By Aseel Kami

BABYLON, Iraq |
Wed May 23, 2012 12:39pm EDT

BABYLON, Iraq (Reuters) – In the ancient city of Babylon, once home to the fabled Hanging Gardens, an extended oil pipeline has churned through the dirt and dug up a conundrum: which takes precedence, preserving Iraq’s heritage or developing its oil wealth?

The definitive answer will probably be decades coming. But for the moment, oil appears to have the edge.

The site of ancient Mesopotamia, said by some to be the birthplace of writing, agriculture and written law, Iraq holds many keys to the history of civilization. It’s a point of pride for Iraqis, but so are the riches it earns from oil.

Mariam Omran Musa, who manages the Babylon site for the State Board of Heritage and Antiquities, lobbied hard for the Babylon pipeline to be redirected, but failed and is now suing the ministry.

The oil ministry insists it worked at a painstakingly slow pace so as to protect any undiscovered treasures, and kept to the area between the outer and inner fences of the site.

It has since promised to shift the pipeline’s route away from Babylon once it finds a new route, which even oil experts find hard to believe now the pipe has been laid.

“Oil and antiquities are both national wealth, but I have an opinion: when the oil is gone, we will still have antiquities,” Musa told Reuters as she stood near the buried pipeline, the tracks of construction vehicles still visible.

“This is a violation against antiquities because even a heavy vehicle driving here is considered a breach, let alone extending a pipeline.”

Heritage experts are now shifting their attention to other locations, hoping to classify and protect an estimated 20,000 sites before they are damaged by government agencies trying to rebuild an economy ravaged by years of war and sanctions.

So far, about 12,000 archaeological sites have been discovered – some 700 in Baghdad alone – but heritage officials say they are exposed to regular damaging incursions.

Nuri Kadhim, head of the Baghdad Antiquities department, is not optimistic that the government will give the issue the attention it deserves given its other priorities.

“The state’s projects will not stop. On the contrary they are increasing,” he told Reuters. “I expect many violations to take place unless there is an instruction from the government to demand agreements (with the heritage board) before starting these projects.”

NEXT OIL SUPERPOWER

The oil ministry says that the pipeline projects are essential to advance the country’s

Article source: PRNewswire

By Tim Ghianni

NASHVILLE, Tennessee |
Wed May 23, 2012 9:50pm EDT

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) – A Tennessee walking horse Hall of Fame trainer was banned for life from the most important horse show for the breed after ABC News showed a video of him abusing horses and he pleaded guilty in federal court to a charge of cruelty to animals.

Organizers of The Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration, the biggest annual event of the breed, said on Wednesday that trainer Jackie McConnell was barred from the Celebration and would not be allowed to set foot on the event grounds.

The ban stems from a practice called “soring” in which the front legs of a walking horses, known for their high stepping gait, are smeared with chemicals to induce pain and cause the horse to kick high in the show ring.

Last week, ABC news broadcast footage of a Tennessee Walking Horse being tortured by McConnell and employees to “teach” it to perform the award-winning high-stepping gait. The video was filmed by an undercover Humane Society activist.

After the broadcast, soft drink company Pepsi said it withdrew sponsorship of the Celebration, the annual grand championship of the walking horse industry.

McConnell was charged with 52 counts of transporting and showing abused horses but he reached an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to a single count. His plea was entered in court on Tuesday but still must be approved by a judge.

“This whole ban and all those things we did to Mr. McConnell is indicative of our thoughts about soring or any other abuse of horses,” said Doyle Meadows, CEO of the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration.

McConnell will be removed from the Hall of Fame. All written and photo mentions of him will be removed and any horses he has trained will be banned, Meadows said.

The plea agreement calls for him to serve probation for a term to be specified when sentencing is held September 10. Without the plea agreement he could have faced five years in prison.

McConnell’s attorney Tom Greenholtz said on Wednesday that he was hopeful a judge would accept the agreement.

Two other men pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges related to the case Tuesday.

(Editing by Greg McCune and Lisa Shumaker)

Article source: PRNewswire

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LOS ANGELES |
Tue May 22, 2012 6:31pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Marvel comic book crime fighters X-Men have put down their weapons and picked up wedding rings for the first same-sex marriage in the superhero world, set for June.

Marvel on Tuesday said Jean-Paul Beaubier, aka Northstar, a Canadian with piercing blue eyes and silver-streaked black hair who can move and fly at superhuman speeds, will propose to his longtime boyfriend Kyle Jinadu in the issue, “Astonishing X-Men #50,” due on sale May 23.

“The Marvel Universe has always reflected the world outside your window, so we strive to make sure our characters, relationships and stories are grounded in that reality,” Marvel editor-in-chief, Axel Alonso said in a statement. “We’ve been working on this story for over a year to ensure Northstar and Kyle’s wedding reflects Marvel’s ‘world outside your window’ tradition.”

