Unearthed after 65 years

PHOTO: AP

A long-lost WWII fighter plane has resurfaced in Wales - after spending the past 65 years buried under water and sand. The P-38 aircraft, part of the American war contribution, had made an emergency landing on the Welsh coast in 1942 after it ran out of fuel. It remained buried till erosion uncovered it in July. Historic aircraft experts hope to recover it for a military museum in Britain.

SADAT'S LEGACY

Nov 12, 2007

SADAT'S LEGACY
The visionary who dared
By Shlomo Ben-Ami

TOLEDO (SPAIN) - IF 'ONE man of courage makes a majority', as Andrew Jackson said, then 30 years ago, in November 1977, late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was such a man. His peace overture to Israel stunned the Middle East.

He had, as he put it then, gone 'to the end of the earth' (the Knesset in Jerusalem) and, in doing so, transformed the region's politics beyond recognition.

From that moment, the question for the Arabs was no longer how to destroy Israel, but how to reach an accommodation with it. In his dramatic leap into the future, Sadat taught Arab leaders the realities of a changing world.

For Sadat's peace overture was born out of a sober strategic analysis of the regional balance of power. It was clear to him that Israel was a nuclear power that, in October 1973, had once again proven itself to be unbeatable in a conventional war - a war Sadat himself had never expected to win when he launched it.

Understanding Clausewitz's dictum that war is a continuation of politics by other means, Sadat sent the Egyptian army across the Suez Canal in order to unleash a peace process. He was defeated militarily, but his decision to go to Jerusalem meant that he would succeed politically.
During all of their abortive attempts to destroy Israel, the Arabs had relied on the military backing of the Soviet Union. But a strategy of peace with Israel, Sadat knew, required an alliance with the United States. This tie was so vital an objective for Sadat that one may wonder what came first in his strategy.

Perhaps Sadat might have opted to secure the American alliance without making peace with Israel if he had been able to do so. But he could not, and he knew it. Indeed, in 1974, when General Abdul Gamasy, the architect of the 1973 war, questioned Sadat's flexibility in the disengagement talks with Israel, Sadat calmed him down by saying: 'Don't forget, General, we are talking here about peace with the Americans!'

Another shift implicit in Sadat's strategy was to keep Egypt at a distance from pan- Arabism. Weary of inter-Arab politics and tired of the high price Egypt had paid for the Palestinian cause, Sadat wanted to move away from former president Gamal Abdel Nasser's pan-Arab ambitions and an excessive focus on the question of Palestine towards an emphasis on Egypt's role as a power lying at the strategic crossroads between Asia and Africa.

Sadat would continue to champion the Palestinian cause as the heart of an Arab consensus and sometimes as a fig leaf for his own Egyptfocused foreign policy. But for all practical purposes, he had embarked on a path towards a separate peace with Israel.

One lesson of Sadat's initiative is that in protracted conflicts where deep emotions and historical hatreds are involved, when almost every conceivable diplomatic formula has been tried and failed, the shock of a visionary, generous and imaginative step can open new paths. The major problem in the Arab-Israeli conflict, as in many other intricate disputes, has always been the incapacity or unwillingness of leaders to conduct a peace policy that is not supported by their societies' prevailing and frequently paralysing consensus.

Leaders, more often than not, are hostage to the socio- political environment that produces them rather than its shapers. Sadat gained a privileged place in history and achieved immortality the moment he fled from the comfortable prison of inertia and from the pantomime solidarity and hollow rhetorical cohesion of Arab summits.

The test of statesmanship did not end there. Sadat's spectacular leap into the future needed to be met by Israel's prime minister Menachem Begin at almost every juncture down a tortuous road to peace. Arguably, only a political 'hawk' like Begin, a man with a keen sense of the dramatic and a political romantic with a beady eye to the judgment of history, could have responded in such a way to Sadat's initiative.

