In the World

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Maldives government ministers are taking scuba lessons and learning underwater signs in preparation for an underwater cabinet meeting intended to highlight the threat global warming poses to the low-lying nation.

Since taking office last year, President Mohammed Nasheed has emerged as an important international voice on the impact of climate change amid fears that rising ocean levels could swamp this Indian Ocean archipelago within a century.

He has announced plans for a fund to buy a new homeland for his 350,000 people if the Maldives' 1,192 low-lying coral islands are submerged. He also has promised to make the Maldives the world's first carbon-neutral nation within a decade.

Nasheed will chair a meeting of his 14 cabinet ministers about 20 feet underwater on Oct. 17 "to draw the attention of the world leaders to the issue of global warming," said Aminath Shauna, an official in the president's office.

- AP

CAIRO, Egypt - Egypt's antiquities czar took his campaign to recover the nation's cultural heritage to a new level yesterday by cutting ties with one of the world's premier museums, the Louvre, over disputed artifacts.

The Paris museum's refusal to return painted wall fragments of a 3,200-year-old tomb near the ancient temple city of Luxor could jeopardize its future excavations in Egypt.

It was the most aggressive move yet by Zahi Hawass, Egypt's tough and media-savvy chief archaeologist, in his campaign to reclaim what he says are antiquities stolen from the country and purchased by some of the world's leading museums.

His move appeared to have borne fruit almost immediately. Both the Louvre and France's Culture Ministry said they were ready to return the pieces. - AP

MOSCOW - Hundreds of people called on Russian authorities to find and punish the killers of journalists and human-rights activists in Russia, rallying yesterday to mark the third anniversary of the killing of Anna Politkovskaya.

"Even the most honest investigator cannot solve the crime because the government won't let him," said Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister and now a leader of the opposition.

Politkovskaya, an internationally known journalist, was a harsh critic of the Kremlin and exposed widespread human-rights abuses and corruption in Chechnya.

Prosecutors have said little about who might have ordered the contract-style killing on Oct. 7, 2006. The suspected gunman is believed to be hiding abroad. Three men accused of playing minor roles in the killing are being investigated. Since her death, at least seven journalists and human-rights activists have been killed in Russia. - AP

Paleontologists working in the Jura mountains in eastern France have reported the discovery of some of the largest dinosaur footprints ever documented, measuring 4.6 to 4.9 feet in diameter.