A leading member of German anti-immigration party AfD sparked an outcry Wednesday over his criticism of the Holocaust memorial in Berlin and calls to stop focusing on the country's Nazi past.

With his Sherlock Holmes-style penchant for using multiple disguises to help crack his cases, Giuseppe Dosi was no ordinary policeman.

And nearly 36 years after his death, Italians are still discovering the secrets of the "artist detective".

The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that Russia's policy of refusing to allow Americans to adopt Russian children, solely because of their nationality, was discriminatory. 

Europe has made enormous progress on gay rights since the 1990s, but those gains are now being threatened by rising intolerance, according to activists from across the continent.

In a tiny workshop in Lebanon's Tripoli, coffin maker Michel Homsi takes a drag on a cigarette, surrounded by his carefully crafted handiwork, waiting for customers that never seem to arrive.

Every day is the same. He wakes at 6:45 am, eats breakfast 20 minutes later and reports for work at eight o'clock sharp. But this isn't your typical Japanese salaryman.

Saudi Arabia's highest-ranking cleric has warned of the "depravity" of cinemas and music concerts, saying they would corrupt morals if allowed in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

"We know that singing concerts and cinemas are a depravity," Grand Mufti Abdulaziz al-Sheikh said in a television interview cited by Sabq news website late Friday.

Two Italian teenagers who have confessed to the brutal ax murder of the parents of one of them were regular cannabis users and video game obsessives, it emerged Friday as the country asked itself what led to the tragedy.

Morocco's ban on the sale and production of burqa full-face Muslim veils beloved of Salafists has sharply divided opinions in the North African country.

Brick by brick, plank by plank, workers at the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau carefully clean its barracks to preserve the Holocaust symbol for future generations. 

"This is the largest preservation project in the history of the museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It's unprecedented," museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki told AFP.