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An ancient cemetery for infants in Astypalea. Credit: Dodecanese Ephorate of Antiquities The study of the largest ancient cemetery for infants found on Astypalea island in Greece continues, shedding light on the worship of the goddess of childbirth and the Earth mother. The Dodecanese Ephorate of Antiquities that is carrying out the study has found that almost all the infants buried there were newborns or, at most, a few months old. There are also a few toddlers that were up to two years of age. The bodies of the babies were placed in ceramic containers, mainly amphorae or hydrias, whichwere...

Palestinian leaders said Monday they had asked for a full report on Yasser Arafat's death in a Paris hospital last week, challenging French laws under which his widow has maintained a veil of secrecy. Palestinian militants have accused Israel of poisoning Arafat, a charge denied by Israeli and French officials but which threatens to fuel discontent in the West Bank and Gaza and complicate the succession process. "We do not want to jump to conclusions. We only want to have the medical report, though we trust the French doctors and the French government," Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior figure in...

A caller to my radio program suggested there might be a better way to dispose of Yasser Arafat than killing him. She reminded me of something I had long known about the terrorist-killer-scum but have never put to use in print before. She asked: "Wouldn't it be better to discredit Arafat than kill him?" The question was at once terribly naive but strikingly brilliant. There's the question of how one can discredit a monster who takes pride in his bloodlust, whose propensity for corruption and fraud and theft from his own people is legendary. I've attempted, over the years,...