Pope Francis' newly chosen Spanish cardinal, 84-year-old Fernando Aguilar, has described homosexuality as a "defect" that can be corrected with treatment, sparking condemnation from gay rights groups.

"A lot of people complain and don't tolerate it but with all respect I say that homosexuality is a defective way of manifesting sexuality, because that has a structure and a purpose, which is procreation," Aguilar told Malaga newspaper Sur.

The sun has not yet come up, but hundreds of people -- cloaked in white shrouds and chanting biblical hymns -- are already gathered at the holy baths in northern Ethiopia to celebrate Timkat.

By mid-morning the sombre mood has turned jovial, and scores of people disrobe to submerge themselves in the blessed waters flanked by priests dressed in long, gold-embroidered gowns and towering headdresses.

A new Asian diplomatic row broke out Monday after China unveiled a memorial to a Korean national hero who assassinated a Japanese official a century ago -- with Tokyo condemning him as a "terrorist".

China fired back by hailing the man, Ahn Jung-Geun, as "a famous anti-Japanese high-minded person".

Pope Francis has looked beyond the usual Vatican circles for new cardinals and overhauled the governance of the Vatican bank at the start of a year that heralds key reforms for the Roman Catholic Church.

Even some measures that appear limited in scope, like the curtailment of the honorific "monsignor" title and a cut in costs for sainthood applications, are being seen as signals of a will to overhaul the Vatican.

German sweet maker Haribo said Friday it had stopped selling some of its liquorice sweets in Sweden and Denmark because certain consumers considered them racist.

The sweets, part of the Skipper Mix salty blend which has been on the market for years, will no longer feature the controversial figures in the future in both Scandinavian countries.

A record-breaking number of people have flocked to a Dutch Old Masters exhibition in New York, fueled by a best-selling novel featuring one of the paintings on display.

The Frick Collection originally billed "Girl with a Pearl Earring," the much-loved masterpiece that inspired a Hollywood film in 2003, as the prime attraction of its October-January show.

Researchers said Friday they may have discovered remains of King Alfred the Great, the 9th-century royal remembered for protecting England from the Vikings and educating a largely illiterate nation.

The University of Winchester said in a statement that a pelvis found in a box of bones in the city's museum is likely to be either from the legendary leader or his son, King Edward the Elder.

"Brokeback Mountain", the Oscar-winning epic about the relationship between two cowboys in the American West, is coming to the stage as an opera, with a world premiere in Madrid this month.

The opera, brought to the screen in 2005 and based on the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx, opens January 28 at the Teatro Real in the Spanish capital, some six years after it was commissioned.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni views gays as "sick" but does not believe they should be jailed or executed and will block a push by parliament to impose tough penalties, his spokesman said Friday.

"He does not approve of homosexuality but he believes that these people have a right to exist," presidential spokesman Tamale Mirudi told Agence France Presse.

Malaysian Hindu devotee Karthi Gan grimaces while tapping his feet to the beat of ritual drums as two men plunge dozens of sharp hooks into his chest and back.

The painful ritual is Karthi's way of giving thanks to the Hindu deity Muruga as part of the country's colourful annual Thaipusam festival, one of the world's most extreme displays of religious devotion.