Octopus Overlords

Fitzy wrote:It was about to fall any minute millennium!

Enough wrote:So it turns out the goblin toppling dolt just filed a personal injury lawsuit a month ago claiming debilitating pain. I can't imagine this self-posted video of dude pushing over a boulder the size of a VW helps his cause.

Enough wrote:So it turns out the goblin toppling dolt just filed a personal injury lawsuit a month ago claiming debilitating pain. I can't imagine this self-posted video of dude pushing over a boulder the size of a VW helps his cause.

UN cultural agency Unesco has suspended US voting rights after Washington skipped a deadline for paying its dues.

The US stopped its contributions, which make up about a fifth of the agency's funding, when Unesco gave the Palestinians membership in 2011.

Israel, which halted its dues at the same time, has also had its Unesco voting rights suspended.

The US and Israel said admitting the Palestinians was a misguided attempt to bypass the Middle East peace process.

Unesco's loss of $80m (£50m) a year in US funding has forced it to pare back American-led initiatives, including Holocaust education and a project to restore water facilities in Iraq.
...
The US, however, has said it cannot legally contribute to a UN agency that implies recognition of a Palestinian state.

Israel's ambassador to Unesco, Nimrod Barkan, told the Associated Press news agency that his country supported the US decision, "objecting to the politicisation of Unesco, or any international organisation, with the accession of a non-existing country like Palestine".

Skinypupy wrote:"Goblin Toppler" would be a great band name.

On-topic edit: Looks like they both got the boot from scouting

Prosecutors filed charges Friday against two former Boy Scout leaders accused of toppling one of the ancient rock formations at Utah's Goblin Valley State Park.

Glenn Taylor is charged with criminal mischief and David Hall with aiding criminal mischief, another felony, Utah State Parks and Recreation said.

Emery County Attorney David Blackwell said he filed the charges Friday but is trying to negotiate a plea deal.

Both men, of Highland, Utah, about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City, were ordered to appear in state court March 18.

She described Nimrud as one of four main Assyrian capital cities that practiced medicine, astrology, agriculture, trade and commerce, and had some of the earliest writings.

“It’s really called the cradle of Western civilization, that’s why this particular loss is so devastating,” Bott said. “What was left on site was stunning in the information it was able to convey about ancient life.

“People have compared it to King Tut’s tomb,” she said.

A statement by the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said "the terrorist Daash (IS militant group) has stolen and destroyed the city of Hatra", which dates back to 2,000 years and is located some 110 km southwest of Nineveh's provincial capital city of Mosul.

Hatra is well-known for its high walls full of inscriptions and watchtowers dotted around the fortified city, which includes temples and ruined walls, where Hellenistic and Roman architecture blend, merge with Eastern decorative features.

Islamic State fighters, some using tunnels, had entered the city of Tadmur, which adjoins the ruins, said Dr. Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s general director of antiquities and museums. Syrian army units, he said, were fighting to stop the extremists from entering the sprawling archaeological site, known for its majestic Roman era colonnades, stone roads and an ancient burial site.

“There are solitary elements with light weapons who infiltrated some areas, they are trying to spread into the city,” Abdulkarim said in a telephone interview. “The large numbers have yet to come in, and we are asking for the international community to stop those people.”
...
As rebels advanced on many fronts, Syrian authorities have moved many statues and other priceless objects to safety, including items from Palmyra. But not everything can be transported away.

“We took exceptional measures and moved hundreds of statues, but there are some things that cannot be moved,” said Abdulkarim, who has become a worldwide advocate for saving Syria’s cultural heritage. “The tragedy is how will we move the temples, the graveyards? “

BBC.com wrote:The destruction of beautiful historic buildings in Yemen has provoked an online debate, with people asking if buildings are being valued more than human lives. Yemen's war is entering its third month, and on Friday Yemenis woke up to news that five houses in the old city of Sanaa, a UNESCO world heritage site, were allegedly hit by a Saudi-led coalition airstrike (Saudi Arabia has denied the claims). The houses, as well as being historic, were also inhabited and the incident killed five people and injured several others. Online, there was much mourning for the people - but seemingly just as much for the destroyed buildings. "This heritage bears the soul of the Yemeni people, it is a symbol of a millennial history of knowledge and it belongs to all humankind," UNESCO said in a statement.

An antiquities site that served as an encampment for Jewish leader Shimon Bar Kokhba during his revolt against the Romans from 132 to 136 C.E. has been destroyed by Palestinian vandals.

Discoveries made at the Kiryat Arabia site, located near the village al-Arub in Gush Etzion, have been a vital source of information about the period of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, and its destruction is a blow to research efforts.

