Trump administration officials on Tuesday said the U.S. has pulled out of the United Nations Human Rights Council, saying that the international body is “not worthy of its name.”

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley announced the withdrawal alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, following multiple news reports that the move was imminent.

Haley blasted the council as a “protector of human rights abusers and cesspool of political bias” and accused the body of “politicizing and scapegoating countries with positive human rights records.”

The withdrawal, which comes as the 47-member body begins a three-week session in Geneva, had been expected as a result of the Trump administration’s frequent criticism of the group’s treatment of Israel.

Haley repeatedly voted against U.N. measures that were critical of Israel, and she has rebuked the council for what she called a “chronic anti-Israel bias.”

The U.S., under former President George W. Bush, initially boycotted the council — established in 2006 — but rejoined in 2009 under former President Obama.

Haley has called for other reforms to the U.N. Human Rights Council, saying the group should make it easier to expel states with poor human rights records.

By YUYA TANAKA

YOSHINO, Nara Prefecture–Building a palace near the water’s edge isn’t the safest location, as it could endanger the lives of its residents in the event of flooding and other natural disasters.

However, a mysterious ancient palace was likely situated just beside the beautiful Yoshinogawa river during the Nara Period (710-784), possibly for the waterfront view afforded, according to new findings.

Ruins of a large building dating to the first half of the eighth century have recently been unearthed only 20 meters from the Yoshinogawa, which winds its way between mountains in southern Nara Prefecture.

The structure discovered at the Miyataki archaeological site here boasts special designs unique to emperors’ palaces, increasing the possibility that the find was the main building of the Yoshino no Miya detached palace, which records say Shomu (701-756) and other emperors frequented.

Archaeologists are currently making eager efforts to unlock the mystery of why the detached palace was built so close to the river.

Researchers of ancient history and the “Manyoshu” (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves) poetry anthology have had aggressive discussions to identify the location of Yoshino no Miya since before World War II.

As the ruins of many buildings have been discovered in the Miyataki archaeological site along the Yoshinogawa in recent excavation surveys, Miyataki is deemed as an area where Yoshino no Miya was highly likely located.

But it was unclear where the central part of Yoshino no Miya was. Most experts estimated the “residence where the emperor stayed must be on the safer mountain side, from which magnificent views can be enjoyed.”

However, the ruins of a building whose intercolumniation measures 16.3 meters east to west and 9 meters north to south were unearthed at Miyataki in an excavation that was started in December last year by the Yoshino education board and the Archaeological Institute of Kashihara, Nara Prefecture.

While the huge building is believed to have had eaves on all its four sides, such an architecture was only allowed to be constructed for use as the Daigokuden hall, where the emperor administered political affairs, and the main building of the Dairi private residence of the emperor.

Michio Maezono, an archaeology professor at the Nara College of Arts, explained why the main structure of Yoshino no Miya was set up near Yoshinogawa based on the fact that various religious rites were held there since the Asuka Period (592-710).

“Core buildings were possibly installed near the river as religious services were held to honor the god of Yoshinogawa,” Maezono said.

Makoto Ueno, a professor of Manyoshu studies at Nara University, said Manyoshu poet Yamabe no Akahito, who is said to have lived around the same period as Emperor Shomu, described Yoshino no Miya as “land by a clean river” in his work.

“I previously thought the poem depicts the palace in an exaggerated way, but (the latest discovery of a large building near the river indicates) Yoshino no Miya was likely a detached palace to enjoy the beauty of the Yoshinogawa just as depicted in the poetry,” said Ueno.

According to “Nihon Shoki” (The Chronicles of Japan), Yoshino no Miya was commissioned in 656 during the Asuka Period by Emperor Saimei (594-661). Empress Jito, who reigned between 690 and 697 after succeeding her husband, Emperor Tenmu (unknown- 686), visited there on 31 occasions.

“Shoku Nihongi” (Chronicles of Japan, continued), Japan’s official book of history of the Nara Period, and other sources state the Yoshino no Gen administrative office was introduced to manage Yoshino no Miya during the period and given a special status.

While Shomu visited Yoshino no Miya soon after ascending to the throne in 724, he also went there in 736.

A “mokkan” wooden tablet associated with Shomu’s second visit to Yoshino no Miya has been discovered from a hole near the Heijo Imperial Palace in Nara city. Powerful aristocrat Fujiwara no Maro (695-737) is said to have helped send food and tableware to Yoshino no Miya and arranged personnel to accompany the emperor.

