Croatia is accusing its Balkan neighbor Serbia of genocide during fighting in the early 1990s as the former Yugoslavia shattered in spasms of ethnic violence, in a case at the United Nations’ highest court that highlights lingering animosity in the region.

Croatia is asking the International Court of Justice to declare that Serbia breached the 1948 Genocide Convention when forces from the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia attempted to drive Croats out of large swaths of the country after Zagreb declared independence in 1991.

It is not the first time Serbia has faced allegations of genocide at the world court. In a landmark 2007 judgment, the court cleared Belgrade of committing genocide in the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica.

Wearing unfathomably elaborate costumes measuring more than five metres high and weighing up to 80kg, the most dressed-up ladies in the world fought it out to become queen of the carnival.

The beaming candidates took part in a four-hour show that featured dancing, singing – and a lot of sequins – for the Queen of the Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

The event, which began on January 31 and finishes on March 8, has become the third-largest carnival in the world after the famous Rio de Janiero Brazilian Carnival.

The winning costume was worn by Amanda Perdomo and designed by Daniel Pages.

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Retired Pope Benedict XVI has denied speculation that he was pressured to leave office, saying his decision was freely made and his alone.

Benedict wrote to the Vatican correspondent for La Stampa newspaper, Andrea Tornielli, amid a new round of speculation about his reasons ahead of Friday’s first anniversary of the first resignation by a pope in 600 years.

Benedict, 86, also defended his decision to continue wearing the white cassock of the papacy, saying that there were no other clothes available.

Media are again speculating about what drove Benedict from office. Italian journalist Antonio Socci suggested last week in the conservative daily Libero that the resignation may have been invalid, claiming Benedict was pressured by a group of cardinals opposed to him.

The music video for Katy Perry‘s “Dark Horse” has drawn ire from the Muslim community. Shazad Iqbal from Bradford, England, has launched an online petition asking YouTube to remove the clip, which was debuted last week.

The video doesn’t look harmful at all as it mostly features Perry as a queen who uses her power to turn all her suitors into dust after failing to please her with their gifts. However, Iqbal notices that there’s a man wearing a necklace that reads “Allah” who ends up being killed as well.

In the complaint, Mr Iqbal said: ‘The video is considered as highly controversial to its viewers as a result of its portrayal of blasphemy.

The petition has so far garnered 40,000 signatures.

A Victorian church where Sherlock Homes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tried to contact the dead has gone up for sale.

The Cedars Spiritualist Church in Ipswich, Suffolk – once a hotbed of British spiritualism – is on the market for between £500,000 and £700,000.

In the 1920s it hosted packed meetings where psychics would try to contact the spirits of people who had passed on.

One regular visitor was writer Doyle who was one of the most famous spiritualists of his day, finding solace in the practice after losing his wife Louise in 1906 and his son Kingsley just before the end of the First World War.

Records show that Ipswich Psychic Society – as the church was once known – hosted popular garden parties and talks that attracted as many as 1,000 people.

Kandi Munson, The Cedars’ president, said the imposing Victorian property was originally bought for £800.
She added: ‘We had our own mediums, Joan Brown and Dorothy Abraham, who lived here in the flats above the church for many years.

‘They talked about people arriving in horse and carriages from London, visits from and to Native Indians in Canada and, of course, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who came to society meetings on a number of occasions.

‘We’ve got all his books on spiritualism – all first editions which he gave us. They are locked away but they won’t be sold as part of the house.

‘They are too precious and will be coming with us to our new home.’

Church leaders have taken the decision to sell up as they want a property more suited to what the church now offers, including activities such as yoga and meditation, as well as regular services.

The Cedars will be going under the hammer at Goldings Auctions at Wherstead Park next month.

Berlin’s museums authority says one of the city’s best-known cultural treasures, the 2nd century B.C. Pergamon Altar, will be shut to visitors for up to five years from September for restoration work on the building that houses it.

The altar, decorated with a marble frieze, was built between 197 and 156 B.C. in the present-day Turkish town of Bergama. It’s the centerpiece of Berlin’s Pergamon Museum.

The authority that runs Berlin’s public museums said Tuesday the central hall that contains the altar will close Sept. 29, and likely won’t reopen until 2019, though it plans to set up a temporary exhibition nearby with original material from the altar.