The authorities in Rome have begun dismantling a twenty-metre high monument so that it can be returned to its rightful owners - the people of Ethiopia.

The monument, known as the Axum obelisk, is fourteen-hundred years old.

It was carried off as war booty when the Italian fascist government invaded Ethiopia in 1935.

Last year the Italian president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro promised to return it, saying that his country knew what it was like to have an occupying army carry off works of art and not give them back.

It will take two months to dismantle the obelisk, which will then be shipped back to Addis Ababa in several pieces.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service