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Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man.” Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look...

Tue Feb 7, 2006 12:11 AM GMT166 Printer Friendly | Email Article | RSS OSLO (Reuters) - Scientists said on Tuesday they had found a "Lost World" in an Indonesian mountain jungle, home to dozens of exotic new species of birds, butterflies, frogs and plants. "It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the U.S., Indonesian, and Australian expedition to part of the cloud-shrouded Foja mountains in the west of New Guinea. Indigenous peoples living near the Foja range, which rises to 2,200 metres, said they did not...

My son, who was with the 82nd Airborne, and spent 8 months in Iraq during Gulf War I, was scheduled to be shipped to either Iraq or Afghanistan this January 06. I decided to do some research on Iraq and discovered that very little has been done to restore the vast marshes at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Saddam Hussein decided to destroy this haven for freedom fighters by draining and drying the marshes. He succeded in driving all but 50,000 of the original 300,000 population of this giant wetland away. He transported many to cities in...

THE marshlands of southern Iraq, considered by some to be the inspiration for the biblical Garden of Eden, have recovered to nearly 40 per cent of their former glory since the toppling of Saddam Hussein. The dictator's mismanagement turned much of the lush waterscape into arid salt flats. But yesterday a United Nations report on a multi-million-pound restoration project revealed new satellite imagery showing a big increase in water and vegetation cover in the past three years. The marshes have rebounded to about 37 per cent of their 1970 extent, from about 10 per cent in 2002. "The evidence of...

The marshlands of Iraq, which were drained during the early 1990s, are returning to their original state. Under Saddam Hussein, the area of marsh was reduced to a tenth of its former size, as the government punished people living there for acts of rebellion. The latest United Nations data shows that nearly 40% of the area has been restored to its original condition. Drinking water and sanitation projects are under way, but the UN says that a full recovery will take many years. Way of life destroyed The marsh area, near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was...

TOKYO — The marshlands of southern Iraq, reputed inspiration for the biblical Garden of Eden, have recovered rapidly since the fall of Saddam Hussein, whose regime turned much of the lush waterscape into arid salt flats, the United Nations said Wednesday. New satellite imagery shows a rapid increase in water and vegetation cover in just the past three years, with the marshes rebounding to about 37 percent of the area they covered in 1970, up from about 10 percent in 2002, the United Nations Environmental Program (search) said. "The evidence of their rapid revival is a positive signal," UNEP executive...

The marshlands of southern Iraq, reputed inspiration for the biblical Garden of Eden, have recovered rapidly since the fall of Saddam Hussein, whose regime turned much of the lush waterscape into arid salt flats, the United Nations said Wednesday. New satellite imagery shows a rapid increase in water and vegetation cover in just the past three years, with the marshes rebounding to about 37 percent of the area they covered in 1970, up from about 10 percent in 2002, the United Nations Environmental Program said. "The evidence of their rapid revival is a positive signal," UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer...

1. The garden of Eden was in Iraq. (it sure doesn't look much like Paradise on earth today thanks to Saddam). 2. Mesopotamia which is now Iraq was the cradle of civilization! 3. Noah built the ark in Iraq. 4. The Tower of Babel was in Iraq. 5. Abraham was from Ur, which is in Southern Iraq! 6. Isaac's wife Rebekah is from Nahor which is in Iraq. 7. Jacob met Rachel in Iraq. 8. Jonah preached in Nineveh - which is in Iraq. 9. Assyria which is in Iraq conquered the ten tribes of Israel. 10. Amos cried out...

Only Saddam Hussein could make an arid desert out of the ancient Iraqi marsh considered by biblical scholars to be the Garden of Eden. While there is no doubt that revenge was in the Butcher of Baghdad’s heart when he cut the water flow to the marsh following 1991’s Gulf War, part of his motive originated from cutting breaks for business cronies. In draining the marsh, Saddam’s intent was to punish the Marsh Arabs who opposed his rule. To the heartless Saddam, it made no difference that the Arab culture had lived there for thousands of years. Saddam cutting breaks...

ust when things were looking up for Iraq's iconic marshlands, another threat has materialised. Iran has begun building a dyke that will threaten the water supply to the healthiest of the wetlands, the Al-Hawizeh marsh. "It will cut off a vast amount of water and remove some of the recovering marshes," says Curtis Richardson of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who is monitoring the recovery. Richardson told New Scientist that maintaining the Al-Hawizeh marsh, which straddles the border between Iran and Iraq, is crucial because it is a refuge for species that may recolonise other marshes. The wetlands, which...

