AP

Iran said it will cut ties with the British Museum on Monday because of the museum’s failure to lend Tehran an ancient Babylonian artifact described as the world’s earliest bill of rights.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Iran said it will cut ties with the British Museum on Monday because of the museum’s failure to lend Tehran an ancient Babylonian artifact described as the world’s earliest bill of rights.

The spat over the loan has long festered between London and Tehran, and comes against the backdrop of increasingly tense Iranian-British relations.

Tehran is under heavy pressure from the West over its nuclear program, and has accused Britain and other foreign governments of interference in domestic policies and of stoking the country’s postelection street protests.

The artifact is a 6th century B.C. clay tablet with an account in cuneiform of the conquest of Babylon by Persian King Cyrus the Great. It describes how Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. and restored many of the people held captive by the Babylonians to their homelands.

Called the Cyrus Cylinder, it has been described by the U.N. Web site and elsewhere as the world’s oldest human rights document.

According to officials in Iran, the piece was to have been lent to Tehran by Sunday for an exhibition agreed on by the museum and the Iranian government.

Vice President Hamid Baqaei, who is also the head of Iran’s cultural heritage and tourism organization, was quoted by state Press TV as saying that the ties would be cut on Monday. It wasn’t immediately clear if this has happened.

Baqaei said the British Museum’s failure to keep its promise is “not acceptable.”

He said the British Museum initially was to lend Tehran the Cyrus Cylinder last September but postponed the deal, citing technical reasons and the postelection unrest following Iran’s disputed June presidential election.

“The Cyrus Cylinder has been turned from a cultural issue into a political one by the British,” Baqaei said, adding that Iran “will sever all its ties with the British Museum, which has become a political institution.”

Baqaei said Iran would send a protest letter the U.N. education agency, UNESCO, over the matter.

The British Museum expressed “great surprise” at the Iranian announcement, saying it had informed Tehran and Baqaei himself earlier this month that the loan would go ahead in the second half of July.

Two additional pieces belonging to the tablet that were only recently discovered in the museum’s possession were also to be lent to Tehran, the museum said in a statement, in line with its policy of cultural exchanges with other nations “independently of political considerations.”

“The British Museum has acted throughout in good faith, and values highly its hitherto good relations with Iran,” it said. “It is to be hoped that this matter can be resolved as soon as possible.”

KANDHAMAL, INDIA (Worthy News)– Survivors of India’s worst anti-Christian violence in recent memory have met European Union delegates over the weekend, urging them to help them in their fight for justice. EU diplomats appeared visibly moved when visiting displaced refugees in the troubled Indian state of Orissa when viewing old and sick man and infants born in refugees camps that were set up after violence killed over 100 people since Christmas 2007.

Most bloodshed occurred in August, 2008, when Hindu mobs in Orissa’s Kandhamal District attacked churches and Christian homes. The violence broke out after the killing of a Hindu leader. Although Maoist fighters reportedly claimed responsibility, Hindus blamed Christians.

The Survivors Association of Kandhamal Communal violence handed over a memorandum to the EU delegation saying “Homeless and in agony, we still welcome you to our beautiful Kandhamal, where we have lived generations upon generations since history began for us.” “We hope,” the memorandum said, that “your short visit to Kandhamal will help you see for yourself not just the condition in which many of our brothers and sisters live [but also] our sorrow and our pain invisible and unfelt to the outside world.”

HOUSE DESTROYED

Some 5347 houses were looted and destroyed by fire, many women and girls were raped, and more than 75 people were murdered” in the August-related clashes alone, the added. Many were killed, it said, in “the name of religion and ethnicity. Large-scale displacement and migrations followed with over 50,000 people becoming refugees in their own motherland.”

However relative few arrests have been made. “The culprits of this inhuman activity are roaming freely, neither arrested nor punished,” the group said. We are deeply concerned the high rate of acquittals in the fast track courts,” added Archbishop Raphael Cheenath. He said Christian leaders are “demanding a Special Investigation team to investigate every case of murder and arson. Similarly, there is also need for transferring the cases against politically powerful persons.”

1825 - The U.S. House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president. No candidate had received a majority of electoral votes.

1861 - The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America elected Jefferson Davis as its president.

1870 - The United States Weather Bureau was authorized by Congress. The bureau is officially known as the National Weather Service (NWS).

1884 - Thomas Edison and Patrick Kenny executed a patent application for a chemical recording stock quotation telegraph (U.S. Pat. 314,115).

1885 - The first Japanese arrived in Hawaii.

1895 - Volley Ball was invented by W.G. Morgan.

1895 - The first college basketball game was played as Minnesota State School of Agriculture defeated the Porkers of Hamline College, 9-3.

1900 - Dwight F. Davis put up a new tennis trophy to go to the winner in matches against England. The trophy was a silver cup that weighed 36 pounds.

1909 - The first forestry school was incorporated in Kent, Ohio.

1932 - America entered the 2-man bobsled competition for the first time at the Olympic Winter Games held at Lake Placid, NY.

