Europe

Art officials in Italy announced Friday that an agreement had been reached with the Cleveland Museum of Art for the safe return of artifacts that Rome claims have been looted or smuggled out of the country. Under the terms of the deal, the art museu will return 16 artifacts to Italy.

The Culture Ministry of Italy made the announcement on Friday, however avoided giving any specific details as to which artifacts were being returned.

Italy has recently been conducting an aggressive campaign to recover disputed antiquities. Previously they were able to reach agreements with other US museums, including the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in California.

The artifacts from Cleveland to be returned were "significant", said Italy, but didn't say what they were.

Italy has claimed that ancient artifacts and treasures have ended up in museums and private collections abroad after being looted from archaeological sites and resold with false documentation.

According to research by an American scholar, Larry Schaaf, a 200-year-old image of a leaf may be the world's oldest photograph. The image laid for years in an album, and was believed to have been dated 1839. However, Schaaf, believes it may have been made more than 30 years earlier by Thomas Wedgewood.

The photogenic drawing, which is a negative obtained by laying the leaf on light-sensitive paper and exposing it to the sun, was attributed to Henry Fox Talbot, one of the pioneers of early photography. Schaaf, an expert on Fox Talbot, says that a "W" on the image may refer to Thomas Wedgewood, who was a member of the Wedgewood china family.

200-year-old image of a leaf, which lay for years in an album, may be the world's oldest photograph, according to research by a scholar.

The photogenic drawing, a negative obtained by laying the leaf on light-sensitive paper and exposing it to the sun, has been attributed to Henry Fox Talbot, one of the pioneers of photography.

Labor woes may turn into drinking woes to the many who love to relax with a pint of Guinness stout. Workers at the St. James's Gate Brewery, where the popular beer is produced, are voting on a strike that could threaten supply of the most famous Irish brew. Workers are upset that management wants to cut 300 jobs at the plant that makes the product and voted 98% in agreement to reject those plans. Adding fuel to the fire, the union says that management is failing to even negotiate with the workers. Workers have begun voting on a plan to strike, so if you can't live without a Guinness it may be a good idea to stock up before the store shelves are bare if this comes to fruition.

The divorce settlement between Paul McCartney and Heather Mills was finalized today, with Heather taking a lump sum of $33 million, and $15 million in existing assets. She will receive $70,000 per year, and Paul will pay nanny and school fees for their daughter, Beatrice.

McCartney's fortune, which had previously been estimated at $1.7 billion, was found by the judge to be just half of that.

Despite having scored over $50 million for a brief two-year marriage to Paul, Heather still isn't happy. Now that the settlement is finalized, she's fighting to keep the entire judgment from being published. A judge had previously decided to make the judgment public, something that Heather claims Paul pushed for.

The only vaccination required by Belgian law is that for polio, a debilitating disease that doctors around the world are struggling to be rid of. While doctors in other countries try to persuade parents to get their children the important vaccine, Belgium takes it one step further by enforcing prison sentences for those who do not comply.

Two sets of parents in Belgium were recently given five month prison sentences for failing to vaccinate their children against polio. Each of the parents were also fined 4,100 euros, or about $8,000 USD.

The parents will still have the opportunity to avoid the prison term, as their sentences were delayed to give them one last opportunity to give their children the vaccination. However, if this next deadline passes, the parents will be serving their time in prison.

Due to privacy laws, Belgian officials could not talk about the specifics of the case, including why the parents refused to vaccinate their children, or how much time left they had to vaccinate them.

Exceptions to the polio vaccine law in Belgium are only granted if parents are able to prove that their children may have a adverse physical reaction to the vaccine.

Hallmarks of British humor such as sarcasm and self-deprecation don't always travel well, and according to researchers, may be down to genetics.

Rod Martin, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, indicated that television shows such as The Office of Fawlty Towers show that people in Britain enjoy cruel and dark humor more than people from other countries. Briths may have a greater tolerance for a wide range of expressions of humor, said Martin.

For example, in the US version of The Office, the lead character is far less insensitive and intolerant the the one in the UK version.

Researchers studied 2,000 pairs of British twins and 500 pairs of American twins. What they found was that both groups enjoyed positive humor, but only the British appreciated sarcasm, self-depracation, teasing and ridicule, and the less pleasing aspects of racist or sexist humor.

"In North American families there was a genetic basis to positive humour, but negative humour seems to be entirely learnt," said Martin.

They also found that television humor in Britain was more biting, where as in the US it tended to be blander.

The United Nation's drug control agency, the International Narcotic Control Board, came down hard on Britain this week, criticizing the leniency shown to celebrity drug-users. The UN said that in giving an easy ride to the stars, courts and prosecutors sent out the wrong message to young people.

The agency's spokesman, Professor Hamid Ghodse, singled out the UK yesterday for allowing the well-to-do to freely use drugs, and called for real prosecutions.

"The authorities should ensure that public celebrities who violate drug laws are made accountable," said Ghodse.

Amongst the infamous drug abusing stars who've gotten off easy are Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse, and Pete Doherty. Kate saw a boost in her career after being photographed snorting cocaine, Amy Winehouse hasn't even received a slap on the wrist for her heavy drug use, and has instead received numerous awards for her music. Pete Doherty has escaped jail time despite numerous court appearances in relation to his heroin addiction and use of other drugs.

A report issued by the agency this week says that by allowing celebrities to get away with drug crimes, it has a damaging effect on impressionable youth and undermines faith in the justice system:

After hundreds of viewers were able to watch the alleged gang-rape of a young British mother on the popular website YouTube, the mother is speaking out and hitting back at the site that allowed her ordeal to be broadcast to the world. The clip, which is three minutes long, was apparently filmed on a mobile phone.

The attack reportedly occurred on November 6, and was posted within hours of the attack. The video remained on the site for three months, and received more than 600 views before it was finally taken down.

The woman, 25, claims the video showed her being raped by three boys in front of her screaming children, age two and four. She lied there unconscious after being drugged while the attack was carried out.

The video was not removed until mid-February when a visitor to the site filed a complaint.

The woman said,

"They were really hurting me. My daughter was crying and I could not get to her. Afterwards they called me a slag and a bitch. I felt so ashamed.

"It's just crazy to think that someone would get a kick out of watching that - someone perverted, someone not right, someone sick.

"The worst thing about it is you can clearly hear my baby crying.

"The next day I found out there was a video and everybody tried to make out I did it on purpose.

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed today that Prince Harry has been fighting Taliban forces on the front line in Afghanistan for the past 10 weeks. Prince Harry, 23, is a Household Cavalry officer and has been secretly serving in the war-ravaged area of the Helmand Province.

Harry's deployment had been kept secret under a news blackout deal agreed across UK media in an effort to prevent details from reaching the Taliban, which could endanger the prince and his troops. However, the arrangement broke down today after the Drudge Report leaked news of Harry's service in Afghanistan today.

Once the Drudge Report broke the news, other international news outlets followed suit. The Australian magazine New Idea and the German newspaper Bild also broke the embargo.

As a part of the deal, a small group of journalists were permitted to visit Harry in Helmand on the condition that they could only publicize the details once he was safely returned to England. The deal was struck after Harry famously had to cancel his planned tour of Iraq last year because of a security risk involved with the publicity.

Angered that he would not be able to serve with his comrades in Iraq, Harry later swore that he would quit if he was not permitted to fight.