The king is thought to have been 19 years old when he died


The face of Egypt's most famous ancient ruler, King Tutankhamun, has been put on public display for the first time.

Archaeologists took the mummy from its stone sarcophagus and placed it in a climate-controlled case inside his tomb in Luxor's Valley of the Kings.

The event comes 85 years to the day after the pharaoh's tomb was discovered by British explorer Howard Carter.

Until now, only about 50 living people have seen the face of the boy king, who died more than 3,000 years ago.

As experts lifted Tutankhamun from his coffin they briefly set aside the white linen covering his remains, revealing a shrivelled black face and body.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he will have surgery for prostate cancer, but he added it had been caught early and he would remain in office.

Mr Olmert, 62, has led Israel since 2006 when Ariel Sharon had a massive stroke that has left him in a coma.

That sparked calls for more openness about the PM's health, as Mr Sharon's fall came at critical time for Israel.

Mr Olmert is preparing for a regional conference which the US hopes to host to promote Middle East peace.

His government's popularity has suffered in opinion polls after several high-profile corruption scandals and the inconclusive outcome of the 2006 war in Lebanon.

The world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, has landed in Sydney on its first commercial flight, after a seven-hour journey from Singapore.

Singapore Airlines took delivery of the huge plane, dubbed the Superjumbo, just over a week ago. Passengers bought seats in a charity online auction.

It can carry some 850 passengers, but took about 450 to Sydney.

The superjumbo's advent ends a reign of nearly four decades by the Boeing 747 as the world's biggest airliner.

Italy's top court upheld a verdict on Friday acquitting former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in a corruption case, a lawyer for Berlusconi said.

"It was high time. Twelve years have gone by since the start of this trial, in which Silvio Berlusconi was crucified, has been slandered around the world and now his innocence has finally emerged crystal clear," lawyer Niccolo Ghedini told Reuters.

Italy's richest man, owner of broadcaster Mediaset (MS.MI: Quote, Profile, Research), was first acquitted in the case in 2004. An appeals court upheld that verdict in April this year, and it was again upheld on Friday by Italy's Cassation Court, meaning the verdict is now definitive.

Berlusconi, head of the centre-right opposition, was accused of bribing judges to stop the sale of food group SME to a rival businessman in the 1980s.

Turkish helicopters and fighter jets pounded Kurdish rebel positions on Friday as diplomatic efforts began in Ankara to avert a major offensive against the guerrillas based in northern Iraq.

Turkey described as unsatisfactory a series of proposals offered by a high-level Iraqi delegation to Ankara to prevent a major military operation against Kurdish rebels in Iraq, a senior Turkish diplomat said, and demanded that Baghdad hand over all separatist rebels in the country.

"Everyone (PKK members in northern Iraq) there is guilty. They are criminals at least for being a member of a terrorist organization," Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said. "We want all of them to be handed over," he said, adding that Ankara had given Iraq a list of PKK militants.

Cicek was speaking in a televised interview as Iraqi and U.S. officials met Turkish officials in Ankara in a bid to stop Turkey launching an incursion into northern Iraq.

Firefighters gained the upper hand on nearly all of the California wildfires on Thursday as winds died down after five days battling 20 fires from the mountains north of Los Angeles down to the Mexican border.

Most of the 500,000 people in the largest evacuation in California's modern history were on their way home, officials said. Some 1,600 homes have been destroyed since Sunday.

Two burned bodies were found in a house in hard-hit San Diego County, bringing the death toll to at least eight. Most were elderly who died while being evacuated.

"This is a better day than any we've had since this thing started," San Diego County Sheriff Bill Kolender said.

Turkey said on Monday it would exhaust diplomatic channels before launching any military strike into northern Iraq to root out Kurdish rebels, who killed at least a dozen Turkish soldiers in fighting over the weekend.

Turkey has built up its forces along the border with Iraq in preparation for an incursion against rebel bases, although Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has pressed Iraq to curb the Kurdish separatists first.

"If expected developments do not take place in the next few days, we will have to take care of our own situation," Erdogan said on Monday.

President George W. Bush expressed his "deep concern" about Kurdish rebel attacks and told Turkish President Abdullah Gul the U.S. would continue to urge Iraq's government to act against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels, the White House said.

Oil prices receded on Friday as dealers took profits from a record rally over $90 a barrel that was spurred on by winter supply worries and the weakening U.S. dollar.

U.S. crude settled down 87 cents at $88.60 a barrel, down from the all-time high of $90.07 hit earlier in the day. London Brent crude lost 81 cents $83.79.

U.S. oil has rallied more than 15 percent since October 8 as the dollar slipped to record lows against other currencies, fueling concerns about their effects on the economy of top consumer the United States.

Pakistani police released a photograph on Saturday of a suicide bomber who killed at least 139 people, as opposition leader Benazir Bhutto worked out her next step after the bloody start to her comeback campaign.

The militant threat demonstrated to such devastating effect in Karachi on Friday raised fears over the prospects for a national election due in early January that is supposed to mark a transition from military-led to civilian-led democracy.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the general election would not be affected but government officials had indicated that campaigning could be restricted because of security worries.

Newspapers carried photographs of the head of the suicide bomber propped on a white sheet. The dead eyes stared blankly out of a chubby, unshaven face.

Iran's chief negotiator with the West over Tehran's nuclear programme, Ali Larijani, has resigned.

A government spokesman said Mr Larijani had repeatedly offered his resignation and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had finally accepted it.

Mr Larijani had differences with the president over how to proceed with the negotiations, correspondents say.

Western countries suspect Iran of trying to build nuclear weapons but Tehran says its programme is peaceful.

The spokesman, Gholam Hossein Elham, said a deputy foreign minister, Saeed Jalili, would replace Mr Larijani in time for a meeting on Tuesday with the European Union's foreign policy head Javier Solana.