Baghdad reached an initial deal with the U.S. on the return of more than 10,000 artefacts stolen from Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, a senior official said on Friday.

"We have reached an initial agreement... on returning more than 10,000 Iraqi artefacts that are in the United States," by August 2014, senior ministry advisor Baha al-Mayahi told Agence France Presse.

Baghdad reached an initial deal with the U.S. on the return of more than 10,000 artifacts stolen from Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, a senior official said on Friday.

"We have reached an initial agreement... on returning more than 10,000 Iraqi artifacts that are in the United States," by August 2014, senior ministry adviser Baha al-Mayahi told Agence France Presse.

A huge blue cockerel descended upon London's Trafalgar Square on Thursday, but the artwork has ruffled feathers by putting the symbol of France in a site marking a famous British victory over Napoleon.

Standing 4.7 meters (15.5 feet) tall and colored a vivid ultramarine, the fibreglass rooster was sculpted by German artist Katharina Fritsch and will watch over the famous square for 18 months.

Russia's security service on Thursday released from its secret archives the manuscript of a classic World War II novel described as the "War and Peace" of the 20th century, over 50 years after it was confiscated by the Soviet authorities.

Vassily Grossman's epic novel "Life and Fate", completed in 1960, was banned in the Soviet Union until the late 1980s but is now considered to be one of the greatest of all Russian novels.

More than 3,700 photos of American pop icon Marilyn Monroe will be sold this weekend along with their copyrights, a Los Angeles auction house said Thursday.

The photos -- plus negatives, slides and copyrights -- are part of a collection of more than 75,000 images taken by fashion photographer Milton Greene in the 1950s and 1960s.

Archaeologists said Wednesday they have found a flint blade dating back 1.4 million years in the caves of Atapuerca in Spain, the earliest sign of a human presence at the site.

The three-centimeter (1.2-inch) blade was found in the so-called Elephant Chasm cave where in 2007 researchers found a human finger and jawbone dating back 1.2 million years -- considered the remains of the "oldest European" ever found.

The headlines out of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which tend to evoke images of bloodshed, rape, ethnic hatred and government corruption, are usually no laughing matter.

But political cartoonist Kashoun Thembo is an expert at wringing humor out of his country's tragedies, capturing the newsmakers and travails of life in DR Congo with a fierce pen that hits home and spares no one.

Two rare books that once belonged to the Swedish royal family and were stolen from the country's National Library are to be handed back here on Wednesday.

New York District Attorney Preet Bharara will present the two books, one of which is 330 years old, over to the library's CEO Gunilla Herdenberg in a ceremony in Manhattan, officials said.

Hundreds of thousands of young Catholics packed the beach of Copacabana Tuesday for the start of a weeklong religious event in Rio de Janeiro that includes gatherings with Pope Francis.

Rain clouds cleared in time and pilgrims from around the world waved flags, sang and prayed as the archbishop of Rio, Orani Tempesta, led a mass to kick off World Youth Day in the country with the world's greatest number of Roman Catholics.

The majority-Catholic Philippines told Muslim teachers Tuesday to remove their veils inside classrooms, in part to promote better relationships between teachers and pupils.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro said the move was part of reforms to make schools more sensitive to religion.