That Begin was able to rise to the occasion had much to do with the psychological impact of Sadat's astonishing initiative. Through his visit to Jerusalem, Sadat made more ordinary the nature of the Arab- Israeli conflict. His initiative transformed the conflict from a fight about Israel's right to exist into a negotiation of interests between legitimate sovereign states.
Here, indeed, is the central point: the need to move away from mythological, mutually exclusive rights of existence, conflicting historical narratives and religious claims of ownership. Sadly, this is where the Palestinian-Israeli tragedy remains stuck to this day, thus making the conflict practically insoluble.

Through his visit to Jerusalem, Sadat shook away Israel's siege mentality and gave psychological living space to an otherwise claustrophobic nation in the midst of a hostile Arab world.
Peace is never a zero-sum game. In its peace with Israel, Egypt reached its strategic objective of an alliance with the US. But Israel was wrong to believe Egypt could be a gateway into the Arab world. The gate to Israeli-Arab reconciliation remains where it has always been - in the hands of the Palestinians.

The writer, a former Israeli foreign minister who now serves as the vice-president of the Toledo International Centre for Peace, is author of Scars Of War, Wounds Of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.

Copyright: Project Syndicate
HISTORIC MOMENT
Sadat's visit to Jerusalem transformed the Middle East conflict from a fight about Israel's right to exist into a negotiation of interests between legitimate sovereign states.

Peru Temple

Pointing to a mural at a 4,000-year-old clay temple found in the city of Lambayeque in northern Peru, leading archaeologist Walter Alva said on Saturday the discovery was one of the oldest finds in the Americas.

The temple, inside a larger ruin, includes a staircase that leads up to an altar used for fire worship, said Mr Alva, whose team dug up the temple recently.

It sits near the ancient Sipan complex that Mr Alva unearthed in the 1980s.

Champs Elysees - avenue of charm... and crime

PARIS - THE Champs Elysees, held up by France as the most beautiful avenue in the world, has become blighted by prostitution, racketeering and violence, according to a top police officer.
The broad boulevard, which connects Napoleon's grandiose Arc de Triomphe with the regal Tuileries Gardens, was always a byword for elegance and a focal point for national celebrations.
But in recent years, the avenue has increasingly drawn low-life criminals, its famed cinemas giving way to night clubs, and its tourists frightened away by gangs of drunken youths.

'It's no longer the nice child it used to be,' Mr Guy Parent, head of Paris' anti-prostitution unit, told Le Parisien daily on Saturday.

'The Champ Elysees' clientele is often unstable... there are regularly fights between guards and clubbers. The tension is palpable,' he added.

Le Parisien also quoted the mayor in charge of the Champs Elysees district, Mr Francois Lebel, as saying the famous road was becoming 'a meeting place for thugs and suburbdwellers'.
Locals have complained that large groups of youths from poor neighbourhoods bordering Paris descend on the avenue in the evening, drawn to its vibrant nightlife.
They also estimated that an army of 200 to 300 prostitutes pace the pavements seeking wealthy clients.

Mr Parent said he thought that number might be exaggerated, but confirmed the 2km long street attracted many foreign call girls, especially from north Africa.

'They are very chic to seduce very smart clients. They hunt down Saudis and Kuwaitis... (and) offer their favours for perhaps up to 5,000 euros (S$10,600) an evening.'

Created in 1640 by landscape gardener Andre Le Notre, the avenue was widely seen as down-at-heel in the 1980s before former president Jacques Chirac ordered an overhaul when he was mayor of Paris.

Now, it is the third most expensive street in the world for retailers - behind Fifth Avenue in New York, Causeway Bay in Hong Kong and ahead of New Bond Street in London.
Local businesses complain that rents, which reportedly top US$1 million (S$1.44 million) a year for 100sq m, are chasing away long-standing residents and drawing in big chain stores, bars and nightclubs.

