Full of flying carpets, genies, love and battle, a Paris show opening Tuesday lifts the curtain on "One Thousand and One Nights", exploring the roots of the folk tales and their powerful influence in the West.

Through some 350 manuscripts, artworks, artefacts and film clips, the show at the Arab World Institute traces the tales' journey from their origin in Indian and Persian folkore, to their translation into Arabic in the eighth century.

Lost for decades before their chance discovery by a U.S. official, the raw transcripts of the Bretton Woods conference reveal the difficult birth of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in 1944.

"I was looking in the Treasury library for some other material which was nearby and I noticed that there's a section labeled uncatalogued material... and so I was curious to see what was in it," Kurt Schuler, a U.S. Treasury economist, told Agence France Presse.

It was one of the most daring operations in Ethiopian history: Israel's 1991 airlift of Ethiopian Jews, when nearly 15,000 people were crammed into a series of non-stop flights lasting 36 hours.

Clutching only a few belongings, in planes with seats removed to make more space, they left a nation their ancestors had called home for two millennia for a land they knew only from scripture.

More than 140 paintings by Picasso, Van Gogh and other masters which were bought with stolen funds by former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos remain missing, the government said Tuesday.

Marcos distributed his priceless collection of at least 300 artworks to cronies when his regime crumbled in 1986. Only about half have been recovered by Manila, said Andres Bautista, head of the Presidential Commission on Good Government.

Full of flying carpets, genies, love and battle, a Paris show opening Tuesday lifts the curtain on "One Thousand and One Nights", exploring the roots of the folk tales and their powerful influence in the West.

Through some 350 manuscripts, artworks, artifacts and film clips, the show at the Arab World Institute traces the tales' journey from their origin in Indian and Persian folklore, to their translation into Arabic in the eighth century.

Norwegian police on Monday apologized for their role in the arrest and deportation of hundreds of Jews in the Scandinavian country during World War II.

Representatives of the Jewish community welcomed the apology while noting that it was long overdue.

Peru has opened up a tourist attraction in which hikers view a site that held an oracle consulted by Incan leaders pondering big decisions such as whether to go to war.

The sanctuary, known as Pachacamac, features a series of pyramids with ramps to climb up and a palace. It took archeologists more than two years to prepare the so-called Route of the Pilgrims, which rises up 1,250 meters (4,100 feet) and opened Saturday.

El Salvador's Roman Catholic archbishop assassinated in 1980 for speaking out against brutal government repression got a special honor Sunday, with the dedication of a key new avenue in his name.

Monsenor Oscar Arnulfo Romero Street, a new boulevard in the west of the capital, San Salvador, connects the city with neighboring city Santa Tecla.

Shiite Muslims marching during Ashura rituals in the Iraqi shrine city of Karbala on Saturday mixed mourning the death of Imam Hussein over 1,300 years ago with chants condemning modern politicians.

Hundreds of black-clad Shiites walked toward the mausoleum of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed who was killed in 680 AD by the armies of the caliph Yazid, ritually beating their chests as a sign of mourning for the slain imam.

A 16-year-old girl is thought to have become the first person to speak from the House of Commons despatch box in the British parliament while wearing a hijab, The Times newspaper reported Saturday.

Sumaiya Karim a biology, chemistry, history and maths student, was speaking as the Youth Parliament held its annual session in the lower house's chamber, where Britain's MPs gather.