When Philippine police confiscated 22 bags of broken pottery from antiquity smugglers near an area where Muslim rebels operated, little did they know that they may have uncovered the remnants of a long-lost tribe. Now, experts at the National Museum in the capital Manila are studying the burial urns from a tribe that lived in the Philippines over 2,000 years ago, in what could be a major archaeological discovery.

"The pottery has human faces that show emotions," Eusebio Dizon, head of the archaeological unit at the National Museum, told Reuters.

Dizon said that pictures of people on the shards might mean the tribe that used the vessels had different origins from the known indigenous tribes in the Philippines.

On a chilly October night in 1964, the shipping forecast warned of fog on the Thames. Just after midnight, an East German freighter, the MV Magdeburg, slipped out of her Dagenham dock and headed slowly down river. On deck were 42 Leyland buses bound for Cuba.

Coming the other way was the Yamashiro Maru, a Japanese ship, sailing empty. The ships met at 1:52am. The Magdeburg was making the tight turn around Broadness Point when the Yamashiro Maru ploughed into her starboard side at more than 10 knots, holing her below the waterline and pushing her across the river.

'It was an accident, an act of God,' insisted Keith Toms, a tug crewman on the Thames that night. And that was the conclusion. No one was killed, there was no inquiry, no one was accountable and only Leyland Motors, forced to replace the buses, suffered.

Now a historian has found documents that add weight to the suspicions of academics that the ship was rammed at the behest of the CIA - as part of an effort to sabotage anyone breaking the US embargo on Fidel Castro's Cuba.

With the Americans threatening to blacklist any shipowner breaking the 'transportation blockade', Leyland Motors decided to use an East German ship. It was in the maritime archives of the former German Democratic Republic that John McGarry found evidence given by Gordon Greenfield, the British pilot of the Magdeburg, stating that the Japanese ship broke international law by navigating the wrong way and giving misleading signals. The captain and pilot of the Yamashiro Maru refused to speak.

McGarry believes a crime was committed. 'I felt that the question of CIA involvement might be resolved by an examination of the pilots' logs which were supposed to be stored at Trinity House and in the Port of London Archives. They cannot be found. The East German papers show Greenfield was deceived by someone on the Yamashiro Maru who sounded a single siren blast before the collision, an intention to pass port to port,' he said.

In the rural Teoc community of Carroll County, Miss., where the ancestors of Sen. John McCain owned enslaved Africans on a plantation, black, white and mixed-race family members unite every two years for their Coming Home Reunion, on the land where the plantation operated.

Some of McCain’s black family members say they are not sure exactly where they fall on the family tree, but they do know this: They are either descendants of the McCain family slaves, or of children the McCains fathered with their slaves.

White and black members of the McCain family have met on the plantation several times over the last 15 years, but one invited guest has been conspicuously absent: Sen. John Sidney McCain.

“Why he hasn’t come is anybody’s guess,” said Charles McCain Jr., 60, a distant cousin of John McCain who is black. “I think the best I can come up with, is that he doesn’t have time, or he has just distanced himself, or it doesn’t mean that much to him.”

Other relatives are not as generous.

Lillie McCain, 56, another distant cousin of John McCain who is black, said the Republican presidential nominee is trying to hide his past, and refuses to accept the family’s history.

On one bank of the Truc Bach lake a small electricity sub-station is plastered with flyers touting a local plumber. Along the road is an aerobics studio where youngsters lazily sip coffee and browse the papers. Thirty yards out across the water – rancid and bobbing with dead fish – is moored a handful of pedal boats shaped like swans.

It was within this unlikely triangle of landmarks – exactly 41 years ago this Sunday – that John McCain crash-landed and, say his captors, began his run for the United States presidency.

For even if the cold, barely conscious US Navy officer did not know it at the time, says Le Van Lua and the other Vietnamese whose lives entwined with Mr McCain’s that day, this little spot of Hanoi is undoubtedly where pilot turned politician. If fury had prevailed, it is a transformation that might never have happened, says Mr Lua, 61, a factory worker who was the first on the scene after the crash and swam out to retrieve the battered, politically valuable prize...

Mr Lua’s account of that day – along with Vietnamese accounts of the five and a half years that Mr McCain spent as a prisoner of war – differ significantly from the presidential candidate’s own record...

Where the accounts differ most starkly is in the period of Mr McCain’s long incarceration as a PoW – first at the prison known as the Hanoi Hilton, then at The Plantation.