1942 - The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff held its first formal meeting to coordinate military strategy during World War II.

1942 - Daylight-saving “War Time” went into effect in the U.S.

1943 - During World War II, the battle of Guadalcanal ended with an American victory over Japanese forces.

1950 - U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy? charged that the State Department was riddled with Communists. This was the beginning of “McCarthyism.”

1953 - The movie “Superman” premiered.

1958 - CBS radio debuted “Frontier Gentleman".

1960 - A verbal agreement was reached between representatives of the American and National Football Leagues. Both agreed not to tamper with player contracts.

1960 - The first star was placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The star was for Joanne Woodward.

1969 - The Boeing 747 flew its inaugural flight.

1971 - The San Fernando Valley experienced the Sylmar earthquake that registered 6.4 on the Richter Scale.

1971 - The Apollo 14 spacecraft returned to Earth after mankind’s third landing on the moon.

1975 - The Russian Soyuz 17 returned to Earth.

1984 - NBC Entertainment president, Brandon Tartikoff, gave an interviewer the “10 Commandments for TV Programmers.”

1989 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co. completed the $25 billion purchase of RJR Nabisco, Inc.

1997 - “The Simpsons” became the longest-running prime-time animated series. “The Flintstones” held the record previously.

2001 - “Hannibal,” the sequel to “Silence of the Lambs", opened in theaters.

Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house.  For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.  And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, Today if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.  Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.  So I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.  But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.  For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end; While it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness?And to whom swore he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?  So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

Associated Press

 

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. —  Two men ministering on the streets of Boynton Beach were allegedly gunned down by an 18-year-old man.

Police say 24-year-old Tite Sufra and 23-year-old Stephen Ocean were preaching to Jeriah Woody for about 15 minutes, until he got a phone call.

Woody left, but then allegedly started walking toward the two. When Sufra approached, Woody allegedly shot him in the head. Ocean ran, and police say Woody shot him in the back, then walked up and shot him again — this time in the head at point-blank range.

Police said a witness identified Woody, who is known by the street name “Plug.” He surrendered Wednesday on two counts of first-degree murder charges.

It could not be determined if Woody had an attorney.

1587 - Mary, the Queen of Scots, was executed.

1693 - A charter was granted for the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA.

1802 - Simon Willard patented the banjo clock.

1861 - The Confederate States of America was formed.

1861 - A Cheyenne delegation and some Arapaho leaders accepted a new settlement (Treaty of Fort Wise) with the U.S. Federal government. The deal ceded most of their land but secured a 600-square mile reservation and annuity payments.

1896 - The Western Conference was formed by representatives of Midwestern universities. The group changed its name to the Big 10 Conference.

1900 - In South Africa, British troops under Gen. Buller were beaten at Ladysmith. The British fled over the Tugela River.

1904 - The Russo-Japanese War began with Japan attacking Russian forces in Manchuria.

1910 - William D. Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America.

1918 - “The Stars and Stripes” newspaper was published for the first time.

1922 - The White House began using radio after U.S. President Harding had it installed.

1924 - The first U.S. execution to make use of gas took place in Nevada State Prison.

1927 - The original version of “Getting Gertie’s Garter” opened at the Hippodrome Theatre in New York City.

1936 - The first National Football League draft was held. Jay Berwanger was the first to be selected. He went to the Philadelphia Eagles. (NFL)

1952 - Queen Elizabeth II ascended to the British throne. Her father, George VI, had died on February 6.

1963 - The Kennedy administration prohibited travel to Cuba and made financial and commercial transactions with Cuba illegal for U.S. citizens.

1963 - Lamar Hunt, owner of the American Football League franchise in Dallas, TX, moved the operation to Kansas City. The new team was named the Chiefs. (NFL)

1968 - In Orangeburg, SC, three college students died during a civil rights protest against a whites-only bowling alley after a confrontation with highway patrolmen.

1969 - The last issue of the “Saturday Evening Post” was published.

1971 - The Nasdaq stock-market index debuted.

1973 - U.S. Senate leaders named seven members of a select committee to investigate the Watergate scandal.

1974 - The three-man crew of the Skylab space station returned to Earth after 84 days.

1978 - The U.S. Senate deliberations were broadcast on radio for the first time. The subject was the Panama Canal treaties.

1980 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced a plan to re-introduce draft registration.

1985 - “The Dukes of Hazzard” ended its 6-1/2 year run on CBS television.

1993 - General Motors sued NBC, alleging that “Dateline NBC” had rigged two car-truck crashes to show that some GM pickups were prone to fires after certain types of crashes. The suit was settled the following day by NBC.

1999 - In Sri Lanka, 23 rebels were killed in fighting with Sri Lankan forces.

2002 - The exhibit “Places of Their Own” opened at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The works displayed were by Geogia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo and Emily Carr.

A Song of degrees. Behold, bless ye the LORD, all ye servants of the LORD, which by night stand in the house of the LORD . Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the LORD. The LORD that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion.