Word: ones
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Bamiyan, Afghanistan in 2001, militants in Pakistan have attacked the Buddhist heritage in Pakistan, driving away foreign research teams and tourists, forcing the closure of museums and threatening the integrity of valuable digs. "Militants are the enemies of culture," says Abdul Nasir Khan, curator of the museum at Taxila, one of the country's premier archaeological sites and a former capital of the Gandhara civilization. "It is very clear that if the situation carries on like this, it will destroy our cultural heritage." (See pictures of Pakistan's vulnerable North-West Frontier Province...
Taxila should be a showcase of that civilization. Today a town about 20 miles northwest of Islamabad, it was a center of Buddhist learning, a must-visit for travelers like Xuanzang seeking Buddhist scripture and wisdom. Formerly part of the Persian Empire, Taxila was one of Alexander's conquests and is today a World Heritage Site. The museum there, started in 1918, is one of Pakistan's finest, with more than 4,000 artifacts from the Gandhara civilization. But no one comes to visit much anymore. Nasir Khan says there have been warnings of a possible attack on the museum...
...lack of archaeologists at many sites has led militants and vandals to close in. Kashmir Smast, about 70 miles northwest of Islamabad, is a Hindu site, not Buddhist, and thus unusual for the area. "But there's no preservation, no one to look after the site," says Dr. Nasim Khan, professor of archaeology at the University of Peshawar. "The local people are damaging the site because of illegal diggings." In Swat, the Taliban have long attempted to destroy the Buddhist heritage of the region. In October 2007, as militants cemented their hold on the former tourist area, the Taliban dynamited...
...verdict against the enemy of the Chinese state came down on Christmas Day, not a particularly significant holiday in the calendar of the People's Republic but one that perhaps meant that Beijing wanted as little attention on it as possible in the West. Following a two-hour trial on Dec. 23, the literary critic Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison in Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court. His crime: writing a series of essays questioning the monopoly on power of the Communist Party as well as compiling a manifesto demanding political reform and increased democracy...
...arrested one year ago, just before the release of Charter 08, a manifesto signed by 303 Chinese intellectuals that called for extensive reforms of the country's political system. While dozens of signers were detained, put under surveillance or otherwise harassed by authorities, Liu is the only one to face prison time. Charter 08 received no coverage within China but, after its release in December 2008, thousands Chinese within the country and overseas signed the petition online, a situation that embarrassed the Chinese government so soon after coming off the highs of its Olympic spotlight. (See how Chinese dissidents tried...