It was last seen 42 years ago and was believed to be extinct. But the Bavarian short-eared mouse — a unique species of rodent that lives in a remote part of the Alps – has made a surprise comeback. A German zoologist last spotted the extremely rare mouse in 1962, after discovering the species in Bavaria.

Hamid Karzai was sworn in on Tuesday as Afghanistan’s first popularly elected president, promising to help the impoverished country leave behind its brutal past, shore up its young democracy and confront the challenges of terrorism and the drugs trade.

The Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, said on Monday night that the United States ”war on terror” had failed to address core problems, and that the world was in consequence a far less safe place. General Musharraf, who took power in a coup in 1999, sees himself as close to the centre of the ”war on terror” because he has Afghanistan on his border.

Visitors to a French museum will on Monday be confronted with an unusually arresting image not witnessed for more than 120 years: that of the most iconic of American monuments towering over the central Paris skyline. A new exhibition at the the Musée des Arts et Métiers in central Paris retells the story of Liberty Enlightening the World, better known as the Statue of Liberty.

A South African accused of being part of a plot to overthrow the Equatorial Guinea government earlier this year said on Tuesday he was relieved to be back home. ”South Africa is a fantastic country which you don’t realise how good it is till you leave it,” Mark Schmidt told the National Press Club in Pretoria. He was found not guilty and released on November 27 ”after months of hell” in detention in the West African country.