From shackles that bound African slaves when they arrived in America to a smiling image of President Barack Obama, the American I AM exhibit, currently in Washington, is a moving chronicle of African Americans' struggle and triumphs.

The exhibit has gathered more than 200 artifacts from personal or museum collections, along with photos and film clips, to chart how 500 years of hardship, faith and creativity have forged African American history and how black Americans have left a deep imprint on U.S. life.

The world's richest man, telecom tycoon Carlos Slim, gave a sneak peak Tuesday at the new museum where he plans to show his vast collection of art and collectibles, including priceless pieces by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, French sculptor Auguste Rodin and Italian master Leonardo da Vinci.

The Soumaya museum — named after the tycoon's late wife — opens to the public on March 29 and admission will be free.

Surrogacy is forbidden under Islam, a religious authority in Malaysia said Tuesday after reports that the practice is becoming more popular in the Muslim-majority nation.

"If another woman is introduced into the situation, then it means the real mother of the child can be questioned," said Mat Jais Kamos from the Islamic affairs department in Malaysia's biggest state, Selangor.

Early French Renaissance art receives the royal treatment in the first major U.S. exhibit devoted to the period which opened this week at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Frst shown in Paris, the exhibit provides a rare glimpse of the period in which late Gothic exuberance was influenced by the energy and harmony of the Renaissance.

Purushottan H. Sakhare perches on a wall by a Mumbai pavement, slips a sheet of green paper behind the roller of his battered typewriter and winds it into position with two deft flicks of the wrist.

After pulling the carriage release lever towards himself, he punches the worn, black keys, the swift and precise movements of his fingers sending the slender metal type bars slamming into the black ink ribbon.

Papers relating to codebreaker and computer pioneer Alan Turing will go to a British museum after the National Heritage Memorial Fund stepped in to help buy them for the nation.

The government-backed fund said Friday it had donated more than 200,000 pounds ($320,000) to a campaign to stop the notes and scientific papers from going to a private buyer.

Scientists on Thursday announced they have discovered the oldest human remains ever found in sub-Arctic North America, offering a new window into the lives of the continent's earliest inhabitants.

The discovery of the partially-cremated skeletal remains was made at an fire pit within an ancient dwelling at Alaska's Upward Sun River site, according to an article appearing in the February 25 edition of the journal Science.

The Indian government is considering proposals to limit the number of guests allowed at weddings to reduce food wastage, an official told Agence France Presse on Tuesday.

Indian weddings are famous for their extravagance and a wave of new money in the country has led to ever more lavish marriage celebrations, often involving multi-cuisine buffets and hundreds, or even thousands, of guests.

Bant Singh, a scarred survivor of class violence in rural India, has an indisputable claim to be a voice for India's impoverished and muted millions.

The folk singer lost both arms and a leg in an attack five years ago after he dared to challenge high-caste landlords in his area of the northwestern state of Punjab who had raped his 17-year-old daughter.

A unique 19th-century building in Switzerland's La Chaux-de-Fonds watchmaking town, a U.N. world heritage site, has burned to the ground, officials said Sunday.

It was not known what caused the fire, which destroyed seven apartments, a daycare and two businesses in the four-storey building, the town said in a statement.