Strolling along the ancient ruins of Hatra in Iraq’s north, dozens of visitors admired the site, where local initiatives seek to turn over a new leaf after a brief but brutal Daesh rule.

Designated an endangered world heritage site by UNESCO, Hatra dates back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC.

It is a two-hour drive from Mosul, the former “capital” proclaimed by Daesh, which was recaptured in 2017 by Iraqi forces and an international coalition that backed them.

A tour of the site, the first of its kind organized by a private museum in Mosul, aimed to boost tourism in the area.

Some 40 visitors, most of them Iraqis, were allowed to walk around the more than 2,000-year-old archaeological site in the golden hour of twilight.

The tourists took selfies in front of impressive colonnades and inspected the reliefs vandalized by Daesh jihadists.

“It has great history” allowing a peek into an ancient civilization, said Luna Batota, a 33-year-old on tour with her Belgian husband.

“A lot of history but at the same time a lot of unfortunate events took place here with Daesh,” she said.

Batota works for a pharmaceutical company in Belgium, where she has lived since the age of nine.

Twenty-four years later, this is the first time she has returned to her homeland.

Visiting Hatra stirred up “mixed feelings” for her, she said. “You see bullet holes, you see many empty bullets.”

An important religious and trading center under the Parthian empire, Hatra had imposing fortifications and magnificent temples, blending Greek and Roman architectural styles with oriental decorative elements.

In 2015, Daesh released a video showing its militants destroying a series of reliefs, firing at them and hacking away at a statue with a pickaxe.

In February, the authorities unveiled three restorations at the site: A Roman-style sculpture of a life-size figure and reliefs on the side of the great temple.

Five years after the defeat of Daesh, Mosul and its surroundings have regained a sense of normalcy, even as rehabilitation efforts suffer setbacks and many areas still bear the scars of the fight against the militants.

The tour of Hatra was organized by the Mosul Heritage House, a private museum inaugurated in June.

But even before it, the site drew individual visitors, according to one of the organizers, Fares Abdel Sattar, a 60-year-old engineer.

This new initiative seeks to “showcase the heritage and identity” of Mosul and its broader Nineveh province, he said.

After its rise to power in 2014 and the conquest of swathes of Iraq and Syria, Daesh faced counteroffensives in both countries. Iraqi forces finally claimed victory in late 2017.

As Iraq gradually opens up to foreign tourism, dozens of visitors — particularly from the West — are now exploring the country, with some even venturing into Mosul.

The Hatra group are pioneers, visiting at a time when the US, British and other governments are warning their citizens against travel to Iraq, citing the risks of terrorism, kidnapping, armed conflict and civil unrest.

The tourism sector also suffered a setback with the case of British pensioner James Fitton, who was detained and condemned to 15 years in jail over pottery shards he picked at an archaeological site, before a court in July overturned the sentence and he flew back home.

Challenges remain and tourist infrastructure is still basic in Iraq, a country rich in oil but ravaged by decades of fighting.

“Mosul isn’t only war, Daesh, terrorism,” said Beriar Bahaa Al-Din, a doctoral student in anthropology at the University of Exeter in Britain, on the Hatra visit.

“Mosul is a civilization, heritage, culture,” he added. “This impressive site should be full of tourists from across the globe.”

Setting out plans to help with soaring energy bills, new Prime Minister Liz Truss confirmed she will reverse the ban on fracking in the UK.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique for recovering gas and oil from shale rock.

It was halted in the UK in 2019 amid opposition from green groups and local concerns over earth tremors, but there had been calls to rethink its use, given the soaring cost of energy.

What Is Fracking?

Fracking involves drilling into the earth and directing a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals at a rock layer in order to release the gas inside.

The wells can be drilled vertically or horizontally in order to release the gas. The term fracking refers to how the rock is fractured apart by the high-pressure mixture.

Why Is It Controversial?

The injection of fluid at high pressure into the rock can cause earth tremors – small movements in the earth’s surface. More than 120 tremors were recorded during drilling at Cuadrilla’s New Preston Road site.

Seismic events of this scale are considered minor and are rarely felt by people – but are a concern to local residents.

Shale gas is also a fossil fuel, and campaigners say the resumption of fracking risks distracting energy firms and governments from investing in renewable and green sources of energy.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said doubling down on fossil fuels is a “ludicrous” answer to the energy crisis, given the threat that climate change poses to the planet and future generations.

As part of her package of measures Liz Truss has also ordered a review of the UK’s plans to reduce its emissions to zero by 2050. She said this must be delivered in a way that is “pro-business and pro-growth”.

An anti-fracking protester writes messages on a wall in Lancashire

Fracking also uses huge amounts of water, which must be transported to the site at significant environmental cost.

What Happens Next?

Setting out plans to help households and businesses with soaring energy bills, Liz Truss confirmed she would allow fracking to resume.

She said developers will be able to seek planning permission “where there is local support”, which it’s hoped “could get gas flowing in as soon as six months”.

Previous fracking by Cuadrilla in Cumbria was controversial with local communities. In 2018, before the ban came into affect test drilling faced many delays from protests, including one which lasted almost 100 hours.

In the face of opposition, and concerns from the Oil and Gas Authority, fracking was halted in the UK in 2019.

But in April 2022, following the Russia invasion of Ukraine and rising energy bills, the government said “all options” were on the table to help boost the UK’s domestic energy supply.

Then Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng asked the British Geological Survey (BGS) to consider any changes to the science around the controversial practice.