The pair will marry in the next issue of “Astonishing X-Men #51,” on sale June 20, and some comic book retailers will be hosting wedding parties on that day, Marvel said.

Northstar and Kyle have been a couple since 2009, but Marvel is not promising the pair will live happily ever after. In fact, Marvel asks in its wedding announcement: “Will their path to wedded matrimony in New York City be smooth or are there hidden dangers around the corner?”

As if battling evildoers and saving the world weren’t enough.

(Reporting By Bob Tourtellotte)

Article source: PRNewswire

By Mary Slosson

Tue May 22, 2012 9:25pm EDT

(Reuters) – A Saudi prince seeking to build a sprawling mansion in the famous 90210 zip code in the mountains above Beverly Hills, a project that has drawn opposition from neighbors, has sued the city of Los Angeles to hasten its construction.

A land development company belonging to Prince Abdul Aziz, the third son of Saudi King Abdullah and the Gulf Arab kingdom’s deputy foreign minister, said in a lawsuit that California neighbors who oppose the project had pressured the city into requiring an environmental impact study.

In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday, the prince’s company, Tower Lane Properties, said such a review was unnecessary.

“Petitioner carefully designed the project to minimize impacts on the environment and the surrounding area,” it reads, adding that it “requires no discretionary approvals.”

Prince Abdul Aziz purchased the land in 2009 and applied for permits to build three residences on the five-acre property. The city has so far not issued the necessary building permits, leaving the project in limbo.

Neighbors in the posh Benedict Canyon community went into an uproar over the initial proposed 85,000-square-foot compound, with an opposition group called the Save Benedict Canyon Campaign formed to halt the prince’s plans.

In response to the opposition, a scaled-back construction plan totaling roughly 60,000 square feet was presented in 2010, the lawsuit said. Nonetheless, tension between the community and the developers is still intense.

The Save Benedict Canyon campaign says the scale of the construction is “like building a Walmart in our neighborhood,” and that the construction crews needed for the project will overwhelm local streets with dirt, industrial equipment, and noise pollution.

Yet the project’s lawyer, Benjamin Reznik, wrote in November 2011 that similarly sized houses upwards of 52,000 square feet have been built in the neighborhood without any additional review, and the prince’s proposal is not even the largest residential project in the area.

The city’s planning department was inexplicably and erroneously demanding the project undergo “additional, unnecessary and inapplicable steps in the plan check review process, before the project is cleared for construction,” he wrote, calling the treatment of the Saudi prince “unfair.”

Reznik said he expected a hearing on the matter in the coming months but would not comment on the litigation.

Should the luxury property eventually be given the green light, Prince Abdul Aziz could count among his neighbors David and Victoria Beckham and Bruce Springsteen.

Local opponents to the mansion construction have found an ally in Los Angeles Council member Paul Koretz, who represents the

Article source: PRNewswire

By Simon Falush

LONDON |
Tue May 22, 2012 5:27am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) – On the surface the picturesque UNESCO World Heritage site Venice may seem to have little in common with Hackney, a gritty but rapidly regenerating district in east London.

But the similarities appear very clear to Venetian chef Andrea Michelon, who along with compatriot architect Paolo Mozzato and four British and Irish partners, decided to set up their buzzing, bohemian neighborhood restaurant Ombra.

Beyond the tourist sites, Venice like east London is home to close-knit neighborhoods used to welcoming newcomers thanks to a past as a port destinations, Michelon says.

Here are a few other comments he had to make on his restaurant and the cultural connections between neighborhoods and their eateries.

Q: Venice is a cultural destination for tourists from around the world. Would it be fair to say it has almost nothing in common with the East London location that you’ve chosen to call home and set up your restaurant?

A: No, in fact this part of London reminds me of Venice, in particular Castello, which was a working class and sometimes criminal district, though it is disappearing now as there’s a lack of work. It had the feeling of a village, and Hackney has that feel, and we have the canal, so there is the feeling of being on an island, like in Venice. And of course Britain itself is an island!

Q: What were you doing before you set up in London?

A: I was working at a restaurant in Mikenos, Greece for four years. I also worked for years on boats around the Mediterranean serving small groups of people. But I started at Paradiso Perduto in Venice. It was a place which was always lively and had important musicians playing. I wanted to catch the spirit of this place.

Q: What is your sourcing policy?

A: We try to source the best possible ingredients for what we offer. This means that we locate the best Italian produce like mortadella, hams, wine and cheeses from Italy, but we get our bread from the E5 Bakery in Hackney and buy vegetables from the nearby Queen Mary university organic garden and our meat from the Ginger Pig, (a small chain of high-end butchers which also has a store in Hackney).

Q: How do you create the friendly, lively atmosphere?

A: We are trying to educate British people to eat food with their drink. There’s no aggression here, and there’s a different vibe from many places.

Article source: PRNewswire