Akihiro Watanabe, deputy director-general of the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, who studies Japan’s ancient history and is familiar with mokkan, said the discovered wooden strip reveals how important the visit to Yoshino no Miya was.

“The mokkan clearly showed thorough preparations were made for the Yoshino trip,” he said. “The recently discovered building is highly likely part of Yoshino no Miya depicted in the mokkan, considering its building period and other characteristics.”

Watanabe also touched on the possible reason why the building was set up there.

“Putting priority on viewing magnificent views up close, it (the palace) was likely constructed by the river,” said Watanabe.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201806160004.html

 NANCHANG, Archaeologists have discovered a city dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1384-1644) in east China’s Jiangxi Province.

The provincial cultural relics and archaeology research institute said after seven months of examination and excavation, archaeologists confirmed a county-level city site in Tianbao Village, Yongfeng County.

Covering an area of around 550,000 square meters, the city is shaped like a gourd.

Archaeologists said that a 3,000-meter-long city wall has been discovered at the site. Inscriptions on several bricks in the wall showed they were produced in 1524. Some other bricks had inscriptions that showed the wall had been maintained between 1736 and 1850, during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Eight gates have also been unearthed during the excavation.

Source: Xinhua

By Mara Vigevani/TPS

An ancient winepress dating back to the Byzantine period was discovered two weeks ago at the Tzippori National Park in the central Galilee region an during archaeological excavations, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority said Sunday.

The excavations, led by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, in cooperation with the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and sponsored by the Israel Antiquities Authority, took place in a 3.5 meter deep ancient water reservoir with a ceiling that rests on five arches from the Roman period.

The archaeologists were very surprised when they found the wine press as they had never previously encountered a winepress installed in secondary use in an ancient water reservoir.

“This is the first time we found a wine press in a place that was previously used as a water reservoir. Probably the owners of the vineyards thought it was a convenient location as it was close to their vines,” Dr. Zvika Zuk, chief archaeologist of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority told Tazpit Press Service.

According to the researchers, the water reservoir was adapted to a winepress in the 4th century C.E.

“The winepress was found in the largest water reservoir in the Tzippori National Park, which is part of the impressive water system at the site that also includes long aqueducts that provided water to the ancient city of Tzippori,” Zuk said.

http://www.jewishpress.com

Volunteers try to extinguish the fire outside a military base at the village of Varnava , north of Athens, on Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. A large wildfire north of Athens is threatening homes as it sweeps through pine forest for a second day, uncontained due to high winds. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

A brush fire in central Greece has helped authorities discover a hoard of illegally excavated antiquities.

The Greek culture ministry said Friday that firefighters trying to extinguish the blaze found about 200 artifacts, some as much as 2,800 years old, in plastic bags hidden under bushes.

The discovery was made Thursday in the countryside between the villages of Livanates and Megaplatanos, some 150 kilometers (93 miles) northwest of Athens. A ministry statement said most of the pottery and metal objects were unharmed by the fire, while some bore traces of smoke.

Authorities are trying to establish who excavated and hid the artifacts, some of which had been cleaned and undergone basic repairs on the spot.

Under Greek law, all ancient artifacts found in the country are state property.

https://apnews.com/99f715070e644e159e5bfa640552e096

New knowledge helps researchers understand how Greenland’s ice sheet responds to warming.

A tiny clue found in ancient sediment has unlocked big secrets about Greenland’s past and future climate.

Just beyond the northwest edge of the vast Greenland Ice Sheet, Northwestern University researchers have discovered lake mud that beat tough odds by surviving the last ice age. The mud, and remains of common flies nestled within it, record two interglacial periods in northwest Greenland. Although researchers have long known these two periods — the early Holocene and Last Interglacial — experienced warming in the Arctic due to changes in Earth’s orbit, the mix of fly species preserved from these times shows that Greenland was even warmer than previously thought.

This information could help researchers better gauge Greenland’s sensitivity to warming, by testing and improving models of climate and ice sheet behavior. Those models could then improve predictions of how Greenland’s ice sheet, which covers 80 percent of the Arctic country and holds enough ice to equal 20 feet of global sea level, might respond to human-made global warming.

“Northwest Greenland might feel really remote, but what happens to that ice sheet is going to matter to everyone in New York City, Miami and every coastal city around the world,” said Yarrow Axford, the study’s senior author and an associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Northwestern. “One of the big uncertainties in climate science remains how fast the Earth changes when it gets warmer. Geology gives us an opportunity to see what happened when the Earth was warmer than today.”

