Pope Francis faces a tough 2016, Vatican insiders say, with no let-up in his physically demanding schedule or the political battles over his efforts to modernize the Church.

The 79-year-old pontiff, who eschews holidays and has appeared worn out at times during the last year, has already scheduled major trips to Mexico (February) and Poland (July).

Islamist group Hamas has banned public New Year's Eve parties in the Gaza Strip because they offend the territory's "values and religious traditions," police said on Wednesday.

"The interior ministry and police department did not give permits to any restaurants, hotels or halls for end-of-year parties" after several venues requested permission, police spokesman Ayman al-Batinji told AFP.

The toxic legacy of colonialism in Africa has stirred up a heated debate in Britain involving a prestigious Oxford University college, some high-powered alumni and a student campaign boosted by social media.

The focus of the debate is an unremarkable limestone statue looking down on Oxford's High Street of Cecil Rhodes, the Victorian-era tycoon who founded the De Beers diamond company and what is now Zimbabwe.

An Egyptian court has reduced the jail term for a controversial Muslim scholar convicted of insulting Islam on his television show from five years to one, judicial officials and his lawyer said Tuesday.

Islam al-Behairy faced an uproar in April after remarks he made on his program "With Islam", in which he called for reforms in "traditional Islamic discourse."

Taiwan called on Japan Tuesday to apologize and compensate the island's wartime sex slaves after Tokyo and Seoul reached an agreement on the emotive issue.

Japan offered a "heartfelt apology" and a one-billion yen ($8.3 million) payment to the South Koreans, euphemistically known as "comfort women", who were forced into Japanese military brothels during World War II.

Japanese first lady Akie Abe said she has again visited the controversial Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo, posting photos of the site on the same day Japan and South Korea struck a landmark agreement on wartime sex slaves.

"My final visit of the year," Abe, wife of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, wrote Monday on her Facebook page, also noting that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

A new Chinese translation of Indian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's poetry collection "Stray Birds" has been pulled from bookshop shelves, the publisher said, after controversy erupted over its unusually sexual content.

The work, originally in Bengali, was first published in 1916, three years after Tagore won the Nobel literature prize for "his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", the first non-European to do so.

Ireland underwent a massive prehistoric wave of immigration from the Middle East and eastern Europe, which could explain how modern farming arrived in the region, researchers said in a study released on Monday.

The major finding, traceable via in genome sequencing, may end a long-running debate among scientists, some of whom thought local populations abruptly switched from being hunter-gatherers to using organized farming techniques simply as part of local adaptation.

Giant replicas of an ancient arch in the Syrian city of Palmyra attacked by Islamic State (IS) jihadists will go on show in London and New York next year, organizers said Monday.

The full-size recreation of the arch from the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel will reportedly made using the world's biggest 3D printer and put on display in London's Trafalgar Square and Times Square in New York in April.

South Korea and Japan reached a landmark agreement Monday on the emotive and complex issue of wartime sex slaves -- euphemistically known as "comfort women" -- that has long soured relations. 

After talks between the foreign ministers of the two countries in Seoul, Japan announced it was offering a one-billion yen ($8.3 million) payment for survivors and an apology from nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.