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| Elgin Marbles |
Few institutions hold as much global prestige and controversy as the British Museum. Behind its grand façade lies a collection shaped not only by curiosity but also by conquest. Interestingly, many of its most famous pieces were taken during centuries of empire-building, yet they still sit behind glass in London.
So, let’s find out why the museum refuses to return what so many call stolen history.
"To provoke China into a military confrontation today is to trap it into an arena where the US is still superior. The American chess pieces of 800 overseas military bases, gunboat diplomacy in air, land, and sea, and military technology are more than 20 years ahead of China, and are further bolstered by the $850 billion proposed US defense budget for 2023. The US continues to surround China in the Indo-Pacific with bases, carrier fleets, and submarines bristling with conventional and nuclear missiles.
Fortunately, China does not want to fall into the trap that doomed the former Soviet Union in an arms race or commit the mistakes of past colonial big powers.
But this fierce geopolitical competition between the US and China inevitably involves the Philippines because of its geostrategic location. Will we continue to be a de facto US aircraft carrier and part of the US nuclear infrastructure? The Mutual Defense Treaty, the Visiting Forces Agreement, and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement make us part of the offensive island chain of encirclement against neighboring China. There is now an agreement with the US-firm Cerberus for it to take over Hanjin Shipyard at Subic that will allow the regular repair, refueling, and docking of the US Navy."
Empires wax and wane. Powers ebb and flow. Spheres of influence retreat and surge. Celestial bodies are born and die.
As it is with the universe, so it is with its subsets and elements.
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| Political Cartoons |
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| China: The Cake of Kings... and of Emperors |
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| Lectores de las palabras perdido (Readers of the lost words). Blindfolded, the Jesuit reads a catechism, the Augustinian, a novena in Tagalog, while the Recollect recites a Visayan prayer. The Dominican holds a box with the tithes collected for all the lost words. |
