News & views from our members around the world

In an article entitled "Return of antiquities hitting grave robbers in bankbook" The Los Angeles Times reports the return by NY Met Museum of Art to the Italian authorities, of a greek 2,500 year old wine mixing bowl and 20 other items stolen by tomb raiders 40 years ago from an Etruscan tomb near Rome. In March 2005, Italy and Ethiopia, an Italian colony under Mussolini, agreed on the return of the Aksum obelisk to Ethiopia.It is a long established fact that stolen artifacts make up the vast majority of exhibits in the worlds top museums. Thus in 1970 a UNESCO Convention called for the return of antiquities to their countries of origin. Greece has been officially requesting for the last 25 years the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum, but the Athens Olympics passed without any positive development, and despite an semi-humorous on-camera request from the then Greek PM to Tony Blair ("please hand back the Elgin Marbles - as you know I have elections soon"). China joined in in 2003, to request the return of over 1 m artefacts kept in 47 countries, while Nigeria has repeatedly called for the return of the Benin bronzes from Berlin and London...

War on Terrorism Cost: USD 2,000,000,000,000Iraq war could cost US up to 2 trillion, according to Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, Forbes reports. War on Want Cost: USD 45,700,000,000 (20 times less)War on Want estimates that US$45.7 billion would be required for 62 countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals>>> http://www.waronwant.org/For a running total of the cost of war to the US taxpayer, see:>>> http://nationalpriorities.org/

On New Years' Eve, verse 1 and 3 from John Lennon's Imagine:Imagine there's no heaven,It's easy if you try,No hell below us,Above us only sky,Imagine all the peopleliving for today...Imagine no possesions,I wonder if you can,No need for greed or hunger,A brotherhood of man,Imagine all the peopleSharing all the world...---Imagine John Lennonstill aliveat least he did nothave to seewhat happened inthe last 5 years

The Kronia (or Cronia) was a very ancient greek festival in honor of Kronos (Cronus) and Rhea, adopted by the Romans in the 5th century BCE as Saturnalia (Saturn = Kronos) and much later by the Christians as Christmas. (Early Christians established holidays for each 'pagan' feast - exactly as christian missionaries and conquistadores did much later in Latin America). The Kronia survived until the 12th century in some parts of Greece including the mountainous south of the Peloponese . Kronos and Rhea were the parents of Dias (Zeus - cf. "dio"). During Kronia (and Saturnalia) masters and slaves would exchange roles so this 'revolutionary' character was what probably attracted early Christians to set Saturnalia as their main festivity. Later, in the 4th c. CE the Byzantine/Roman Emperor Theodosius banned any festivity that had not yet been converted to a Christian one, including the Olympics, while the christian mobs destroyed or "recycled" old religion temples including the Artemis temple in Ephesus one of the 7 wonders. To put Taliban barbarism into perspective.Related sources:http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/winterh...ys/g/Cronia.htm(in Greek) http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/greek/cons...tiries_ch3.html

While the North was watching the East, the South, and Bolivia in particular acquired today its first indigenous president, and thus one more unpredictable president pops up in Latin America to the dismay of some in the north. For the first time in recent history, South America is not ruled by predictable military dictatorships but by elected, progressive governments. Will they be successful in healing, rather than adding salt to, wounds and decreasing poverty? Will they be allowed to by the long-vested interests?

Yesterday BBC World Service Radio reported on how second-hand clothes donated in the west to charities, end up being resold in a special second-hand market in Kampala, Uganda and how Kampalans prefer these cheap second-hand designer clothes, to the ones produced locally...Of course some are making a profit out of this, and I wonder, is anyone researching this process for possible charity corruption and tax evasion? Does anyone really want an Africa hooked on charity? Think of this before donating your next set of used clothes.

When one reads Wikipedia's list of ethnic slurs, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slursor the various ways people refer to foreigners around the world, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words...ot_one_of_us' one wonders if the current phase of globalisation will make things better or worse. Do we need to be totally amalgamated for bigotry to disappear?Recent troubles in France and Australia (and who knows where next) reveal that amalgamation is not an easy process. Looks and skin colour, unfortunately still separate people even in the most open societies. And all this has been made worse by the recent wars and continuing unrest.Racism creeps where you would least expect it to. Consider an interesting international tourism website such as bugbog.com for example, in the entry for Greece, it says: "people mostly agreeable", while Greece has been rated with a 3/5 for its local people...?! Excuse me, HOW do you rate local people? What ignorant nonsense.

Well, someone always has to go first It seems our Members are shy, so I will be the guinea pig (which was neither a pig nor from Guinea - but a rodent from the Andes, domesticated by the Incas)And talking of 'Experiment', have you seen "Das Experiment" the movie? Based on the real Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, funded by the US Navy, it shows that both individuals and systems matter, and that ordinary people can very easily turn into monsters, if basic elements of what goes by the name of humanity are removed (or are lacking), and vice versa.Related:http://www.prisonexp.org/http://www.dasexperiment.de/intro/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Experimenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment