Picture shows part of a madrasa-mosque complex built in the 15th century. Over a century ago, more than a dozen such minarets stood in AfghanistanÕs Herat.

Afghanistan has closed a road that threatened the foundation of a group of mediaeval minarets which Kabul wants to see listed among the World’s Cultural Heritage sites.
The minarets, standing at more than 100 feet, are all that remain of what was once a brilliantly decorated complex for Islamic learning and devotion along the Silk Road on the outskirts of the western city of Heart, reported Reuters.
Just over a century ago, more than a dozen minarets stood in Herat, part of a madrasa-mosque complex built in the 15th century.
Most of the camel-colored, mud-brick towers, which were once sheathed in sparkling blue, green, white and black mosaic tiles, have toppled during decades of war and neglect.
Experts had hoped the end of Taliban rule in 2001 and the advent of a new government would save the remaining towers.
However, the city’s new-found wealth in the post-Taliban era had served only to heighten concerns about the towers’ stability.
Heavy trucks and cars rumble along a road that runs through the middle of the remaining minarets, shaking the ground and threatening their foundations.
Following repeated concerns from the UN cultural and educational agency, (UNESCO), authorities in October banned heavy trucks from using the road.
On Dec. 7, it was completely shut down for all traffic, the information ministry said in a statement.
“The information ministry praises this and hopes such moves could stop the destruction of cultural heritages across the country,“ the statement said.
Once a bastion of culture and literature, Herat has prospered compared to other parts of Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, due largely to trade links with Turkmenistan and Iran.
New buildings of glass and concrete are sprouting up, overlooking the old city and challenging the minarets’ command of the skyline for the first time in six centuries.
The old city of Herat is already on the tentative list for inclusion on UNESCO’s register of World Heritage sites.

In the beginning of the next year the Petersburg publishers Astrel-Spb are going to publish a novel written by a computer.
Programmers jointly with philologists have created a special program. Using that program along with the plot lines of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and books by thirteen other authors the computer has generated the novel “True Love“, reported Russia-ic.com.
It took the computer three days and nights of constant work to write the novel text on the basis of the program.
Some 10,000 copies of the novel are going to be published.
The costs of the novel production including the fees to the program developers turned almost 10 times less than the amount of royalties to a popular Russian author.

For the first time, the Worldwide Magazine Marketplace was held in Singapore at the Suntec Convention Hall a nod to Asia Pacific’s growing importance among international magazine publishers.
The region’s magazine publishing sector is expected to grow at an average annual compound rate of 3.8 percent, from US$11.7 billion in 2004 to US$14 billion in 2009.
This is comparable with an average global increase of 4.1 percent annually from US$87.3 billion to US$106.5 billion within the same period, reported Channel NewsAsia.
In Singapore alone, advertising expenditure in magazines saw a 26 percent growth last year the highest across all media platforms, namely television, radio, newspaper, poster and bus stop ads.
Over 240 publishers from 43 countries are represented at the Suntec Convention Hall gathering, many of them eager to get their magazines into the Asian market.
Currently, over 500 foreign titles are available in the region, with content ranging from automobiles to embroidery.
Industry experts are confident this number will double within a few years.
The two-day event opened on Dec. 10 by the minister of information, communications and the arts, Dr Lee Boon Yang, who said the growth in digital media presented both challenges and opportunities for print publishers.

Turkish shadow theater character Karagoz.

The Turkish branch of the International Puppetry Union (UNIMA) has announced its plans to try and officially register the classic Turkish shadow puppet theater character Karagoz with an international patent.
UNIMA’s Turkish head, MevlŸt Ozhan, has said that the union has applied to the EU to have Karagoz registered as a Turkish shadow theater character. Ozhan told reporters that Karagoz has a history that stretches far back into Turkish history, said Todayszaman.
He said every area of society carries an important duty to ensure that traditional Turkish arts can be passed on to future generations of Turks. Ozhan also noted that he was saddened that so far Turks do not appear to be taking enough initiative in preserving their own culture.
Ozhan said: “For example, all over Greece you can see shadow theater plays which use the name Karagoz. In activities sponsored by various municipalities and civil society organizations, and even on television programs, you can see Karagoz puppet shows. And I think that this should actually be going on more in Turkey than in Greece. First of all, we need to see that more experts on this are trained, which is why Karagoz and Hacivat should become a topic in Turkey’s [music] conservatories.“
Ozhan says that UNIMA’s attempt to get Karagoz officially registered by Turkey came after speculation that Greece was going to try and do the same.
Pointing out that the UNIMA Turkish National Center had gone to experts and lawyers to have them study the issue, Ozhan said: “We will make our official application following the results of the coming report.“
He added, “A recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights regarding an application by a Greek journalist on the topic of Karagoz confirmed that Karagoz is a puppet shadow play that derives from Turkish culture. And for us, this decision carries the weight of a confirmed patent. This court ruling, which carries many binding features, is a great advantage for us.“

