After weeks of stop-start talks, backroom deals, sleepless nights and hard political bargaining, Iraq’s governing council finally unveiled its interim Constitution on Monday, declaring it to be ”a decisive moment in the history of the new Iraq”.

China, the most populous nation on Earth, could find itself dealing with the combined frustrations of as many as 40-million single men by 2020 because its one-child policy is creating a shortage of female babies. An expert, Li Weixiong, said the dearth of women would lead to a dramatic rise in prostitution and the trafficking of women.

The ousted leader of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, urged his followers on Monday to resist the ”occupation” of their homeland peacefully, and said that he still considered himself president. Aristide denounced the rebels as drug dealers and terrorists and repeated the claim that he had been kidnapped by the Americans.

The body of Spalding Gray, who used his experience of playing a bit role in a Hollywood film to create the memoir Swimming to Cambodia, was recovered from the East River in New York on Monday, two months after his disappearance.

Michelangelo’s statue David may be clean in time for his 500th birthday this year, but experts are concerned that his left ankle may not be strong enough to keep him standing forever. A team of experts at Bologna University has begun analysing tiny cracks in the marble masterpiece’s left ankle since restoration work began on the statue last September.

President Robert Mugabe’s government has terrorised almost every single opposition member of Zimbabwe’s Parliament with violence, intimidation and jail, according to a new report. More than 90% of the MPs have experienced jail, violence or the threat of it.