Teams of Iraqi archaeologists have discovered 40 ancient sites in the country's south from the Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian periods, an Iraqi antiquities official said on Monday.

"Teams, which have been working since 2010, were able to discover 40 archaeological sites belonging to the Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian periods," Amer al-Zaidi, the head of the antiquities inspectorate in Dhi Qar province told Agence France Presse.

Funky dancing in a seaside bar, Vespa scooters on elegant, broad boulevards: the faded images of a lost Somalia and its ancient capital are at odds with a place now better known for famine and war.

Those who dare to visit contemporary Mogadishu, often dubbed the world's most dangerous capital, catch only a glimpse of its vanished beauty in the bullet-scarred wasteland devastated by more than two decades of civil war.

An abandoned power plant in Buenos Aires dating back to the early 20th century has been transformed into a cultural center, a key part of plans to revitalize the "poor" south of Argentina's capital.

The old brick factory topped with a giant tower, built by the Italian-Argentine electricity company from 1914 to 1916 by Italian architect Giovanni Chiogna, had been nearly forgotten along the highway to La Plata.

Two villages in the Holy Land's tiny Christian community are teaching Aramaic in an ambitious effort to revive the language that Jesus spoke, centuries after it all but disappeared from the Middle East.

The new focus on the region's dominant language 2,000 years ago comes with a little help from modern technology: an Aramaic-speaking television channel from Sweden, of all places, where a vibrant immigrant community has kept the ancient tongue alive.

Australia will open up to divers the wreck of a Japanese mini submarine that famously attacked Sydney harbor during World War II, after winning support from Tokyo, authorities said Monday.

To mark the 70th anniversary of the event -- which sparked public hysteria in the city -- New South Wales Environment Minister Robyn Parker said controlled diving would be allowed.

The U.N.'s cultural arm UNESCO is calling for emergency measures to prevent the town that feeds tourists to Peru's archeological marvel Machu Picchu from becoming overrun.

The 15th century Incan city is perched on a mountain high above the town of Aguas Caliente, which has seen a boom in hotels and restaurants to accommodate an ever-growing number of visitors.

Tens of thousands of people came to San Francisco's waterfront Sunday to mark the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, the distinctive orange vermilion structure that attracts some 10 million visitors each year.

The city hosted a massive celebration complete with music, dance vintage cars and motorcycles, as well as a fireworks display showcasing the iconic bridge at the entrance to the San Francisco Bay.

A stone's throw from Iraq's Shiite holy city of Najaf's airport, the remains of the celebrated ancient Christian city of Hira lie neglected and moldering, because funds for excavation have dried up.

Three sites, discovered five years ago, are unexplored and unkempt, and officials fear the uncompleted excavation could lead to their eventual demise.

Judges narrowly acquitted Socrates, the philosopher whose teachings earned him a death sentence in ancient Athens, in a retrial Friday billed as a lesson for modern times of revolution and crisis.

Socrates spoke himself at his trial in the fourth century BC, but this time in his absence, a panel of 10 U.S. and European judges heard pleas by top Greek and foreign lawyers at the event at the Onassis Foundation in Athens.

Lithuania has concluded the first phase of a study aimed at identifying over a thousand Lithuanians suspected of killing Jews in the Baltic state during Holocaust, a senior researcher said Friday.

Terese Birute Burauskaite, head of the Vilnius-based Genocide and Resistance Research Center, told Agence France Presse she will make a full list of suspected war criminals available to justice authorities.