Main entrance of Aran Mosque near the Iranian city of Kashan, Isfahan province

Expect cheers among hardcore online game enthusiasts when they learn Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year. Or, more accurately, expect them to “w00t.“
“W00t,“ a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or triumph, topped all other terms in the Springfield-based dictionary publisher’s online poll for the word that best sums up 2007, reported AP.
Merriam-Webster’s president, John Morse, said “w00t“ was an ideal choice because it blends whimsy and new technology.
“It shows a really interesting thing that’s going on in language. It’s a term that’s arrived only because we’re now communicating electronically with each other,“ Morse said.
Gamers commonly substitute numbers and symbols for the letters they resemble, Morse says, creating what they call “l33t speak“--that’s “leet“ when spoken, short for “elite“ to the rest of the world.
Purists of “l33t speak“ often substitute a “7“ for the final “t,“ expressing a “w007“ of victory-- an “in your face“ of sorts--when they defeat an online gaming opponent.
“W00t“ was among 20 nominees in a list of the most-searched words in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary and most frequently submitted terms from users of its “open dictionary.“
The choice did not make Allan Metcalf, executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, say “w00t.“
“It’s amusing, but it’s limited to a small community and unlikely to spread and unlikely to last,“ said Metcalf, an English professor at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill.
The 2006 pick, “truthiness,“ also has its roots in pop culture. It was popularized by Comedy Central satirical political commentator Stephen Colbert.
Some also-rans in the 2007 list: the use of “facebook“ as a verb to signify using the web site by that name; nuanced terms such as “quixotic,“ “hypocrite“ and “conundrum“; and “blamestorm,“ a meeting in which mistakes are aired, fingers are pointed and much discomfort is had by all.

A German museum has issued a warning that eight statues in its crowd-pulling exhibition on China’s legendary “Terracotta Army“ may be fake after an art dealer instigated a police probe into their provenance.
“The exhibition continues but we have put up three notices at the entrance warning visitors that the pieces may not be authentic,“ a spokeswoman for the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology, Marina Lifschitz, said, reported AFP.
“We felt we had no choice but to do this. How else can one react when the police come around investigating a complaint of fraud?“ She said visitors who felt disappointed that the life-sized terracotta soldiers they saw may not be 2,200-year-old originals could ask the museum to reimburse the entrance fee.
Some 10,000 people have viewed the exhibition, titled “Power in Death“, since it opened in the northern German city on November 25.
The eight contested figures are meant to belong to the celebrated ancient “army“ of thousands of clay sculptures representing warriors that adorned the grave of China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang.
These were unearthed after two farmers stumbled upon the emperor’s tomb in 1974 in what is considered to be one of the most important archeological finds of the 20th century.
Art dealer Roland Freyer told AFP he lodged a complaint with the police over the Hamburg exhibition after Chinese authorities assured him that the warriors on display there could only be fakes.
Freyer was a founding member of the Center of Chinese Art and culture in the eastern city of Leipzig, which co-organized the exhibition in Hamburg, but broke with it in a bitter row over showcasing fakes in Leipzig.
“The eight terracotta warriors in the Hamburg museum cannot be originals. Any exhibition of originals needs the approval of the cultural authorities in Shaanxi province where archeologists uncovered the treasure,“ he said.
“I was there in September and informed them about the exhibition. They knew nothing about it, but looked into the matter and concluded that the figures on display in Hamburg can only be fake.“
Freyer said there was nothing wrong with displaying certified copies but accused the organizers of the Hamburg show of swindling the public by passing them off as originals.
He has urged the Museum of Ethnology to close down the exhibition.
She said the clay figures had “arrived in Hamburg by sea from China“ and that the museum had believed that they were part of a batch of 100 terracotta soldiers that the Chinese authorities lend to museums around the world.
Some 20 are currently on display at the British Museum in London in an exhibition titled “The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army“ that runs until April.

A gold and enamel medal that once belonged to the American revolutionary hero the Marquis de Lafayette was bought at Sotheby’s auction for $5.26 million by France’s Fondation de Chambrun.
Sold by Lafayette’s descendants, the medal was given to the Frenchman in 1824 by relatives of America’s first president George Washington, when Lafayette was 67 years old. Its pre-sale estimate was between four and 10 million dollars, according to AFP.
“We are thrilled with the results. This is the highest price ever paid for a medal,“ said David Redden, Sotheby’s vice-president.
The medal was sold for $5.264 million Sotheby’s commission.
“There is the market. It’s hard to know what moves people. And we never know how far the buyer would have gone if he had had another bidder in front of him,“ Redden added.
The one-inch (2.5 centimeters) diameter medal shows an eagle encircled by a laurel.
The medal was awarded Lafayette a quarter-century after the death in 1799 of Washington, who as a general led US troops to victory in their battle for independence against Britain.
The American Revolution, which saw Britain’s American colonies declare themselves a united, independent country, took place between 1775 and 1783.