Satellite images confirm that the oldest Christian monastery in Iraq has been destroyed by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS). St Elijah's stood on a hill near the northern city of Mosul for 1,400 years. But analysts said the images, obtained by the Associated Press, suggested it had been demolished in late 2014, soon after IS seized the city.

Ahmed al-Faqi al-Mahdi has been sentenced to nine years in prison for his role in the destruction of nine mausoleums and the door of a mosque in the Malian city of Timbuktu in 2012. The sites were destroyed by "individuals, some armed with weapons, with a variety of tools, including pickaxes and iron bars," according to court documents.

The radical Islamist "pleaded guilty and expressed remorse," The Associated Press reports.
...
As the Two-Way reported earlier this year, the ICC normally handles allegations of massacres and other human rights abuses. Mahdi's case instead centered on the intentional destruction of significant buildings in the ancient city of Timbuktu in Mali
...
More than a dozen destroyed mausoleums were later rebuilt by local stonemasons using traditional techniques, with the help of the U.N.'s cultural agency UNESCO, the BBC reports. But not all the destroyed artifacts could be restored; the fundamentalists also burnt tens of thousands of manuscripts.

Three Dutch World War Two ships considered war graves have vanished from the bottom of the Java Sea, the Dutch defence ministry says.

All three were sunk by the Japanese during the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942, and their wrecks were discovered by divers in 2002.

A report in the Guardian says three British ships have disappeared as well.
...
The Guardian says it has seen 3D images, showing large holes in the seabed where HMS Exeter, HMS Encounter, the destroyer HMS Electra, as well as a US submarine, used to be.

Experts say salvaging the wrecks would have been a huge operation.

The Dutch defence ministry is to investigate the mysterious disappearance.

In a statement, it said that two of its ships had completely gone, with sonar images only showing imprints, while large parts of a third ship, a destroyer, were missing.
..
Illegal salvaging of the wrecks for steel, aluminium and brass has become commonplace.

But the three missing wrecks were located 100km (60 miles) off the coast of Indonesia, at a depth of 70m. Salvage operators say it would not be easy to lift them.

"It is almost impossible to salvage this," Paul Koole of the salvage film Mammoet told the Algemeen Dagblad. "It is far too deep."

Experts say the operation would have needed large cranes for long periods of time and would be unlikely to have gone unnoticed.

Isgrimnur wrote:War grave shipwrecks missing:

Three Dutch World War Two ships considered war graves have vanished from the bottom of the Java Sea, the Dutch defence ministry says.

All three were sunk by the Japanese during the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942, and their wrecks were discovered by divers in 2002.

A report in the Guardian says three British ships have disappeared as well.
...
The Guardian says it has seen 3D images, showing large holes in the seabed where HMS Exeter, HMS Encounter, the destroyer HMS Electra, as well as a US submarine, used to be.

Experts say salvaging the wrecks would have been a huge operation.

The Dutch defence ministry is to investigate the mysterious disappearance.

In a statement, it said that two of its ships had completely gone, with sonar images only showing imprints, while large parts of a third ship, a destroyer, were missing.
..
Illegal salvaging of the wrecks for steel, aluminium and brass has become commonplace.

But the three missing wrecks were located 100km (60 miles) off the coast of Indonesia, at a depth of 70m. Salvage operators say it would not be easy to lift them.

"It is almost impossible to salvage this," Paul Koole of the salvage film Mammoet told the Algemeen Dagblad. "It is far too deep."

Experts say the operation would have needed large cranes for long periods of time and would be unlikely to have gone unnoticed.

Rio Tinto CEO resigns after destruction of 46,000-year-old sacred Indigenous site


"What happened at Juukan was wrong," Rio Tinto chairman Simon Thompson said in a statement, referring to the destruction of two rock shelters in Western Australia that contained artifacts indicating tens of thousands of years of continuous human occupation.
...

The destruction of the Juukan Gorge caves went ahead on May 24 despite a seven-year battle by the local custodians of the land, the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people, to protect the site. Rio Tinto apologized in June.

Squatters issue death threats to archaeologist who discovered oldest city in the Americas



"They called the site’s lawyer and said if he continued to protect me they would kill him, along with me, and bury us five metres below the ground,” said Shady, 73.

“Then they killed our dog as a warning. They poisoned her, as if to say, look at what will happen to you,” she said.

It is not the first time Shady has been threatened or attacked. In 2003, she was shot in the chest during an assault on the 626-hectare (1,546-acre) archaeological complex which was declared a Unesco world heritage site in 2009.
...

In July, squatters using a heavy digger knocked down adobe walls and tore up the ground destroying ancient ceramics, tombs containing mummies, textiles and household remains, before police and the site’s staff were able to stop them.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon Jan 04, 2021 9:52 am Out of curiosity, where's the site? The article is paywalled.

/edit - nevermind, the image caption had the clues. Peru.