Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,000-year-old mosaic in Rome depicting the Greek god Apollo surrounded by his muses in a cellar once used as a park tool shed near the Colosseum, officials said on Friday.

"This is a very important discovery. The mosaic is in perfect condition and it can be dated exactly to between 64 and 109 AD," Umberto Broccoli, head of the culture department of the Rome city council, told reporters on a visit.

Winds of change are sweeping through the dusty palazzos and abandoned ruins of Italy -- as budget cuts in tough economic times force the managers of famous monuments to seek revenues and investment.

The crumbling Colosseum is being restored by shoe tycoon Diego Della Valle, the ancient Roman city of Pompeii is looking for private funders and the august royal residence of Venaria near Turin has opened its gates to banquets and fashion shows.

Top Nazi war crimes suspect Alois Brunner was close to being extradited to former East Germany when the fall of the Berlin Wall put a halt on proceedings, an Austrian weekly said Saturday.

Based on unpublished documents from the former East German Stasi secret police, communist East Germany (GDR) negotiated with Syria in the late 1980s to have the Austrian Brunner extradited and arrested in Berlin, the 'profil' news weekly said in a statement.

Switzerland will celebrate its founding this year with its own new apple species, the Galmac, adding a new twist to William Tell's mythical apple-shot which indirectly led to Swiss independence.

According to the ministry of agriculture, the apple "with a bright luminous skin, crispy, juicy and with a harmonious and refreshing taste", will for the first time be commercially available nationwide.

"Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization" (Penguin Group), by Richard Miles: For ancient Romans, "Carthage Must Be Destroyed" had to be the wave of the future if they were to become the unrivaled masters of the Mediterranean and the lands on its shores. Look at a map.

Carthage, a colony of seagoing Phoenicians from what is now Lebanon, was strategically on the Mediterranean's south coast, halfway between its Middle East homeland and the entry to the Atlantic. It was building an empire of its own, subjecting tribes in North Africa, Spain and the big islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica.

Lebanon's few remaining Arabic calligraphers, whose elegant script and interweaving words transport one to another era, are working to preserve an art form struggling to compete with new technology.

"The computer is a wonderful tool but in no way can it replace an artist or produce masterpieces," says Mahmoud Bayoun, one of the country's best-known calligraphers, whose works have been displayed in the United States and Iran.

Rural America now accounts for just 16 percent of the U.S. population, the lowest ever.

The latest 2010 census numbers hint at an emerging America where, by mid-century, city boundaries become indistinct and rural areas grow ever less relevant. Many communities could shrink to virtual ghost towns as they shutter businesses and close down schools, demographers say.

Hundreds of unticketed tourists have been turned away from Machu Picchu this week as Peru's famed Inca ruins reached capacity.

Angry tourists blocked a bridge for two hours Monday in the town of Aguas Calientes at the entrance to the ruins. That impeded buses that ferry visitors to the hilltop archaeological site.

A valuable 19th century Polish painting that went missing during World War II has been returned to Poland after being removed from auction in Germany, the culture minister said Wednesday.

Aleksander Gierymski's "Jewish Woman Selling Oranges" was unveiled to reporters by Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski, who said the painting was returned to Poland after many months of on-and-off negotiations with lawyers representing a German person.

Archaeologists believe they have discovered the tomb of Saint Philip, one of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ, in western Turkey, Anatolia news agency said Wednesday, quoting the team leader.

"We have been looking for Saint Philip's tomb for years," Italian Francesco d'Andria told the agency. "We finally found it in the ruins of a church which we excavated a month ago."