TOKYO - Japanese and Mongolian scientists have successfully recovered the complete skeleton of a 70-million-year-old young dinosaur, a nature museum announced Thursday.

The scientists uncovered a Tarbosaurus — related to the giant carnivorous Tyrannosaurus — from a chunk of sandstone they dug up in August, 2006 in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, said Takuji Yokoyama, a spokesman for the Hayashibara Museum of Natural Sciences, a co-organizer of the joint research project.

“We were so lucky to have found remains that turned out to be a complete set of all the important parts,” he said.

After two years of careful preparatory work, scientists found that the fossilized skeleton only lacked neck bones and the tip of the tail.

Young dinosaur skeletons are hard to find in good condition because they often are destroyed by weather decay or because they were torn apart by predators. The latest find would be a major step toward discovering the growth and development of dinosaurs, Yokoyama said.

The fossil, believed to have died at age 5, measured about 6.6 feet long, he said. Adult dinosaurs of the species are believed to have grown up to 40 feet.

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BARCELONA, Spain - Batman star Christian Bale asked for privacy Thursday in his first comments since allegations he assaulted his mother and sister at a London hotel, saying the incident was personal.

The Welsh-born actor brushed off questions about the alleged family dispute, saying he preferred to focus on the blockbuster movie “The Dark Knight,” which had its premiere in Spain on Wednesday.

“It’s a deeply personal matter,” Bale told The Associated Press at a news conference at a luxury hotel in Barcelona. “I would ask you to respect my privacy in the matter.”

The 34-year-old actor spent four hours talking to British police Tuesday following allegations he assaulted his mother and one of his three sisters in his suite at London’s Dorchester Hotel two days earlier. He was released on bail, but not charged.

Bale has said through his lawyers that the assault allegations were false.

British media reported that Bale’s mother and sister told police he assaulted them at the hotel a day before attending the European premiere of “The Dark Knight.” The Sun newspaper said the complaint was filed by sister Sharon Bale and mother Jenny Bale.

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BERLIN - Before the largest crowd of his campaign, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to “defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it” as surely as they conquered communism a generation ago.

“The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand,” Obama said, speaking not far from where the Berlin Wall once divided the city.

“The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christians and Muslims and Jews cannot stand,” he said.

Obama said he was speaking as a citizen, not as a president, but the evening was awash in politics. His remarks inevitably invited comparison to historic speeches in the same city by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, and he borrowed rhetoric from his own appeals to campaign audiences in the likes of Berlin, N.H., when he addressed a crowd in one of the great cities of Europe.

“People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time,” he said.

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