The Soviets made space dog Laika a national hero and Americans have fallen for presidential pets from Checkers to Bo. In Venezuela, a rare breed of shaggy sheepdog has come to symbolize the patriotic legacy of the late Hugo Chavez.

Venezuela's former president rescued the mucuchies, named for this Andean town where the breed originated 400 years ago, from near-extinction in 2008 by providing funding to breed the remaining 23 purebreds, and he used to delight in recalling how one early tail-wagger called Nevado fought at the side of his idol, 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar.

Most books published in Norway before 2001 are going online for free thanks to an initiative that may have found the formula to reconcile authors with the web.

At a time when the publishing world is torn over its relationship to the Internet -- which has massively expanded access to books but also threatens royalty revenues -- the National Library of Norway is digitising tens of thousands of titles, from masterworks by Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun to the first detective novels by Nordic noir king Jo Nesboe.

Britain has granted asylum to an atheist from Afghanistan due to fears he would be prosecuted back home, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind, his lawyers said Tuesday.

The unnamed man was brought up a Muslim but after arriving in Britain in 2007 at the age of 16 gradually lost his faith, according to the university whose law school helped his case.

To those who complain that opera is an elitist indulgence served up to snobs in dinner jackets, New York's latest world premiere may come as something of a shock.

Inspired by the horrific gang rape of illiterate Pakistani woman Mukhtar Mai on orders of a village council, "Thumbprint" is a $150,000 production currently having an eight-night run in a basement theater in Manhattan.

A women's rights group sounded the alarm on Wednesday about the prevalence of child brides in mostly Kurdish areas of eastern Turkey, saying hundreds of marriages involved girls under 15.

The report by the Women's Center (KAMER) was published just days after the apparent suicide of a 14-year-old mother of two hit the headlines in Turkey, highlighting the plight of young brides.

U.S. archaeologists have uncovered the tomb in southern Egypt of a previously unknown pharaoh who ruled 3,700 years ago, antiquities officials said on Wednesday.

The discovery by a team from the University of Pennsylvania provides new evidence that at least part of Egypt may have escaped the rule of the Hyksos, invaders from what is now Syria who dominated the Nile Delta between the 18th and 15th centuries BC, the officials said.

The Ukrainian government has threatened to outlaw the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church for holding prayer services for opposition protesters occupying Kiev's central square.

The culture ministry on Monday sent a letter to the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, accusing its priests of "breaking the law" by holding religious services outside a place of worship.

It's a medieval treasure trove worth an estimated quarter of a billion dollars, filled with gold crosses studded with gems and intricate silverwork. For years, it's been at the center of a dispute between a Berlin museum foundation and the heirs of Holocaust-era Jewish art dealers.

Now a resolution may be in sight: On Wednesday, a German government-created commission convenes to make a recommendation on who rightfully owns the Welfenschatz — or Guelph Treasure.

France will not tolerate any hate speech or acts against Jews, Muslims or Christians, President Francois Hollande said Tuesday, just days after a comic whose sketches were viewed as anti-Semitic was banned from performing.

Hollande hailed as a "victory" a ban on Dieudonne's sketches initiated by Interior Minister Manuel Valls. The controversial comic has since been forced to cancel a nationwide tour after his attempts to challenge the ban in court failed.

Except for the Americas, religious conflict within countries rose around the world in 2012 to the highest level in six years, according to a study out Tuesday.

One third of 198 countries reviewed saw high or very high levels of internal religious strife, such as sectarian violence, terrorism or bullying in 2012, compared to 29 percent in 2011 and 20 percent in 2010.