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Jonathan Manthorpe on Angkor Wat, the Elgin Marbles, and repatriation

Should the the British Museum or the Louvre in Paris retain collections gathered from all corners of the world, in order to display the entire sweep of human cultural history? Should the great works of humanity be repatriated? International Affairs columnist Jonathan Manthorpe examines the question via cases in Cambodia, Greece, and Canada. An excerpt of his new column, Mrs. Clooney rushes to the rescue of Greek culture: It had been a tough day interviewing victims of Khmer Rouge atrocities, and it was with great relief that I slumped down in a chair in the hotel bar in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh,

Brian Brennan’s time capsule on Glenn Ford

It was the classic “hurry up and wait” situation when, as Arts columnist Brian Brennan watched, Glenn Ford filmed a brief scene for the 1978 movie, Superman. Part of the problem, Brennan reports in his new time capsule piece, was that Ford couldn’t remember his line. An excerpt of Brennan’s Brief Encounters column, Out of the Saddle, Playing Papa to a Super-baby: Glenn Ford: The line was, “Martha Clark Kent, are you listening to what I’m saying?” It was scripted for Glenn Ford, playing a Kansas farmer named Jonathan Kent in the 1978 movie Superman. A spaceship containing the baby Superman had just crash-landed in

Rosetta: love astride a comet

The deep-space probe Rosetta set its lander Philae astride a comet today, a historic feat for the European Space Agency — and for humanity. At 16:03 GMT November 12, the agency announced, scientists in ESA stations in Argentina, Spain and Germany had received word of the landing from Philae. It was a signal from about six billion kilometres away, for which they’d waited since 2004 when the probe was launched. “Our ambitious Rosetta mission has secured another place in the history books: not only is it the first to rendezvous with and orbit a comet, but it is now also the first

Focus on Remembrance

On November 11, 1918, the guns of World War I fell silent on the Western Front. The end of the Great War was, so many participants swore, surely  the end of all wars. It was, of course, hubris; less than a generation later most of the world launched itself into World War II. But November 11 has become the day, in much of the world, to remember. In these pages you’ll find some Facts and Opinions about a day known by many names. Whether Remembrance Day, Veteran’s Day, Armistice Day, or Independence Day, it’s a day to pay homage to those

Focus on the Berlin Wall

  Germany, and much of the world, this weekend marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It remains the singular event to symbolize the end of the Cold War. It marked the end of the Iron Curtain between Eastern and Western Europe, and the rise of the new global economic and political orders that tore apart the former USSR and set the stage for the 21st Century world. Ours is today a chaotic, fractious, polarized world. We have not experienced anything like the “end of history” predicted then so triumphantly by some in the West. For

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