Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Monday, August 8, 2016
Burial of Philippine dictator Marcos in heroes' cemetery triggers debate
MANILA, Aug 8 (Reuters) - The Philippines has begun preparations for the burial of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at a cemetery for national heroes, a decision that drew criticism from the vice president and could polarise the country. President Rodrigo Duterte said he was fulfilling a campaign promise to have Marcos, who ruled with an iron fist for two decades, interred at the heroes' cemetery as a former president and soldier. On Sunday, Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana assigned armed forces chief of staff General Ricardo Visaya, to handle arrangements for the burial next month, in line with "the verbal order of the president to implement his campaign promise". "I am just implementing a presidential ...
Abu Sayyaf suspected in kidnapping of three in Philippines
EU migrant deal not possible if Turkey's demands not met: Erdogan
PARIS (Reuters) - Turkey's migration agreement with the European Union may collapse if the EU does not keep its side of the deal on visa waivers, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told France's Le Monde newspaper.
Erdogan's comments reflect a shift in stance at a time when he is rebuking Western leaders for their response to the July 15 coup bid. Erdogan vowed to keep Turkey's promises on the migrant deal as recently as July 26.
"The European Union is not behaving in a sincere manner with Turkey," Erdogan said in comments published by Le Monde on Monday, noting that the visa waiver for Turkish citizens was supposed to kick in on June 1.
"If our demands are not satisfied then the readmissions will no longer be possible," Erdogan said.
Ankara agreed in March to stop migrants from crossing into Greece in exchange for financial aid being revived, the promise of visa-free travel to much of the EU and accelerated membership talks.
However, the reciprocal visa-free access has been delayed due to a dispute over Turkish anti-terrorism legislation and concern in the West about the scale of Ankara's crackdown following a failed coup.
Criticizing the response of Washington and European leaders to the attempted putsch, Erdogan said the Turkish people had been abandoned by the West.
"The whole world reacted to the attack against Charlie Hebdo. Our prime minister joined a rally in the streets of Paris," Erdogan said, referring to the deadly militant attack on the office of the French satirical magazine in January 2015.
"I would have hoped that the leaders of the Western world would have reacted (to the coup attempt) in the same way and not have contented themselves with a few cliches."
In Berlin on Monday, a spokeswoman for the German foreign ministry repeated that reinstatement of the death penalty in Turkey would end its bid to join the EU.
Erdogan, speaking to German television station ARD last month after the coup attempt, said the Turkish people wanted the death penalty bringing back and those governing the country should listen to them.
(Reporting by Richard Lough; Editing by Richard Balmforth)Monday, August 1, 2016
When superpowers court Rodrigo Duterte
Shackled remains at ancient Greek site tell tale of intrigue
By Deborah Kyvrikosaios
ATHENS (Reuters) - At least 80 skeletons lie in a mass grave in an ancient Greek cemetery, their wrists clamped by iron shackles.
They are the victims, say archaeologists, of a mass execution. But who they were, how they got there and why they appear to have been buried with a measure of respect - that all remains a mystery.
They were found earlier this year in part of the Falyron Delta necropolis - a large ancient cemetery unearthed during the construction of a national opera house and library between downtown Athens and the port of Piraeus.
Few people have been able to get in to have a close look.
But on a rare tour of the site, archaeologists carefully showed Reuters the skeletons, some lying in a long neat row in the dug-out sandy ground, others piled on top of each other, arms and legs twisted with their jaws hanging open.
"They have been executed, all in the same manner. But they have been buried with respect," Dr. Stella Chryssoulaki, head of excavations, said.
"They are all tied at the hands with handcuffs and most of them are very very young and in a very good state of health when they were executed."
The experts hope DNA testing and research by anthropologists will uncover exactly how the rows of people died. Whatever happened was violent - most had their arms bound above their heads, the wrists tied together.
But the orderly way they have been buried suggest these were more than slaves or common criminals.
COUP PLOT?
The cemetery dates from between the 8th and 5th century BC.
"It is a period of great unrest for Athenian society, a period where aristocrats, nobles, are battling with each other for power," said Chryssoulaki.
One of the strongest theories is that they were supporters of Cylon, an Athenian noble and Olympic champion who staged an attempted coup in Athens in 632 BC with the help of his father-in–law, the tyrant of Megara.
The coup failed and Cylon hid in a temple of the Acropolis. He managed to escape, but the people who backed him were killed.
"Perhaps with the DNA tests that we will do on these skeletons we may confirm or not this hypothesis that these deceased, these young people could be ... part of a coup ... an attempt by a noble to take power by force," said Chryssoulaki.
More than 1,500 bodies lie in the whole cemetery, some infants laid to rest in ceramic pots, other adults burned on funeral pyres or buried in stone coffins. One casket is made from a wooden boat.
Unlike Athens' renowned ancient Kerameikos cemetery, the last resting place of many prominent ancient Greeks, these appear to be the inhabitants of regular neighborhoods.
The dig is within a 170,000 sq m landscaped park, shadowed by the vast new modern library and opera house buildings being built by the Stavros Niarchos philanthropic foundation.
High-rise apartments dot the skyline to the north while a noisy motorway snakes by the site's east side.
Chryssoulaki wants to see a museum built on the spot, as a monument to the daily lives of Athenians from another era.
"A cemetery is a first and last photograph in antiquity of those people that pass from life to death," she said.
(Editing by Michele Kambas and Andrew Heavens)What Does 5 Years Of Data Tell You About China House Prices?
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