The fabled marshes of Mesopotamia, largely destroyed by Saddam Hussein in one of the worst pieces of ecological vandalism in recent history, can be partially restored, scientists said on Sunday. The first scientific assessment of the marshes in southern Iraq, al considered by some to have been the Biblical location of the Garden of Eden, was presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington. Saddam's drainage programme - accompanied by the persecution and forced relocation of the Marsh Arabs who had lived there for 5,000 years - reduced the wetlands to 7 per cent of...

WASHINGTON - Water and new life are returning to an ancient Iraqi marsh considered by many as the cradle of Western civilization. Saddam Hussein drained the area after the 1991 Gulf War to retaliate against the people who had lived there for thousands of years. International and Iraqi experts are now restoring it. For more than 5,000 years, the Marsh Arab culture thrived in the 8,000 square miles of wetlands fed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The marshes boasted hundreds of species of birds and fish, and periodic flooding created fertile farm lands. Some scholars believe the flooded, flat...

What there was in the beginning, in the world of the Bible, is what there was in the land now called Iraq. There is nothing left of the Garden of Eden, no artifact at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where myth has placed the Temptation and the Fall. But the great cities and empires from the Books of Genesis and Kings and Chronicles have left their traces: Ur, where Abraham was born; rapacious Assyria with its capital, Nineveh, and Babylon, where the ancient Israelites were carried into captivity and where, as the psalm tells us, they wept...

I teach courses in humanities and military history at Grove City College, an “enthusiastically Christian” college in rural northwestern Pennsylvania. This morning I concluded my Humanities 302 course with the Home Box Office movie Conspiracy which depicts a conference held on January 20, 1942 in a mansion in the posh Berlin suburb of Wannsee. In the dining room of this mansion, which once belonged to a wealthy Jewish businessman, SS Obengruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich, hosted 14 other top Nazi officials charged with devising the final solution to the Jewish problem. In two hours, while enjoying a sumptuous buffet, they determined what...

The Marsh Arabs of Iraq have given up waiting for outsiders to restore their wetlands. Local people are taking matters into their own hands by breaching dykes and shutting down pumping stations in a bid to restore the marshes drained by Saddam Hussein's regime. But some experts worry that their actions could hamper the region's recovery. Five months ago, New Scientist reported that an international team of wetland experts, backed by the US State Department, planned to gradually re-flood the wetlands (print edition, 26 April 2003). But reports from inside Iraq reveal this plan is increasingly irrelevant. Even as Saddam's...

PILOT POINT - Is it art? Or is it just offensive? A mural of a nude Eve is at the center of a controversy in this North Texas town, where the work's owner has answered police complaints by draping a bright yellow strip of canvas with the words "crime scene" across Eve's bare breasts. Wes Miller avoided being charged with distributing "harmful material" but has vowed that the fight is not over to keep the work intact. Next to the mock crime scene tape was a black banner saying: "Temporarily censored." "We decided that an arrest, knowing how this town...

<p>AL TURABAH, Iraq--To reach the ninth level of Saddam's Inferno, you take a plane from Baghdad south to Basra, then hop an open-air 40-minute helicopter ride in 118-degree heat to what was once the world's closest approximation to the Garden of Eden.</p>

GENEVA - Water is returning to Iraq's southern dried-out marshlands, the U.N. said in a report on the home of a unique Arab culture almost destroyed by Saddam Hussein in apparent retaliation for an uprising. The United Nations' environmental agency UNEP said mechanical diggers had broken down barriers and levees built under Saddam, allowing water to flow into the area - believed by some archaeologists to be the Garden of Eden in scripture. Satellite images of the area, once home to some 450,000 largely Muslim Shi'ite Marsh Arabs made famous by British traveller and explorer Wilfred Thesiger, "dramatically reveal streams...

<p>There could be an unexpected beneficiary of the war in Iraq: the environment.</p> <p>More specifically, the late, great Mesopotamian marshes -- a decade ago, the largest wetland by far in the Middle East, and a site considered by many religious scholars as the inspiration for the Garden of Eden in the Bible and Koran.</p>

UK soldiers liberate Garden of Eden 9 April 2003 British forces in southern Iraq have made their furthest incursion north, and were welcomed into the Garden of Eden with open arms. The 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment reached Al Qurnah, crossing the River Euphrates, military officials confirmed. The Irish troops were met by thousands of jubilant Iraqis, waving their arms in a joyful welcome, according to a pooled report from Sarah Oliver of the Mail on Sunday. Al Qurnah is said to be the site of the biblical Garden of Eden and the birthplace of mankind. The area is populated...