower on an industrial site in the Venice lagoon is causing a stir in a city with a proud architectural heritage.

While Venice mayor Giorgio Orsoni has given the project the go-ahead, some residents are up in arms and say the initiative is part of a set of policies that are increasingly turning Venice into a playground for wealthy foreigners.

Venetian canals transformed through a camera obscura, intimate snapshots of a prisoner's life and a hall of whispers are among the installations on show at a new exhibition at Venice's Palazzo Grassi.

Around 30 works by 27 international artists, borrowed from French billionaire Francois Pinault's private collection, explore how the medium of video has been used to capture and challenge sensory expression and perception.

A series of autographs of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, will go under the hammer this week with auctioneers wondering if the sky's the limit for the prized signatures.

Interest is likely to be intense, following Armstrong's death last weekend at age 82, according to the Los Angeles auction house behind the sale.