Published June 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study included contributions from collaborators at Dartmouth College.

People might be surprised to see how today’s frigid Greenland looked during the last two interglacial periods. Today, northwest Greenland hovers in the 30s and low 40s Fahrenheit and weathers snowstorms in summer. But average summer temperatures in the

early Holocene (8,000 to 11,000 years ago) and Last Interglacial (116,000 to 130,000 years ago) climbed well into the 50s.

During the Last Interglacial, global sea levels increased by 15 to 30 feet, largely due to thinning of Greenland and Antarctica’s ice sheets. But now Northwestern’s team believes northern Greenland’s ice sheet experienced stronger warming than previously thought, which could mean that Greenland is more responsible for that sea-level rise.

Layers of time

To measure these ancient temperatures, researchers look to ice cores and lake sediment cores. Because ice and lake sediment form by an incremental buildup on annual layers of snow or mud, these cores contain archives of the past. By looking through the layers, researchers can pinpoint climate clues from eons ago. Finding lake sediments older than about 10,000 years, however, has been historically very difficult in Greenland.

“The classic thing that glaciers do is slide,” Axford said. “So when the ice sheet grows larger, all this wonderful geology gets scooped up and spat out into the oceans.”

But Axford’s team found an area where this wasn’t the case.

The climate in northwest Greenland houses the perfect conditions to preserve the sediments within a small lake that Axford’s team affectionately calls “Wax Lips Lake” because of its shape.

“During the last ice age, the ice sheet there was just thin enough, and the atmosphere was just cold enough that the ice sheet froze to the ground instead of melting at its base and sliding,” said Jamie McFarlin, a Ph.D. student in Northwestern’s department of Earth and planetary sciences, who led the study. “It grew on top of itself and preserved most of the geology below.”

“The ice gently tip-toed over this spot instead of plowing over it,” Axford added.

After taking a two-meter-long tube of sediment from Wax Lips Lake’s lakebed, McFarlin combed through the layers to investigate those from the early Holocene and Last Interglacial periods. It was then that she noticed a mix of lake fly species, called chironomids, that suggested a warmer climate during both periods. Especially surprising: The Last Interglacial period swarmed with another type of insect known as the phantom midge. Although phantom midges have been reported in low abundance in northern climates, one would have to travel 1,000 miles south to Canada’s Labrador province to find phantom midges at comparable abundance to the Last Interglacial in northwest Greenland.

“As far as we know, it’s never been found in Greenland. We think this is the first time anyone has reported it in ancient sediments or modern lakes there,” Axford said. “We were really surprised to see how far north it migrated.”

The bigger picture

Discovering this mix of insects means northwest Greenland’s average July during the last two interglacial periods most likely climbed above 50 degrees and possibly into the high 50s during the Last Interglacial. This confirms controversial geological records constructed from ice cores taken nearby, which also indicated significant warming during these time periods.

“Other records have shown that northern Greenland’s climate was much warmer than people expected during those periods, and those results received justified skepticism,” Axford said. “Now we have an independent record that confirms that when the Arctic warmed in the past, there was especially strong warming in northern Greenland.”

This data will help the broader scientific community further hone climate and ice sheet models used to project future changes.

“This is the kind of ground-truthing that we need to get really accurate climate models and projections,” said Magdalena Osburn, an assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Northwestern, who coauthored the study. “We’re finding that, in some cases, models don’t include temperatures that are warm enough for this part of the world.”

There is one caveat. Well-known changes in Earth’s orbit caused warming during the early Holocene and Last Interglacial periods. Today, warming stems from human-made sources and is happening much faster than warming during those interglacial periods. That means there is a chance that Earth might not respond to current-day warming in the same way.

“Past climate is our best analog for future warming, and our results hint that land at these very high latitudes in the Arctic may warm even more than predicted in the coming century,” Axford said. “But nothing in Earth’s past is a perfect analog because what’s happening today is totally unprecedented.”

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs (awards 1108306 and 1107411), an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, the Geological Society of America and the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern.

Source: Northwestern University

Earlier this month, the Egypt’s antiquities ministry announced that new radar scans have provided conclusive evidence that there are no hidden rooms inside King Tutankhamun’s burial chamber, bringing a disappointing end to years of excitement over the prospect having hidden rooms or chambers behind the tomb.

