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<p>A 14-month-old girl spent hours trapped inside a Conyers bank vault Friday evening after wandering off from her mother and grandmother, an employee at the Wells Fargo branch.</p> <p>What followed was a scene from a summer blockbuster, as bank officials and first responders worked feverishly to locate a locksmith trained to open the vault, which was set on a time-released lock, according to Conyers Police Chief Gene Wilson.</p>

UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited Wednesday a vault carved into the Arctic permafrost, filled with samples of the world's most important seeds in case food crops are wiped out by a catastrophe. "The world faces many daunting challenges today, one of the greatest of which is how to feed a growing population in the context of climate change," a bundled-up Ban told reporters after he toured the site in the Svalbard archipelago some 1,200 kilometres (745 miles) from the North Pole. "The seeds stored here in Svalbard will help us do just that. Sustainable food production may not begin in...

[...]Obama Presidency Challenged By New Jersey Voter re:”natural born citizen” - Before US Supreme Court. [...] PRLog (Press Release) – Nov 10, 2008 – On October 27, 2008, plaintiff-appellant, Leo Donofrio, a retired attorney acting Pro Se, sued Nina Mitchell Wells, Secretary of State of the State of New Jersey, in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, demanding the Secretary execute her statutory and Constitutional duties to police the security of ballots in New Jersey from fraudulent candidates ineligible to hold the office of President of the United States due to their not being “natural born citizens” as...

Just a Few Blocks From the Bustle of Wall Street Sits $200 Billion in Gold NEW YORK -- Gold. It's one of the oldest and most prized possessions we have. Egyptian pharaohs were buried with it, the Romans traded it and gold is even mentioned as a gift in the Bible. As stocks plummet and many realize they don't understand how their money is invested, some on Wall Street are turning to gold as a haven. Who can blame them? Gold is something you can see, hold and fully understand. In the last two days, the price of gold shot...

Arctic 'Doomsday' Seed Vault Opens Doors For 100 Million SeedsThe Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened February 26 on a remote island in the Arctic Circle, receiving inaugural shipments of 100 million seeds that originated in over 100 countries. (Credit: Mari Tefre/Global Crop Diversity Trust) ScienceDaily (Feb. 27, 2008) — The Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened February 26 on a remote island in the Arctic Circle, receiving inaugural shipments of 100 million seeds that originated in over 100 countries. With the deposits ranging from unique varieties of major African and Asian food staples such as maize, rice, wheat, cowpea, and sorghum...

Thousands Of Crop Varieties Depart For Arctic Seed VaultPackaging seeds. Thousands of Crop Varieties from Four Corners of the World Depart for Arctic Seed Vault. (Credit: CIMMYT, Mexico.) ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2008) — At the end of January, more than 200,000 crop varieties from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East—drawn from vast seed collections maintained by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)—will be shipped to a remote island near the Arctic Circle, where they will be stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV), a facility capable of preserving their vitality for thousands of years. The...

Subterranean vault dating back to 8th Hejira century found beneath the Citadel An immense subterranean vault was found beneath the Citadel in Cairo on 7/6/2007, said the Minister of Culture Farouq Hosni. The vault dates back to the era of King Al-Nasser Mohamed Ben Qalawun in the 8th century of Hejira, said the Minister. The vault extends along 200 meters between Al-Ablaq Palace and the sideline palaces of the Citadel.

WILLIAMSBURG — Advocates of our version of “The DaVinci Code” were back in town Friday, calling for another excavation to locate the “secret vault” of Sir Francis Bacon, which they still allege is buried beneath the churchyard of Bruton Parish Episcopal Church. It is a replay of a saga from 14 years ago that put the church in an awkward position of dispelling some very weird myths. A media circus resulted. The story propagated by Sir Francis Bacon's Sages of the Seventh Seal has all the elements of Dan Brown's theological thriller. The Bacon story relies on a conspiracy theory...

A Plymouth Belvedere that was buried in a concrete vault nearly 50 years ago as part of the state's golden anniversary celebration will be unearthed in 2007 as part of the Oklahoma centennial festivities.

An Afghan security guard has told of how he prevented a hoard of gold bullion and priceless 2100-year-old treasure falling into the hands of the Taliban. The fate of the Golden Hoard of Bactria, a collection of 20,000 artefacts, has been the subject of fantastic rumours: that it was stolen by Soviet troops or looted by the Taliban to be sold through antique dealers in Pakistan to fund a terrorist network. But the treasure remained safe largely due to the efforts of one man, Askerzai, who has been guardian of the vaults for 30 years. Mr Askerzai, 50, an employee...

The so-called Bactrian Gold, Afghanistan's hoard of 2,000-year-old gold nuggets, silver ornaments, manuscripts and other ancient treasures, has survived intact after years of civil war and unrest, a senior minister said this week. Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the Foreign Minister, told a meeting of Unesco's general conference in Paris that Afghans were happy to learn the "good news" that the collection - long rumoured to have been stolen - was in the vaults beneath the presidential palace in the capital, Kabul.Only a few days ago, an official from Unesco, the UN's cultural organisation, told The Independent that there was still no...

Zurich - About $3.5m worth of Iraqi gold is currently sitting in the vaults of a metals processing company in Switzerland, a Swiss weekly reported on Friday. The Iraqi embassy in Switzerland sent about 300kg of gold bullion to the Neuchatel-based company in 1991, according to the business magazine Cash. It said the head of the company, Hans-Juerg Schaer, had confirmed that Metalor, which specialises in smelting and reprocessing precious metals, still had the gold, the requivalent of 4.5 million Swiss francs or three million euros. Some 386 million Swiss francs in deposits made by Iraqis are being held by...

washingtonpost.com All Along, Most Iraqi Relics Were 'Safe and Sound' By William Booth and Guy Gugliotta Washington Post Staff WritersMonday, June 9, 2003; Page A12 BAGHDAD, June 8 -- The world was appalled. One archaeologist described the looting of Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities as "a rape of civilization." Iraqi scholars standing in the sacked galleries of the exhibit halls in April wept on camera as they stood on shards of cuneiform tablets dating back thousands of years. In the first days after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces, condemnation rained down on U.S. military commanders and officials in Washington for...

