Islamist rebels in northern Mali took hoes and chisels to the tombs of ancient Muslim saints in the city of Timbuktu for a second day, ignoring international pleas to halt their campaign of destruction.

A local journalist said dozens of Islamists had swarmed the cemetery of Djingareyber in the south of the ancient trading city, a World Heritage Site.

For decades, Lin Tsai-pan has tended his tea fields in the misty green hills of central Taiwan with a devotion bordering on obsession. It is not just a job. It is a passion and a question of honor.

It is exactly 30 years since he first won a prize for his Oolong leaves at a prestigious contest held by Luku Farmers' Association in Nantou County, 20 years since his second prize, and 10 years since his third -- and so far last.

Researchers reported Friday they have found signs of the oldest animal known in existence, a centimeter-long slug whose fossilized tracks in Uruguay are 585 million years old.

That would make the creature almost 30 million years older than any previous animals known to modern humans. The findings are described in the U.S. journal Science.

Unlike her Muslim compatriots, Tarulata Rani is unable to inherit anything from her family, cannot divorce and cannot claim maintenance from her absent husband -- all because she is a Bangladeshi Hindu.

Unlike Bangladeshi Muslims or Hindus in neighboring India and Nepal, Bangladeshi Hindu women can't divorce as the legal provisions do not exist and their marriages have not been allowed to be officially registered.

The U.N. cultural body UNESCO overrode Israeli objections Friday to urgently grant world heritage status to a church in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem worshipped as the birthplace of Jesus.

UNESCO's 13-6 secret vote to add the Church of the Nativity and its pilgrimage route to the prestigious list was received with a round of rousing applause and a celebratory fist pump by the beaming head of the Palestinian delegation at the meeting in Russia's second city of Saint Petersburg.

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II unveiled a memorial Thursday to the tens of thousands of airmen killed in the World War II bombardment of German cities.

The Bomber Command Memorial in central London's Green Park is dedicated to the 55,753 Royal Air Force crew who lost their lives in the conflict.

Bits of the oldest known pottery, some 2,000 years older than previously found pieces, have been uncovered in China, researchers said in the U.S. journal Science on Thursday.

The fragments were believed to belong to a community of roving hunter-gatherers some 20,000 years ago and apparent scorch marks indicate they may have been used in cooking.

An Italian battleship which sank during World War II off the coast of Sardinia after it was bombed by a German warplane has been found, Italy's navy said in a statement on Thursday.

"The battleship Roma was sunk on September 9, 1943, by a German plane, in an attack which killed 1,352 sailors. Only 622 people survived," it said.

The U.N. cultural organization UNESCO on Thursday listed the entire town of Timbuktu in the west African nation of Mali as endangered world heritage because of ongoing violence in the region.

UNESCO said the decision to place both the town and the nearby Tomb of Askia on its List of World Heritage in Danger "aims to raise cooperation and support for the sites threatened by the armed conflict in the region."

A 415-year-old atlas stolen from Sweden's Royal Library more than a decade ago was recovered in the United States and has been returned to the Scandinavian country, officials said Wednesday.

The Cornelius van Wytfliet atlas, which contains 19 rare maps, vanished alongside 55 other books, a theft later attributed to the former head of the library's manuscript department, Anders Burius, who committed suicide in 2004.