The recent work was performed by an Italian team of experts who conducted extensive studies with ground-penetrating radar that showed the tomb did not contain any hidden, man-made blocking walls as was earlier suspected. Professor Francesco Porcelli of the Polytechnic University of Turin presented the findings at an international conference in Cairo earlier in the month (May 2018).

In 2015, British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves proposed, after analysis of high-definition laser scans, that queen Nefertiti’s tomb could be concealed behind wall paintings in the famed boy king’s burial chamber. At the time, the suggestion created a great deal of interest. In fact, two previous scans by Japanese and American scientists had proved inconclusive, but the latest ground-penetrating radar data is conclusive and allows no doubt on any such hidden chambers.

The Egypt’s ministry of antiquities has been gradually moving King Tut’s belongings to a new museum outside Cairo near the Giza Pyramids to undergo restoration before they are put on display. The transfer of the priceless belongings has become a particularly sensitive issue. It has been reported by some news outlets that in 2014 the beard attached to the ancient Egyptian monarch’s golden mask was accidentally knocked off and then poorly reattached with an epoxy glue compound, sparking uproar among archaeologists. It has been reported that the first phase of the new museum, including King Tut’s halls, will be completed by the end of this year but the date for the museum’s “soft opening” has yet to be decided. The museum currently hosts more than 43,200 artifacts of which over 4,500 belong to King Tut alone, and its grand opening is planned for 2022.

During the fourth International Tutankhamun Conference in Cairo Professor Porcelli presented the findings of his team which includes the most extensive radar survey of the site to date. The meeting was attended by a wide range of Egyptologists and archaeologists from the world over.

http://www.fasticongressuum.com/single-post/2018/01/19/The-4th-International-Tutankhamun-GEM-Conference—05-06-07052018-Cairo-Egypt

The news that park ranger, Rachel Masika Baraka was killed by the kidnappers after an ambush in the Virunga National Park, saddened many environmentalists but was not shocking. The 25-year-old ranger is the eighth to be murdered at the park just this year. The kidnapping happened in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) section of the park when Gorillas also injured a Congolese driver and kidnapped two Britons. All three were released a little later. The three people were held when their vehicle was ambushed in Virunga National Park early this month (May 2018). The Britons who were released later paid tribute to the “excellent support” they had received and said they would not comment any further.

The Park director Emmanuel de Merode stated that Ranger Baraka’s life was tragically cut short in service to Virunga National Park. She was one of the park’s 26 female rangers and was highly committed, showing true bravery in her work.

Virunga National Park covers some 3,000 sq miles (7,800 sq km) that stretches in three countries Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Rwanda. The park, which is a UNESCO world heritage site, is home to critically-endangered mountain gorillas, lions, elephants and hippos.

Every year tourists travel to Rwanda and Uganda as the two most favorite places to hike up through lush hiking trails to see the world famous mountain Gorillas. While these two countries offer daily hiking tours protected by armed park rangers, the tourists in eastern DRC have been warned against traveling to the area (on the DRC side). A number of news outlets have reported that tourists are sometimes left very vulnerable as a result of trying to travel independently without escorted transport, and the risk of kidnap or injury as a result of armed or criminal activity are high.

This incident highlights the dangers and challenges park rangers face every day in order to protect tourists and at the same time create a way for them (tourists) to see these amazing UNESCO national parks and the protected animals in their own habitats.

This undated photo released by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, shows parts of a huge red brick building dating back to the Greco-Roman period, in the San El-Hagar archaeological site in Gharbia province, north of Cairo, Egypt. (Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities via AP)

CAIRO — Egyptian archeologists say they have discovered parts of a huge red brick building dating back to the Greco-Roman period north of Cairo.

The Antiquities Ministry says Wednesday the building was found in the Sa El-Hagar archeological site in Gharbia province.

It says archeologists found a gold coin depicting King Ptolemy III, who ruled Egypt in the 3rd century B.C. and was an ancestor of the famed Cleopatra. It says the coin was made during the reign of King Ptolemy IV in memory of his father.

This undated photo released by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, shows a gold coin, depicting King Ptolemy III, who ruled Egypt in the 3rd century B.C. and was an ancestor of the famed Cleopatra, that was found in the San El-Hagar archaeological site in Gharbia province, north of Cairo, Egypt. (Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities via AP)

The ministry says archeologists have unearthed other artifacts in the area, including pottery vessels, terracotta statues, bronze tools and a small statue of a ram.

Egypt hopes such discoveries will spur tourism, which has suffered from political turmoil following the 2011 uprising.

The Associated Press