A tribute to legendary Queen front man Freddie Mercury took center stage at Google in much of the world on Monday in the latest "doodle" merging technology and art to show the Internet giant's human side.

An animated video crafted into the logo on Google's search page to honor what would have been the late rock legend's 65th birthday marked the latest step in the evolution of doodles that started as rudimentary clip art.

Iran's total area is larger than previously thought by some 14 percent, Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi was quoted by the website of state television as saying Monday.

"The actual area of Iran is 1,873,959 square kilometers (723,539 square miles)," Vahidi said, adding: "The area given so far for Iran was lower, and now this new figure should be used."

An albino ostrich was on the run in Russia's far east on Monday after escaping from a circus, as residents were warned not to approach the "very aggressive" bird.

Two ostriches escaped from the Anastasia travelling circus in the port city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky when a worker left their cage open, but one was recaptured Monday morning.

Police in Belgium admit they are clueless as they hunt thieves targeting prized Japanese koi carp -- ornamental fish that sell for many thousands of Euros yet are practically un-insurable.

Champion Flemish growers with long and painful experience as victims fear ever-more costly security to protect these creatures -- beloved by wealthy Japanese and Asian fanatics -- that, left in peace, can live to 60 and eat their way to the size of a small pig.

The Council of Europe's human rights chief urged Poland, Romania and Lithuania Monday to lift the lid on CIA "black sites" where detainees were allegedly tortured on their soil.

The Central Intelligence Agency, as part of its clandestine counter-terrorism operations, set up "black sites" in at least seven overseas locations, including some in Europe, Thomas Hammarberg, the council's human rights commissioner, wrote on his blog.

It is the kind of question that keeps biologists up at night: from an evolutionary standpoint, is the innermost digit of a bird's three-pronged wing more like a thumb or an index finger?

A study published online Sunday by Nature says it's a bit of both.

Anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said on Monday he is giving the Iraqi government a "last chance" to implement reforms, or popular demonstrations would be called.

"This is the last chance before setting a date for open, peaceful, popular demonstrations," Sadr said in a statement released by his office in the holy city of Najaf, without specifying how much time he was giving the government.

A senior al-Qaida leader believed to have been responsible for planning attacks on the U.S., Europe and Australia has been arrested in southwest Pakistan, the army announced on Monday.

Younis al-Mauritani was picked up in the suburbs of the southwestern city of Quetta along with two other high-ranking operatives for the global terror network, the military said in a statement.

Jacques Chirac's embezzlement trial opened Monday with the 78-year-old former French president absent after a medical report said he suffered from memory loss and was too unwell to attend.

"Absent," came the reply when the presiding judge called out his name at the start of a trial that should have seen the first French former head of state in the dock since World War II.

Researchers in the United States said Sunday they had developed a vaccine for tuberculosis that offered unprecedented protection in mice against the deadly disease.

Tuberculosis kills some 1.7 million people each year, with one in three people around the globe infected, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The only vaccine currently in use is notoriously inconsistent.