When the government announced that fracking could resume, it initially announced it would publish the BGS report, which it said “suggests more drilling is required to establish data on shale resources and seismic impacts”. However, the report has not yet been published.

The Scottish and Welsh governments continue oppose fracking, and say they will not use their powers to grant drilling licences.

Fracking for shale gas in the UK has only taken place on a small scale, and faced several public and legal challenges.

It was indefinitely suspended after an inconclusive report by the Oil and Gas Authority into earth tremors.

Exploration during that period identified large swathes of shale gas across the UK, particularly in northern England.

It took nearly 20 years of dogged detective work and a trail which crossed continents before the case of the missing $1m relic could be closed.

“A cherished piece of history [is] finally going home,” said a US official at a ceremony marking the occasion.

That piece of history is a small silver coin rich in symbolism, minted during a Jewish revolt nearly 2,000 years ago.

Looted in Israel in 2002, it was eventually tracked down, seized and is being returned to where it came from.

The saga began when the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) learned from informants that the coin had been taken by Palestinians from a hoard unearthed in the Ella Valley, south of Jerusalem.

The IAA says it spent the next decade and a half trying to locate the coin, which passed through illicit antiquities markets in Israel, Jordan and the UK. It was eventually exported to the US for sale at an auction in Denver, Colorado, in 2017.

The IAA alerted US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which then took administrative custody of the coin. The investigation was passed to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU), which obtained a court order to repatriate the coin based on information from informants in five countries along with help from authorities in Europe and the Middle East.

The coin was handed over on Monday in a ceremony at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office attended by US and Israeli officials, including Israel’s ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan.

“Today we join our partners to return an incredibly rare piece of Israel’s history, the quarter shekel coin, a symbol of independence from the time of Roman presence in what is now modern Israel,” HSI agent Ricky J Patel told the gathering.

The silver coin, embossed with Jewish motifs, is one of only four of its kind known to be in existence. The IAA dated it to 69 AD – the fourth year of the Great Revolt.

The minting of a such a coin was “in fact a declaration of independence by the Jews in the land of Israel, a statement against the mighty empire that stood before them”, said Ilan Hadad of the IAA.

The Great Revolt saw a rebellion by Jews in Judea against oppressive rule by the Romans, who had ended Jewish independence there a century earlier.

The uprising culminated with the Romans’ destruction of Jerusalem and the second Jewish temple in 70 AD.

Estimates put the number of Jews killed from hundreds of thousands to more than a million.

The little settlement called Nok village is located in Jaba Local government down in the southern part of Kaduna State, up in northern Nigeria, which frequently attracts visitors.

There is no doubt as to Nok’s universal fame, across the academia and all over the world. Antiquities from Nok adorn great museums and galleries across the globe in different parts of the world.

But despite the coveted place of Nok history in world culture of first African civilization, the little village in whose honour the famed artifacts are named remain a rustic hamlet to this day.

For a first time visitor to Southern Kaduna, the first point of call may, perhaps, be Nok village which hosts a government established museum where casings containing unique terracotta carvings and antique objects are kept.

This passion to visit the village widely acclaimed for its massive quantities of ginger plantations and breathtaking mountains is understandable.

Right through history, Nok culture has taken the form of the heady attraction which exists naturally between a bee and a honey comb.

Tourists from around the world have taken the pains to take a trip into the rural enclave to see, firsthand, the globally acclaimed site of Africa’s first civilization and perhaps the spot where life sized terracotta carvings were first discovered.

Textbooks have been written about Nok culture that serve as a source of cultural instruction and inspiration for thousands of Nigerian students and their counterparts from around the African continent.

Entire websites have been dedicated to projecting the image of Nok which has been seen in many quarters as the root of the black man’s romance with the first impressions of modern technology.

The view perhaps has received a national stamp of authority with the sitting of a modern structure to accommodate some of the relics of this unique culture which has escaped the pilfering fingers of art thieves and corrupt collectors.

But in the midst of the massive volume of information about the Nok culture that presently exists in numerous institutions, museums, web sites, text books and literature around the world, no one seems to have spared an thought for Chori, a little sleepy village enclosed warmly within an imposing range of massive rocky formation that leaves one with an enchanting sense of awe at the workmanship of a supreme being who till date still keeps peeping excitedly at the aesthetic beauty his work exudes.

With its exquisite and precious antiquities as well as tales such as this, it is easy to understand why foreign tourists and scholars flood Nok.

Several Archeologist including German researchers, Professor Peter Bronnick and Dr. Nikol Robb have worked at Nok for a month.

The Nok Museum have great potentials endowed with 10 archaeological sites under Nok, and can easily boasts of the greatest collections of artifacts.” with the host of a mini-gallery, where priceless antiquities are kept.

Patuxai is a war monument which name literally means Victory Gate or Gate of Triumph, located in the center of Vientiane, Laos on the end of Lane Xang Avenue, the road that leads to the Presidential Palace.

The Patuxai is dedicated to those who fought in the struggle for independence from France, which was obtained in 1949.

With its crenelated upper level topped with five ornate towers in the traditional Laos style, the monument cuts a distinctive figure on the Vientiane skyline.

Built between 1957 and 1968 using a funds from the US Government, it is sometimes nicknamed the ‘vertical runway’ as the cement used was intended for the construction of a new airport.

There are also seven floors that have administrative offices. gift shops, museum and upper viewing galleries.

As Laos was named as World’s Most Peaceful Country, Indonesia gave to Laos a peace gong for the memorial which is now standing at the northern end of the park. It is the most peaceful yet, a place for “recharging your batteries” and continue exploring Laos.