Retail chains have swarmed to the sunny, north side of the avenue, which attracts more pedestrians, while luxury goods groups like Louis Vuitton have shifted to the south side.
REUTERS

Pedra Branca trial enters its third day - Nov 16

Pedra Branca trial enters its third day

THE HAGUE (Netherlands) - MALAYSIA on Thursday sought to portray all that Britain and Singapore did on Pedra Branca in the last 150 years as actions of a lighthouse operator, not a state exercising sovereignty over the island.

As for those activities it could not link to Hosburgh lighthouse on the disputed island, Malaysia charged that some of those had been carried out in secret, making it impossible for it to protest against them.

The others were unrelated to sovereignty, it said on the third day of its oral pleadings
That was how two of Malaysia's international counsel, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht and Professor James Crawford, sought to dismiss all the evidence Singapore had brought before the court to show it had exercised sovereignty over the island for more than 150 years.

Singapore and Malaysia are appearing before the International Court of Justice to resolve their dispute over the sovereignty of Pedra Branca, an island 40km east of Singapore and which stands at the eastern entrance of the Singapore Strait.

Malaysia's stand is the the Johor sultanate had a title to Pedra Branca - which they call Pulau Batu Puteh - from time immemorial.

It claims the Johor rulers gave permission to Britian to build and operate a lighthouse there, and that Singapore continued to do so after it gained independence.

Singapore disputes that.

Straits Times Nov 15 - Preserving a nation's history in the digital age

Preserving a nation's history in the digital age
By Chua Mui Hoong

ADVANCES: (From right) National Archives director Pitt Kuan Wah and senior conservation officer Noraini Omar, with a machine modified to make repairing old documents easier and more accurate. -- ST PHOTO:

WHEN Madam Salimah Ismail first joined the National Archives 22 years ago, she repaired fading paper documents by hand.

'We would use fibre to cover and patch up holes in the thin paper. But now it's much easier,' said the conservation assistant, now 51.

The difference: a high-tech machine that makes use of digital imaging.

Think 'archives' and for most people, images of decaying tomes in dusty rooms spring to mind.
But at the National Archives of Singapore, preserving the nation's records has gone high-tech.
Fragile paper documents are prone to deteriorating quickly in Singapore's climate, from insect or fungi infestation.

THE DIGITAL WAY FORWARD
'We would use fibre to cover and patch up holes in the thin paper. But now it's much easier.'MADAM SALIMAH ISMAIL, 51, a conservation assistant with the National Archives for 22 years, who used to repair fading paper documents by hand. Now a high-tech machine that makes use of digital imaging makes the job easier.High acidity of paper and ink, mixed with humidity and high temperatures, also cause chemicals to interact and destroy the paper.

These old records are vital, because they capture a nation's history and preserving them helps future generations of scholars to have a clear idea of the past.

Good records preservation also makes a difference in international disputes, added National Archives director Pitt Kuan Wah, 49, who joined in 1983 as an oral history interviewer.
'Archives are useful not only for domestic history writing. In cases of national negotiations or international disputes, some of the records also come in useful,' he said.

For example, in the dispute between Singapore and Malaysia over Pedra Branca now being heard at the International Court of Justice, documentary evidence from the archives plays a role in Singapore's case.

Though most government records these days are electronic, conserving and repairing old documents remains part of the work done.

The archives' collection of paper records, photographs and illustrations dates back to the early 19th century.

It also has broadcast reels and audio tapes from more recent times, such as the declaration of Singapore's independence.

It helps ministries archive their paper files. Each month, a fresh load of files is sent to the archives.

Most of the new material it helps to manage is electronic, such as e-mail messages on important issues.

Preserving old documents remains an important part of the work done and here, technology has made the process faster and more accurate.

Take the leafcasting machine, which is used to repair old documents. Over the years, several modifications have been made so the work is easier.

One big change took place last year after a team brainstormed ways to use digital imaging to help in its work.

The result is a $10,000 system that links an Olympus digital camera to a computer software system.

The camera snaps a shot of the document to be repaired, holes and all.

The computer software then calculates the amount of paper fibre needed to strengthen the paper and fill up the holes.

