The art of portraiture, once reserved for the rich, the royal and the holy, has found a new mass appeal online. Some avid social-network users are commissioning artists to create small digital images to represent themselves in the online world. Other Internet-savvy people use automated computer programs and Web sites to generate posterized likenesses of themselves. Matt Held, a 38-year-old painter in Brooklyn, New York, has gained Internet celebrity for painting peoples' Facebook photos and then giving them to his ...

The release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi from prison in due to terminal illness was greeted with wideapread derision from newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, with few having good words for Scottish authorities behind the decisions. Below are a selection of the opinions that have appeared in newspapers in Britain, which witnessed the 1988 atrocity, and America, where many of the families of victims live. In London, The Times ...

Lloyd Blankfein, the 54-year-old chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, is powerfully perplexed. In the past six months, his investment-banking and securities-trading firm has roared ahead in profitability by taking risks — that other firms would not — for itself and its clients in an edgy market. It has paid back the billions of dollars, and then some, of taxpayer money the government forced it to take last October; raised billions of dollars in capital from private investors, including ...

London police arrested another man in connection with this month's brazen jewelry store robbery of some $65 million worth of gems, Metropolitan Police said. The arrest on Thursday came a day after two men were taken into custody in connection with the crime, police said. Officers continued to appeal for information about the robbery. Last week London police arrested a 50-year-old man in connection with the August 6 daylight robbery, though he was released on bail. It was not clear ...

Two men were arrested Wednesday in connection with this month's brazen London jewelry store robbery of millions of dollars worth of gems, Metropolitan Police said. Officers continued to appeal for information about the robbery. Last week, London police arrested a 50-year-old man in connection with the August 6 daylight robbery, though he was released on bail. It was not clear whether police thought that man was one of the two robbers, whom they had described as appearing to be in ...

Agajan has a message for Afghanistan's incumbent politicians. The turbaned, gap-toothed man may only be a humble shop-keeper, but on election day, Agajan will exercise his right and vote against the president. "I won't vote for Hamid Karzai," says Agajan, who according to local custom uses only one name. "He did not pave the road, he promised to rebuild Bamiyan, but he didn't deliver." Agajan points from his shop -- a low, mud-brick building with hand-carved wooden shutters where he ...

Air China, the country's flag carrier, has agreed to pay HK$6.3bn (US$813m) to increase its stake in Cathay Pacific, only three years after first securing a holding in the Hong Kong airline. Chavez's government is "moving forcefully to silence critics," said the unclassified U.S. analysis prepared by the Open Source Center, a government intelligence center. The relationship between privately owned media in Venezuela and the leftist Chavez have never been rosy. Chavez has accused private television stations of supporting his ...

The recent closure of 32 privately owned radio stations and a proposed law to punish "media crimes" are signs that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is moving to quash criticism of his government, according to a recent U.S. intelligence report. Chavez's government is "moving forcefully to silence critics," said the unclassified U.S. analysis prepared by the Open Source Center, a government intelligence center. The relationship between privately owned media in Venezuela and the leftist Chavez have never been rosy. Chavez has ...

One small slice Monday of Mexican President Felipe Calderon's war on drug cartels: two shootouts on the streets of two cities; a man and a woman ambushed in their car; at least four people dead; three soldiers wounded, one of them gravely. The confrontations between unidentified gunmen and Mexican army and federal police took place in the communities of San Nicolas de los Garza and Escobedo, near the U.S. border in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, the state-run Notimex ...

Kenneth Bacon, a former reporter and Pentagon spokesman who later served as a top advocate of displaced people all over the world, died Saturday, according to Refugees International. He was 64. Bacon had served as the president of Washington-based Refugees International since 2001, the group said in a statement Saturday. The former Wall Street Journal reporter died Saturday morning from an aggressive melanoma that spread to his brain, the statement said. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Bacon, who was ...