Issue 13 Volume 109 www.weeklyreader.com 0 1 . 1 f 1 o . k e 1 e w 0 ® Inside: Captain Sully’s Story Search Me? Who Owns The PThe Battle Osvert? Ancient Artifacts WORLD NEWS ROUNDUP 0 1 QUOTE OF THE WEEK . SPACE 1 “I almost drowned laughing 1 . QUEST when I saw this the first time.” 1 1 MOJAVE, Calif.—The —Julian Finn, of the Museum Victoria in Melbourne, 0 Australia, on seeing a small octopus scoop up and carry countdown to commercial a coconut shell for use as a shelter. Researchers believe Images spaceflight recently took this is the first evidence of tool use by an invertebrate. AP a giant leap forward. On December 7, Virgin Galactic unveiled Space- 3 ShipTwo, which is slated to become the first com- mercial passenger space- craft. Constructed in 4 secrecy over the past two years, the 60-foot-long 2 high flier is modeled after 1 SpaceShipOne, the space- craft that completed the om world’s first manned pri- vate spaceflights in 2004. om/Newsc Some 300 wannabe THE HORSE space tourists have put WENN.c down deposits on the GATHERERS $200,000 tickets. The 2 CARSON CITY, Nev.—Wild horses roaming the open hefty space fare will buy a plains are enduring symbols of the American West. 2.5-hour trip that includes However, thousands of mustangs may soon be headed five minutes in the to new homes farther east. On December 14, the U.S. weightlessness of space. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved the “There are enormous removal of 2,500 wild horses from federal ranges near windows, which no space- Reno, Nev. It was the first step in the government’s plan craft has ever had before, to relocate as many as 25,000 wild horses to holding for [passengers] to look corrals in the Midwest and East. The BLM says the back at the Earth,” British roundup is needed to help manage the booming horse billionaire and Virgin population. Opponents say the plan is inhumane and Galactic founder Richard violates a 1971 federal law that protects the horses. Branson told CNN. “They Animal advocates filed a lawsuit to stop the roundup, can float around, and they which was scheduled to start on December 28. can become astronauts.” The first test flights of SpaceShipTwo are Government officials use planned for later this year, a helicopter to round up with the first flights carry- wild mustangs. ing paying customers to follow in 2011 or 2012. Images AP 2 CURRENT EVENTS TALK BACK ! Dear Current Events, Dear CE, I think that people There is nothing wrong should be able to have a with having different license plate that states license plates, including Images their belief [“The Great ones that express beliefs. AP Plate Debate,” issue 11]. The government is not It’s not as if the plate is getting involved with OBAMA telling you that one religious views, but is HONORED person’s religion simply giving the people 3 OSLO, Norway—U.S. President is better than a choice. Barack Obama got an early holiday yours. It just —Mollie H., present on December 10. Obama says that Ariz. became only the third U.S. president to accept the pres- Christianity is tigious Nobel Peace Prize while in office. During his Images their religion Dear CE, acceptance speech, Obama addressed the criticism he and that they I think it’s received for winning the prize so early in his presidency. AFP/Getty want people to great that we He reminded the audience that he is “at the beginning, know that. are finding and not the end, of my labors on the world stage.” —Hannah, different The president also acknowledged the controversy of CE blogger ways to stay being selected for the peace prize at a time when the green [“Cow Power,” U.S. is fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “There will Dear CE, issue 11]. This is just be times when nations … will find the use of force not I think that people who another example of only necessary but morally justified,” he said. are true Christians what happens when Obama said a key to promoting peace is improving should have better ways we focus our minds economic opportunity worldwide. “True peace is not just to express their beliefs on something. freedom from fear,” he said, “but freedom from want.” than on a license plate. —Kelsea F., Ariz. Read the president’s full speech at tinyurl.com/ydo45lu. Your license plate should be used as car We want to hear from identification and not you! E-mail us at for little personal [email protected]. CLIMATE messages like this. Check out the blog too: TALKS —Delia H., Md. www.cenewsblog.com. HEAT CARTOON OF THE WEEK UP om eld/Newsc Nietf Kay 4 COPENHAGEN, Denmark—In mid-December, repre- sentatives from 193 nations met to hammer out a deal s to curb carbon emissions, which most scientists