Tran Trong Duyet, the former prison director who now surrounds himself with caged birds in a house in Hai Phong, first met Mr McCain a year after he had been shot down. He recalls a defiant rule-breaker, the patriotic son of an admiral and a fervent believer in the war. What he does not recall, however, is a victim of torture or violence.

“I never tortured or mistreated the PoWs and nor did my staff,” says Mr Duyet in contradiction of Mr McCain’s account and those of other prisoners. “The Americans were dropping bombs on military and civilian targets – so it’s not as if they had important information we needed to extract.” Mr Duyet says that he sympathises with Mr McCain and other PoWs for claiming that they were tortured. “It’s up to the Americans to decide whether or not he counts as a hero. He was very brave, very manly, he dared to argue with me and he was very intelligent. But all the talk of being tortured is for the sake of votes.”

The McCain campaign refused to comment on the claims yesterday. Mr McCain did eventually sign a confession to his supposed crimes against the Vietnamese people and holds that it was only extracted after weeks of pain inflicted by his tormentors. In a more recent interview Mr McCain explained the signing of the confession as his failure.

Two Egyptian mummies who died more than 3,500 years ago have provided clear evidence for the earliest known cases of malaria, according to a study presented this week in Naples at an international conference on ancient DNA.

Pathologist Andreas Nerlich and colleagues at the Academic Teaching Hospital München-Bogenhausen in Munich, Germany, studied 91 bone tissue samples from ancient Egyptian mummies and skeletons dating from 3500 to 500 B.C.

Using special techniques from molecular biology, such as DNA amplification and gene sequencing, the researchers identified ancient DNA for the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum in tissues from two mummies.

The two teenage history buffs dressed up in military gear like so many times before for the seaside summer festival. One sported the green fatigues of the Red Army. The other donned the grayish uniform of the German Wehrmacht.

Only this time, they ended up in jail, charged with violating a new law banning public displays of communist and Nazi symbols.

Verdicts are expected Friday in a legal test for the disputed legislation pushed through Lithuania's Parliament in June amid growing concern over a resurgent Russia and lingering divisions with Moscow over the Soviet legacy in the Baltics.

John McCain recently accused Barack Obama of advocating socialist policies. It turns out he was channeling one of his illustrious home-state predecessors—Barry Goldwater.

In newly unearthed correspondence, Goldwater, the famed GOP senator from Arizona and a conservative icon, wrote a stinging letter to Lyndon Johnson just after he heard the news that the then Senate majority leader had agreed to be John F. Kennedy's running mate in the 1960 election.

Goldwater's complaint: that Johnson would be running on a "socialist" Democratic Party platform.

"Dear Lyndon," Goldwater wrote to LBJ on July 15, 1960. "It is the morning after, so to speak and as I sit here in my study, I still have a numb feeling of despair over your actions of yesterday in accepting the candidacy for Vice President. It is difficult to imagine a person like you running in a second spot to a weaker man, but it is even more incredible to try to understand how you are going to try to embrace the socialist platform of your party. I think many people, Lyndon, share my feeling of disappointment."

Today is the 25th anniversary of [the Beirut] bombing, which killed 241 Americans who were part of a multinational peacekeeping force (a simultaneous attack on the French base killed 58 paratroopers). The attack was planned over several months at Hezbollah’s training camp in the Bekaa Valley in central Lebanon. Once American intelligence confirmed who was responsible and where the attack had been planned, President Reagan approved a joint French-American air assault on the camp — only to have the mission aborted just before launching by the secretary of defense, Caspar Weinberger. Four months later, all the marines were withdrawn, capping one of the most tragic and costly policy defeats in the brief modern history of American counterterrorism operations.

To me the most telling was the one reached by Middle Eastern terrorists, that the United States had neither the will nor the means to respond effectively to a terrorist attack, a conclusion seemingly borne out by our fecklessness toward terrorist attacks in the 1990s: in 1993 on the World Trade Center; on Air Force troops at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996; on our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998; on the destroyer Cole in 2000.

There was no effective response from the United States to any of these. It was not until the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that our country decided to go to war against radical Islam.

An Israeli cabinet minister stepped into a row with the Vatican today, saying it was "unacceptable" to consider canonising Pius XII, who was pope during the second world war and has been criticised by some for not publicly opposing the Holocaust.