'Previously, we had to do manual calculations and it was much slower,' said senior conservation officer Noraini Omar, 38.

The new system means only one person is needed to repair a batch of documents, down from four or five previously.

More importantly, it makes for more accurate repair, since the camera and computer can calculate more precisely the amount of fibre needed to repair the weak parts of the paper.
The machine has caught the attention of archivists in Malaysia and India, and the blueprint has been sent to them.

A number of overseas archives in Asia, including those in Indonesia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Macau, have sent conservation staff here for attachments.
While conserving and repairing old documents is still part of the work done at the archives - much of its work is now digital.

During next week's Asean Summit, for example, the archives will act as a consultant to help manage and conserve electronic records. This means e-records of the summit can be preserved for posterity.

With more records being digital now, archive management has become more about electronic rather than paper records management, said Ms Irene Lim, deputy director in charge of the audio-visual archives.

One challenge: how to 'migrate' content in media which have become obsolete into a format that is more durable and easy to search.

For example, a news broadcast of an important event may have been stored on a video format that is no longer in use. The archives' job is to transfer the content into a format that can be read by today's machines.

But as archives become high-tech, not many visitors need to handle fading paper records any more.

Most head to the search website www.a2o.com.sg (Access to Archives Online), which won an award at the prestigious Stockholm Award in 2004 for e-culture.

This website brings together the archives' various collections of voice recordings, photographs, broadcast reels and paper documents in an easy-to-use online format.

Explaining the archives' focus on technology, Mr Pitt said: 'As a nation's history is created every day, every hour and minute, a national archives must be dynamic and must always be in the frontline of records creation in order to develop cost effective strategies to preserve and share them with future generations.'

Face-to-face with Tutankhamun

Face-to-face with Tutankhamun

The BBC's Ian Pannell was among a small group of guests and journalists invited to watch Egypt's chief archaeologist, Dr Zahi Hawass, reveal King Tutankhamun's face to the public for the first time.

We were taken deep underground into a small chamber with a low roof and hieroglyphics painted onto an ochre-coloured wall on one side.

A group of workmen slowly opened the golden coffin and raised the mummy onto a wooden stretcher.

Until today, only about 50 living people had seen Tutankhamun's body. Suddenly there we were, face-to-face with the blackened, shrivelled body of the boy king.
It was a rare and incredible moment.

Dr Hawass is something of a media performer. He moved the mummy into its new Perspex cabinet and turned to the cameras, saying: "The only good part of the mummy that the public will be able to see is the face and the legs.

"But the most important thing is that from today the mummy will be completely saved from moisture, from humidity, from anything, and we can say that the mummy is going to be safe."
The mummy is in danger of being damaged by the heat and humidity from the thousands of tourists who visit his tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings.

As much as 20g of water collects in the underground chambers every day and when it evaporates, salt crystals are formed that in turn erode the tombs and all that lies within.
Although the treasures of Tutankhamun were moved to the Egyptian museum long ago, the mummy was not.

In the process of removing the jewellery, amulets and death mask, the remains of the boy king were badly damaged. Now the body is also threatened by the impact of the thousands of people who want to come and visit his tomb.

So on Sunday his remains were taken from his golden sarcophagus and put into a specially-designed climate-controlled case.
Iconic symbol

For generations, Tutankhamun has captured the public imagination around the world. Although he was only a minor royal in his day, it was the treasures discovered in his tomb that turned him into one of the iconic symbols of ancient Egypt.

At the turn of the 20th Century a team of US archaeologists rashly declared there were no new discoveries to be made in the Valley of the Kings. But British archaeologist Howard Carter refused to accept this and together with his team spent many years following clues around this crumbling valley.

On 4 November 1922 he discovered the first flight of stairs that would ultimately lead down to the tomb and the treasures of Tutankhamun.

More than 3,000 years after he died and 85 years after his tomb was discovered, King Tutankhamun still has the power to enthral. Now his fans will be able to come face-to-face with him for the first time.