Arab nations to draft strategy on protecting Iraqi culture Sat Jun 7, 5:03 PM ET TUNIS (AFP) - Experts from Arab nations began meeting in Tunis to draw up a strategy for protecting Iraq (news - web sites)'s cultural heritage in the wake of the US-led war, during which the occupying US army failed to prevent the looting of thousands of priceless antiquities from Baghdad's National Archaeological Museum. AFP/File Photo   The two-day meeting was organized by the Arab Organisation for Education, Culture and Sciences (ALESCO) and was expected to involve experts from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco,...

Iraq Museum to Reopen Displaying Lost Treasure By Andrew Marshall BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Baghdad's famed antiquities museum, ransacked by looters as Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s rule crumbled, will reopen next month after many of the treasures feared lost forever were found stashed in secret vaults around the city. Reuters Photo   Museum research director Donny George said Sunday that among the items on show would be the Treasure of Nimrud, a priceless set of gem-studded gold Assyrian jewelry that has been displayed only once, briefly, in the last 3,000 years. The treasure was recovered Thursday from flooded vaults...

Treasures dating to 900 B.C. found in secret Iraqi vault By Hamza Hendawi | The Associated Press Posted June 8, 2003 BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The world-famous treasures of Nimrud, unaccounted for since Baghdad fell two months ago, have been located in good condition in the country's Central Bank -- in a secret vault-inside-a-vault submerged in sewage water, U.S. occupation authorities said Saturday. They also said that fewer than 50 items from the collection of the Iraqi National Museum's main exhibition still are missing after the looting and destruction that followed the U.S. capture of Baghdad. ...The treasures, one of the...

'Looted' treasures found in Baghdad By Andrew Clennell 08 June 2003 Almost all the items feared looted from the Iraqi National Museum in April have been found safe in a secret vault, the US announced yesterday. In a separate find, the world-famous treasures of Nimrud, one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, which have not been on public display since before the first Gulf War, have also been located. They were found in good condition in a different vault, at Iraq's central bank. US occupation authorities said fewer than 50 major exhibition items from the National...

American officials in Iraq have announced that nearly all the Baghdad Museum's priceless antiquities are intact, despite initial fears that they had been lost to looters during the war. US investigators working at the museum slashed the number of antiquities listed as missing from about 170,000 to 3,000 after a secret storage vault was uncovered this week. In another development, the investigators said they had recovered a priceless Assyrian jewellery collection - the Nimrud artefacts - which had been deposited at the Iraqi Central Bank in the early 1990s. The discoveries meant the investigators' work in Iraq was nearly...

<p>The treasure of Nimrud survived 2,800 years buried near a dusty town in northern Iraq. It then spent 12 years tucked away in a vault. Until Thursday, it was uncertain whether it had survived Saddam Hussein's son, a U.S. missile strike, looters, a flood and a grenade attack. But it has been found intact in the dark, damp basement of a bombed out central bank building.</p>

U.S. investigators have recovered 951 items looted from Iraq's National Museum, but have not gained access to central bank vaults thought to contain priceless objects or a secret storage site known only to museum staff, the lead investigator said on Friday. Marine Col. Matthew Bogdanos, leader of the team investigating the museum's losses, was unable to give a firm figure of the number of items still missing from the museum's collection following the looting spree in the days after U.S. forces entered Baghdad. In a briefing from Baghdad to reporters at the Pentagon, he said his team of 14 investigators...

WASHINGTON - More than 700 artefacts and tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts that had been missing from the National Museum in Baghdad have been recovered by teams of investigators in Iraq, US officials said on Wednesday. Some of the missing works were stored in underground vaults before the United States-led invasion of the country. The US investigators located the vaults over the past week. They forced them open, revealing hundreds of artefacts that had apparently been stored there to protect them from being damaged in a US assault. The find included ancient jewellery, pottery and sarcophaguses, officials said. The...

Marines Guard $1B in Iraqi Gold By ELLEN KNICKMEYER .c The Associated Press BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - U.S. Marines with machine guns and tanks stood watch Friday over what they estimated was $1 billion in gold - safeguarding bank vaults that withstood direct rocket-propelled grenade hits by robbers determined to fight their way in. ``Fort Knox doesn't have security like this,'' Staff Sgt. Jack Coughlin of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines said in a bank lobby, as shots rang out outside - U.S. snipers dealing with robbers armed with AK-47s still roaming Baghdad's pillaged banking district. Days of audacious daylight...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Last week's looting of the Iraq National Museum, which saw numerous items disappear from a vast collection spanning eight millennia of Mesopotamian history, has provoked world-wide outcry -- and criticism of the U.S. military for its failure to protect Iraq's priceless cultural heritage.</p>

Guess they didnt read the WSJ article today that the looting was an inside job US Culture Advisers Resign Over Iraq Museum Looting By Niala Boodhoo WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two cultural advisers to the Bush administration have resigned in protest over the failure of U.S. forces to prevent the wholesale looting of priceless treasures from Baghdad's antiquities museum. Martin Sullivan, who chaired the President's Advisory Committee on Cultural Property for eight years, and panel member Gary Vikan said they resigned because the U.S. military had had advance warning of the danger to Iraq (news - web sites)'s historical treasures. "We...