It seems Americans like nothing more than seeing the Queen on the throne, but when it comes to George Bush sitting on his, they are altogether more squeamish. Whether it’s the political climate within which they live — just under two weeks before election day — or whether Alison Jackson’s art is just a little too close to the truth, one thing is clear; they might get the joke, but not all of them like it.

Almost two decades of detective work, triggered by a Latin poem found in the Vatican archives, has led experts to conclude that a statue that had stood unnoticed for five centuries in a small southern Italian town is the work of a Renaissance master.

With her emerald green kimono, ghostly white face and bright red lipstick, Kosen stands out in the sparsely decorated tatami-mat room. And when she begins to dance, she has the group of men seated at her feet utterly transfixed. Behind her, Yachiho plucks the strings of a shamisen as her melancholy ballad fills the room before escaping through the paper window shutters into the night.

Margaret Hassan, the aid worker being held hostage in Iraq, on Friday made an emotional appeal for British forces to withdraw from Iraq to save her from the same fate as murdered contractor Ken Bigley. ”Please help me, please help me,” said Hassan in a video shown on the Arabic television station al-Jazeera. ”This might be my last hours.”