In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Isaac Herzog, Israel's social affairs minister, who is responsible for relations with Christian communities, said efforts to turn Pius into a saint were "an exploitation of forgetfulness and lack of awareness".

He accused Pius of having kept silent during the war. "Throughout the period of the Holocaust, the Vatican knew very well what was happening in Europe," Herzog told the paper. "Yet there is no evidence of any step being taken by the pope, as the stature of the Holy See should have mandated ... Instead of acting according to the biblical verse 'thou shalt not stand against the blood of thy neighbour' the pope kept silent - and perhaps even worse."

His comments come at a time when some in the Vatican have been pressing for the current pope, Benedict XVI, to take the next step towards making Pius a saint by approving a decree recognising his "heroic virtues". Earlier this month the pope paid tribute to his wartime predecessor, but a Vatican spokesman said Benedict was now in a period of reflection about Pius. "It isn't right to submit him to pressures on one side or another," the spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said in Rome.

Benedict has defended Pius, saying he worked "secretly and silently" during the war and saved thousands by ordering churches and convents in Italy to hide Jews and by giving them false passports to escape.

Others have been more critical.

Facing the biggest crisis of his political career in late 1989, John McCain telephoned Jay Smith, an old friend and strategist, and asked him to come to a damage-control session in McCain's Washington office.

McCain was under investigation for his connection to a pushy savings-and-loan operator named Charles H. Keating Jr., and Smith worried that the senator had created an appearance of impropriety because of his uncharacteristically guarded response to the accusations and his stubborn refusal to talk to reporters about them. The solution, he told McCain and his aides, was to hold a news conference. Take every question, Smith said. Say nothing is off limits. Let McCain be McCain.

Others in the room remember press secretary Victoria Clarke arguing against Smith's recommendation. "I don't think he can pull it off," she said of McCain, and then, with the senator just a few feet away, she raised a disastrous possibility: "I think he will lose his temper."

The University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities will help the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation develop interactive digital re-creations of five of the town’s historic sites as they appeared in 1776.

The three-dimensional models, intended for use by researchers as well as the general public, will incorporate “the wealth of historical documentation amassed by Williamsburg scholars,” the foundation said in a news release. The project is being paid for by a $943,000 grant from the federal government’s Institute of Museum and Library Services.

As the nation prepares for the upcoming presidential election, a local historian is investigating political slogans painted on an attic wall some 170 years ago.
Last spring, Mercersburg historian and archeologist Tim Rockwell began researching the writing on the attic stairwell of Flannery's Restaurant, located on the square in Mercersburg.

"I find it fascinating, especially in a presidential election year. A hundred, seventy years ago, they were talking about issues just like today," Rockwell said.

The slogans, which span a decade from 1838 to 1848, are painted in large black script on a plaster wall and include "For President Henry Clay of Kentucky," "President Z. Taylor" and "Taylor Fillmore and the Whig Party." The dates 1838,1840, and 1848 stand out in other areas. On an opposite wall, "Tariff of 1842" is faded, but readable.

Who wrote the slogans and why remains a mystery.

"It's in such an odd place, and it survived 170 years," Rockwell said. "Why was it put in the attic? They must have felt secretive about what their feelings were."

On November 6, 1998, President Clinton signed legislation establishing Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama. This was an honor fairly won and long overdue. During World War II the Tuskegee Airmen, the name given to the patriots participating in the "Tuskegee Experiment," did a truly remarkable thing when they overcame prejudice to not only become America's first all-black American fighter squadron, but also compile an enviable combat record in war torn Europe. In a larger sense, the Tuskegee Airmen's achievements also help pave the way for full integration of the U.S. military.

Institutionalized racial segregation kept black pilots and crewmen out of military aircraft for many decades. In fact, it wasn't until 1941 that African-Americans finally won the right to fly for the U.S. armed forces. When the go-ahead to form a black fighter squadron for the Army Air Corps finally came, it was only logical that the men should be mustered and trained at the Tuskegee Institute's Moton Field in Alabama. The leading black college was well-suited to train military pilots and support personnel because the facilities and instructors were already in place. Tuskegee's Civilian Pilot Training Program had graduated its first pilots in May 1940. An additional consideration was prevailingly warm and sunny weather conducive to year round flying.

Everyone who participated in the so-called "Tuskegee Experiment" – the instructors, staff, pilots, navigators, bombardiers, maintenance workers, and others – came to be known as "the Tuskegee Airmen." Altogether, "the experiment to see if blacks could fly and fight" involved 994 pilots (plus "washouts") and more than 15,000 support personnel.

