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I HAVE some terrible news for anyone contemplating Australian citizenship. The Australian government has decided to introduce a special multiple choice test which all prospective citizens must pass. And believe it or not, the answers to some test questions are so obscure that even Australian-born citizens are getting the answers wrong. The Melbourne Herald-Sun newspaper recently released a list of sample questions that are meant to test prospective citizens on Australian culture, institutions and values. One of these questions has caused particular consternation. Question 15 asks: "Australia's values are based on the ... a. Teachings of the Quran b. The...

Britain and Ireland are so thoroughly divided in their histories that there is no single word to refer to the inhabitants of both islands. Historians teach that they are mostly descended from different peoples: the Irish from the Celts and the English from the Anglo-Saxons who invaded from northern Europe and drove the Celts to the country’s western and northern fringes. But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles are edging toward a different conclusion. Many are struck by the overall genetic similarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of...

The sonar scans of manmade structures one mile below water off the southeast coast of Cyprus were presented here Thursday by Robert Sarmast, head of the Cyprus/Atlantis Expedition project for the first time. Announcing the results of last year’s expedition to find one of humankind’s greatest mysteries, the legendary Atlantis, Sarmast presented three dimension underwater side-scan sonar pictures of structures 1.5 km below sea level, 80 km off the southeast coast of Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean. He said it was no coincidence that his team discovered a 3km long straight wall intersected at right angles by another wall, adding...

MADRID (AFP) - Spanish airline Iberia said it has inked a deal worth 4.5 billion dollars (3.4 billion euros) to purchase 30 Airbus short and medium haul planes with an option for 49 more in the company's biggest ever acquisition. Iberia is to purchase three different Airbus models, each carrying between 120 and 300 passengers, as it carries out its largest ever fleet overhaul. Under the terms of the deal Iberia, which said it had managed to obtain a "major discount" over list price, is to buy 15 A318 planes, nine A320 and six A321 which will come on stream...

Portugal may withdraw its national guard contingent from Iraq if the security situation in the country continues to deteriorate, Interior Minister Antonio Figueiredo Lopes said. "If the conflict were to deteriorate and the GNR (national guard) did not have what it required to carry out its mission, the only solution would be to withdraw," he told Antena 1 public radio. Portugal's centre-right Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso in November dispatched 128 national guards to southern Iraq to back the US-led coalition in the war-torn country, where they operate under British command. Figueiredo Lopes had said on Wednesday that Lisbon...

IBERIA, NOT SIBERIA?A Look at the Evidence Supporting a Late Pleistocene Migration to the New World from Europe Michael A. Arbuthnot ANT 5152 Paleoindian Archaeology Dr. Michael Faught December 6th, 2000 Perhaps the most provocative question facing North American paleo-archaeologists is the origin of the Clovis complex. Traditional models have placed Clovis origins in Asia, though one controversial theory contends that Clovis progenitors may have migrated from Iberia (Spain, France, and Portugal). This theory suggests that the descendants of an Upper Pleistocene culture known as Solutrean were the first unquestionable inhabitants of the New World. The recent revitalization of a...

The Atlantis between Spain and Morocco Revealing discoveries  Expedition: "The Ibero-Marroqui Atlantis '"   By Maria Fdez-Valmayor  A Scientific Expedition has started off at the end of this summer for the area of the Straits of Gibraltar in search of possible ruins of the well-known civilization like Atlantis by Plato. According to the project? Atlantis Ibero-Moroccan, between the coasts of southwest of the Iberian Peninsula and the northwest of Africa evidences of cities or submerged coastal villages of the Age of the Bronze would have to be, that could belong to the Island or Peninsula of Atlantis. The expedition...