link to eator /Cr climate change. The two-week United Nations confer- ence saw plenty of heated exchanges. Developing Camera nations demanded increased funding from the United Boulder States and the European Union to combat problems associated with climate change, such as rising seas, Sherffius/ floods, and drought. Many nations also pressed the U.S. J. and China, the world’s two biggest polluters, to step up WORK RELATED: Some economists say the their pledges to reduce emissions. U.N. Secretary- slumping U.S. economy is showing signs of General Ban Ki-moon urged countries to “stop pointing recovering. Do you think the cartoonist shares fingers” and create tougher emissions standards. that opinion? Why or why not? www.weeklyreader.com 3 COVERSTORY el/Corbis Who av otr Phot Atlantide es: Owns Marbl Elgin Visitors to the Neues Museum in Images; The Berlin gaze at the AP famed bust of Nefertiti. one: t s Zahi Hawass (below) is a fighting to have the prized Rosett artifact returned to Egypt. Past? Images; Gottschalk/AFP/Getty Michael t: bus ertiti Nef The Battle Over Ancient Artifacts a colored limestone and plaster bust “We have evidence that … Nefertiti (statue from the chest up) of Nefertiti was smuggled out of Egypt, bypass- that took his breath away. Even with ing the law,” he told the German one of its eyes missing, the statue newspaper Der Spiegel. German offi- radiated startling beauty. cials deny the charge. As Current What happened next is still in Events went to press, both sides dispute. According to the Germans, planned to meet in Berlin to present Borchardt was awarded the bust their cases. gypt and Germany are fight- under an agreement with the Images AP ing over a woman. Not an Egyptian government to divide his BRITISH MUSEUM BATTLE Eactual woman, but the finds. But the Egyptians say that the Hawass is also seeking the return of statue of a queen who has been called archaeologist smuggled the statue another prized artifact, the Rosetta the most beautiful woman in the out of the country. stone, from Great Britain. The stone, world. She is Nefertiti, who ruled Today, Nefertiti’s bust sits in a pro- which enabled scholars to decode Egypt with her husband, Pharaoh tective glass case in Berlin’s Neues Egyptian hieroglyphs (see Time Trip), Akhenaton, nearly 3,400 years ago. Museum. Visitors from all over the was dug up by a French soldier in Nefertiti’s captivating beauty was world have gazed at the likeness of 1799 near the Egyptian city of not revealed to the modern world the beautiful queen who once dazzled Rosetta. In 1801, after the British until this past century. In 1912, the ancient land of the Nile. defeated the French army in Egypt, Ludwig Borchardt, a German archae- Zahi Hawass, however, thinks the the stone was shipped to Great ologist, was excavating the buried site bust of Nefertiti should be returned Britain. Today it remains on display of the ancient city of Tel el Amarna. to Egypt. He is secretary-general of at the British Museum in London. In the workshop of Thutmose, an the Egyptian Supreme Council of Hawass, however, told the Al ancient Egyptian sculptor, he made a Antiquities, the modern agency Jazeera news agency, “We [the remarkable discovery. Brushing off responsible for all ancient artifacts Egyptians] own that stone.” The sand and dirt, Borchardt uncovered found in the country. British Museum rejects that claim. 4 CURRENT EVENTS January 11, 2010 TIME TRIP More Than Just a Stone For centuries, scholars were baffled by hieroglyphs, the picture writings that decorated the tombs and monuments of ancient Egypt. Egyptian hieroglyphs had mostly gone out of use in the fourth century A.D., so their meaning A curator at the seemed to be lost forever. That British Museum A British Museum visitor studies examines the some of the disputed Elgin Marbles. all began to change in 1799 when Rosetta stone. a young French officer, Pierre- François Bouchard, uncovered a return hundreds of other artifacts. In block of black basalt stone near 1972, the United Nations passed a the town of Rosetta, Egypt. The The British Museum finds itself in resolution banning the removal of stone, now known as the Rosetta a similar conflict with Greece. In artifacts from the countries where stone, had three inscriptions on 1801, Lord Elgin, the British ambas- they are found. The most famous arti- it: one in ancient Greek, one in sador to the Ottoman Empire, facts in museums, however, were demotic characters (the common ordered his agents to remove marble discovered and removed before 1972. script of Egypt at the time), and sculptures from the Parthenon in James Cuno, the director of the Art one in hieroglyphs.