The Tuskegee Airmen did remarkably well. They not only proved that black pilots, crew members, and support personnel could fly and maintain sophisticated combat aircraft, but also proved themselves in combat. Some 450 of the pilots served overseas.

International excavation project discovers hitherto undisturbed cremation sites Within the scope of an international rescue excavation project, a team of four archaeologists specialized in Middle Eastern affairs headed by Dr. Dirk Wicke (Institute of Egyptology and Ancient Oriental Studies) have unearthed parts of a Neo-Assyrian governor's palace dating back to 900-700 B.C. in a two-month excavation program amongst the ruins on Ziyaret Tepe Hill. The discoveries were extraordinary. The site in the south-east of Turkey (Diyarbakir province) is at risk from the construction of the Ilisu Dam. For several years now it has been investigated by teams from the universities of Akron (Ohio), Cambridge, Munich and Istanbul in a joint excavation project. Sponsorship from the research funds of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in 2007 and 2008 gave its archaeologists the opportunity to become involved in this international and multi-disciplinary project. There are plans to continue the project for another three years.

The year was 1825, and though a 6-year-old girl named Sally couldn't sign her name, she could sign away the next 22 years of her life.

With the mark of an "X," Sally promised to serve Pittsburgh attorney John McKee in exchange for food, clothing and lessons in the "art and mystery of a house Servant and Cook." At age 28, she'd be granted her freedom, as well as "two suits of women's apparel ... one of which shall be new."

Sally's story -- and the stories of dozens of other slaves, indentured servants and free blacks in the earliest days of Western Pennsylvania -- was unknown until last year, when an employee in the Allegheny County Recorder of Deeds office stumbled upon the word "Negro" in an 1816 property record.

Upon further investigation, the office found 56 records involving the status of blacks in Pittsburgh prior to 1865, all detailed in scrolling handwriting along with mundane matters of land ownership and property transfer.

The records -- fleshed out in the context of other newly discovered and little known historical information -- are the focus of an exhibit, "Free At Last? Slavery in Pittsburgh in the 18th and 19th Centuries" that opens Saturday at the Sen. John Heinz History Center. The exhibit, created by the University of Pittsburgh, runs through April 5.

Catholics have been moving south from Western New York for decades. A vacant church on Buffalo’s East Side soon might join them.

A parish in the Archdiocese of Atlanta wants to buy St. Gerard Church at Bailey and East Delavan avenues, dismantle the basilica-style structure and ship it to Norcross, Ga., where it would be reassembled.

Officials of the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo expressed optimism about the unusual plan, which they call “preservation by relocation.” They say moving the grand church, which was built in 1911, will allow it to be used as intended and prevent it from falling into disrepair.

“It’s a building where the prospects of sale are nonexistent, and you have the ability to reuse it as a Catholic church. This is an opportunity,” said Kevin A. Keenan, diocesan spokesman who has been meeting with city officials.

Dismantling and shipping the 2,000-pound Indiana limestone blocks from the exterior, altars, doors, interior columns, pews, windows and steel beams would cost $3 million, estimated the Rev. David M. Dye, administrator of Mary Our Queen parish in Norcross, about 20 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain fixed his sights on Saddam Hussein long before President Bush sent the U.S. military to oust the Iraqi dictator in March 2003.

Four years earlier, the Arizona senator told a Kansas State University audience that Saddam was amassing illicit weapons, and that the U.S. should arm opposition groups to overthrow him, along with North Korea's leaders and other "odious regimes."

Saddam, however, no longer had any chemical, biological or nuclear arms programs. Covert U.S. efforts to oust him had all failed because the Iraqi opposition was riddled with feuds and Iraqi spies, and because the exiles whom McCain favored — led by Ahmad Chalabi, a purveyor of bogus intelligence on Iraq who also had ties to Iran — had virtually no followers in Iraq.

For years, McCain repeated the same assertions about Iraq's weapons programs and ties to terrorism that the Bush administration later used to make its case for invading Iraq. Today, he insists that the war was right and that last year's surge of additional troops to Iraq has put the U.S. "on the road to victory" there.

Although he's cultivated a maverick image, McCain's fixation with Iraq, and with regime change more generally, is squarely in step with his party's neoconservatives, many of whom now work for his campaign.