MONTEVIDEO, March 13 (AFP) - The Admiral Graf Spee, the German "pocket battleship" scuttled here in 1939, is caught in the middle of a struggle between the businessman salvaging it and the German government, which wants to prevent its commercialization.

MAKHARA, March 13 (AFP) - Sabre sheathed at her side, greatcoat over her shoulders, Yulia Tkachenko patrols the forest with 10 of her men, dressed in the red and black uniforms of the Cossack.

TOKYO, March 12 (AFP) - Two weeks' paternity leave may not seem like much, but for Hironobu Narisawa, the 44-year-old mayor of a Tokyo district, it is a leap into the future for Japanese society.

TAIPEI, March 12 (AFP) - With his thick central Chinese accent, Chen Tangsan could easily be mistaken for any other resident of Henan province, but he is in fact a descendant of Taiwanese headhunters -- and proud of it.

SAN IGNACIO, March 12 (AFP) - When the massive, barnacle-spotted head of a Pacific gray whale slid alongside Pachico Mayoral's wooden boat, he nervously reached out to touch it.

MAP TA PHUT, March 12 (AFP) - In Thailand's industrial heartland, the workmen who should be constructing dozens of metal and petrochemical products are nowhere to be seen, their tools lying unused.

WASHINGTON, March 11 (AFP) - They plan to become doctors, researchers and professors, but these students from Liberty University, an evangelical school, also believe God created the Earth in a week, some 6,000 years ago.

KABUL, March 11 (AFP) - It is perhaps the only solution in the search for a better future for Afghanistan that world leaders have not yet considered: gardening.

MUMBAI, March 11 (AFP) - In their plumed helmets, dark blue tunics with shiny brass buttons, trousers and rubber gumboots, Mumbai's firefighters cut a dash as they ride the streets on their ageing red engines.

PATNA, March 11 (AFP) - Seven-year-old Deepak Kumar, born with four legs and four arms in one of the most impoverished states of India, is still too young to understand why pilgrims come to the house to worship him.