Diesel and jet fuel supplies were running low today in parts of France as the country braced itself for another nationwide protest against government plans to raise the retirement age.

The Acropolis was closed for a third day today by a labour protest, and riot police were guarding the entrance to ensure Greece’s most famous monument could not be blockaded by striking workers.

Greek riot police had to use tear gas to clear striking staff blockading the Acropolis today.

Thousands of riot police and Revolutionary Guard members armed with tear gas, batons and firearms were deployed outside Tehran University today to prevent student demonstrations backed by the opposition.

Iranian authorities have slowed internet connections to a crawl or choked them off completely before expected student protests tomorrow to deny the opposition a vital means of communication.

Egypt’s antiquities czar took his campaign to recover the nation’s lost treasures to a new level today by cutting ties with one of the world’s premier museums, the Louvre, over disputed artefacts.

Rescuers were continuing to sift through rubble today in the hope of finding more survivors of Italy’s deadliest earthquake in nearly three decades.

IRAQ yesterday partially reopened its National Museum, once a trove of artefacts dating back to the dawn of civilisation but which was plundered after the 2003 invasion while US troops stood by.

Workers renovating a rugby stadium in Rome have uncovered a vast complex of tombs beneath the Italian capital which mimic the houses and streets of a real city.

Poland has refused to allow scientists to run DNA tests on the heart of composer Frederic Chopin to explore a mystery surrounding his death.

Iran’s Culture Ministry today announced the closure of nine cinema and lifestyle magazines for publishing pictures and stories about the life of “corrupt” foreign film stars and promoting “superstitions”.

CHINA will be stricter on foreign performers after Icelandic singer Bjork shouted “Tibet! Tibet!” at the end of her concert in Shanghai this week, the government said.

China will be stricter on foreign performers after Icelandic singer Bjork shouted “Tibet! Tibet!” at the end of her concert in Shanghai this week, the government said today.

New clusters of black fungus are spreading over treasured cave drawings in France, scientists warned, as they announced a bacteria-killing recipe to protect the remarkable Palaeolithic paintings.

A French court has ruled that a Maori head that New Zealand wants back must remain in France.

The Spanish government has filed a lawsuit in a US federal court against an American treasure-hunting firm over a shipwreck they have found laden with a colonial-era treasure, the Culture Ministry said today

AUTHORITIES in Spain are looking into whether a US company can be charged with stealing Spanish heritage for excavating colonial-era treasure from a sunken British warship.

Archaeologists on a Greek island have discovered a large Roman-era tomb containing gold jewellery, pottery and bronze offerings, officials said today.

IT TOOK more than 1,600 years, but the ancient Greek god Zeus was honoured once again, pagan-style, by

Iran’s Culture Ministry today lauded its competition of cartoons on the Holocaust as an expression of hatred against oppressors.

A 27,000-year-old human skeleton laid out in a room decorated with ancient art was among the rare finds at a cave in western France whose subterranean art predates that of the famed Lascaux caves.

A 27,000-year-old human skeleton laid out in a room decorated with ancient art was among the rare finds at a cave in western France whose subterranean art predates that of the famed Lascaux caves, officials said on Friday.

Two-time Grammy Award-winning African musical giant Ali Farka Toure of Mali died today after a long illness, Mali’s Culture Ministry announced. He was in his late 60s.

An Iranian newspaper has published a caricature of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hitting a punching bag with a nuclear emblem on it, marking the first time the country’s leader has been drawn in a cartoon in more than 25 years.

Ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has won Iran's presidency by an overwhelming vote, decisively shutting reformists out of government and threatening to lead the country back toward the restrictions of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

China has banned British computer game Football Manager 2005, saying it violated Chinese law by referring to Taiwan, Hong Kong and other regions claimed by China as separate countries.

French staff of a US owned company, tired of struggling with company e-mails, manuals and meetings in English, took their fight to court today.

A nationwide hunt was under way today for armed thieves who forced their way into a lightly guarded Oslo museum and ripped the Edvard Munch masterpiece The Scream and another painting from the wall as stunned visitors watched in shock.

Museums and archaeological sites across Greece, including the 2,500-year-old Parthenon, will be closed to visitors on Sunday after Culture Ministry employees today announced a 24-hour strike.

A cave with vivid prehistoric engravings possibly dating as early as 28,000 BC has been discovered in western France.