Two Indian writers said Monday they have asked publisher Penguin to pulp their books and return the copyright, in protest at what they see as its failure to defend free speech.

Penguin ignited the row last week with its decision to withdraw a 2009 book on Hinduism in India, to settle a court battle with activists who took offence at the American author's depiction of the religion.

A South Florida artist is facing a criminal charge after police say he smashed a $1 million vase by a Chinese artist at Miami's new art museum to protest what he called its favoritism for international rather than local art.

Maximo Caminero, 51, was charged with criminal mischief after Sunday's incident at the Perez Art Museum Miami. According to a Miami Police Department arrest affidavit, a security guard told officers that Caminero picked up a colored vase by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. When told to put it down, the security guard said, Caminero smashed it on the floor.

Racing against time, South Carolina archeologists are digging to uncover the remnants of a Civil War-era prisoner-of-war camp before the site in downtown Columbia is cleared to make room for a mixed-use development.

The researchers have been given four months to excavate a small portion of the 165-acre (66.7-hectare) grounds of the former South Carolina State Hospital to find the remnants of what was once known as "Camp Asylum." Conditions at the camp, which held 1,500 Union Army officers during the winter of 1864-65, were so dire that soldiers dug and lived in holes in the ground, which provided shelter against the cold.

The Egyptian minister of antiquities says that a team of German archaeologists has discovered missing pieces belonging to the famed Colossi of Memnon. The statues, dating to roughly 1350 BC, were damaged in an earthquake during the Roman era.

The colossi are some of Egypt's oldest touristic attractions, drawing tourists since ancient times. The twin statues, over 18 meters (60 feet) tall each, are of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who was worshipped as a deity. The statues are the only remains of a large temple that was built in memorial of the pharaoh.

A Jewish member of the "Monuments Men", a team of experts who rescued Nazi-looted artworks during World War II, accepted a medal from his German hometown at the weekend, media reported Sunday.

Harry Ettlinger, 88, who had already attended a red-carpet screening of George Clooney's new "The Monuments Men" movie about the group at the Berlin film festival last week, received the so-called Staufer Medal at an art museum in Karlsruhe, southwestern Germany.

The communists tried hard to stamp out the culture of Bulgaria's rural Pomak minority, and since then tough times in the European Union's poorest country have made many leave, but one village is keeping traditions alive.

Nestled in the southern snow-capped Rhodope Mountains, each winter Ribnovo rolls back the centuries for workers returning from construction and farming jobs in Germany, Britain or Israel to tie the knot in extraordinary Muslim weddings.

The world's most famous postage stamp, a tiny piece of British colonial memorabilia from 19th century South America, is going under the hammer in New York for $10 to $20 million.

It was made in 1856 in Guyana and Sotheby's will sell the magenta stamp, which bares the postmater's initials, on June 17.

The discovery in Gaza of a life-size bronze statue of a naked ancient Greek god has presented the Palestinian territory's Islamist rulers with a dilemma: should there be a cover-up?

Religious sensitivities about nudity and pagan idolatry aside, mystery also surrounds the circumstances of how the statue of Apollo turned up.

In a vacant lot between gleaming hotels in downtown Miami, are a series of holes carved into the bedrock that form eight circles.

At first glance, the site seems like an eyesore, but it's here where archaeologists say they have uncovered a major prehistoric Native American village, one of the largest and earliest examples of urban planning ever uncovered in North America.

Tourists, hawkers and motorcyclists rub shoulders every morning in the congested alleyways of Hanoi's low-rise Old Quarter, which seems generations away from the office towers and electronics megastores springing up in other parts of the capital. The quarter's street grid, laid out in the 15th century, is still dominated by dilapidated shops selling everything from brass gongs to bamboo scaffolding.

It is now among Asia's best-preserved urban hubs of traditional commerce — thanks largely to decades of inattention. The 82-hectare (203-acre) downtown area is crammed with Buddhist temples, pagodas and French colonial shophouses, whose original tiles and peeling yellow paint have become a draw for foreign visitors.