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Pope Francis gets birthday concert
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Vatican City, Dec 17 

 Pilgrims at Pope Francis's weekly general audience in St.Peter's Square sang Happy Birthday to the pontiff who turned 79 on Thursday.

Francis appeared to enjoy the concert and rounds of applause helped 90-year-old veteran Italian actor-singer Teddy Reno sing a song he wrote specially for the pontiff's birthday.

Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki presented Francis with a cake in the shape of a sombrero, a gift from the people of Mexico, which he is due to visit in February 2016.

Among pilgrims at the general audience - the last before Christmas - were 3,000 tango dancers, who played a short burst of tango music. 

Argentinian-born Francis has said he loves the tango, describing it as "something that comes from within me".

Pope's first exclusive selfie is a fake, says Vatican


Pope Francis' "first selfie" that made rounds of social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram early this week is actually a fake, a media report has said.

"The photo, in which the Pope was seen posing for a selfie, was posted to an Instagram account on Monday with more than 140,000 followers with the caption, 'First #selfie' before several news outlets picked it up," Mashable.com tech website reported on Wednesday.

Later, the Vatican press office confirmed that the Pope does not have an Instagram account and the photo came from a video chat he did with young people around the world in September 2014.

Pope Francis, during a visit to the US earlier this year, warned an audience of "chasing likes" on social media.

"I would dare say that at the root of so many contemporary situations is a kind of radical loneliness that so many people live in today. Running after the latest fad, like accumulating followers on any of the social networks," Pope Francis had said during his US visit.

However, Pope Francis is quite popular on social media and his official Twitter account has more than 8.12 million followers.