A delegation from Easter Island is preparing to visit London to ask for the return of a huge statue from the British Museum.

The 2.5-meter basalt figure has been part of the museum's collection since 1869 -- but now the islanders want it back.

500-year-old sculptures confirmed as Michelangelo's only surviving bronzes

Easter Island, known as Rapa Nui in the local language and governed by Chile, is famous for the moai statues that dot its landscape.

A delegation including Carlos Edmunds, president of the council of Rapa Nui elders, and Felipe Ward, Chile's minister for national property, will travel to London to underline the significance of the moai and discuss its future. The group will arrive in the UK capital next week, the Guardian reported.

Welcome to Reddah Ideas!

To help build the best reddah experiences across reddah.com, we've created this subReddah, a place designed to let your voice be heard. Reddah Ideas, formerly Reddah Feedback, has been re-imagined from the ground up to maximize your impact on our development process. 

Introducing Idea Drives

Idea Drives are the way for you to provide input on new reddah features.

• Idea Drive Collection: we'll gather your ideas about a specific feature or a topic for a set period 
• Idea Drive Voting: after the Collection phase, you'll have an opportunity to vote and comment 
• Idea Drive Completion: Feature Teams will review the results of your voting, as well as your comments 

Although we can't guarantee any specific ideas will be implemented, we'll ensure that your ideas and comments are a key influence on future innovations.

Using Reddah Ideas

You can add suggestions, votes, and comments to active Idea Drives or suggest an Idea Drive!

• Select an active Idea Drive from the “Idea Drives” section 
• Search for your idea or submit a new suggestion 
• Ideas are then reviewed for clarity, language, and impact 

Feature Teams regularly review your suggestions and comments during an Idea Drive. Is there a feature or topic that you think is ready for an Idea Drive? Please leave a comment here :)

Amanda Knox, whose legal drama gripped the world after she was accused of murder in Italy, is engaged to her longtime boyfriend. 

Knox and her now fiance, Christopher Robinson, have dated for three years and announced their engagement in a video posted on social media Friday. 

The proposal happened at their home in Seattle, and featured an alien theme. It starts with Knox going outside after she hears weird noises and finding what looks like a meteorite with blue light glowing in the backyard. 

As Knox laughs nervously and asks what's happening, she finds a tablet with an overview of their love story. 

"I had been thinking about this, but it's already happened in the future," Robinson says in the video. "It's happening now. I don't have a ring, but I do have a big rock. Will you stay with me until the last star in the last galaxy burns out and even after that? Amanda Marie Knox, will you marry me?"

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Carlos Ghosn saved two companies. After the Nissan chair's arrest for financial abuses, his legacy is in doubt

By letting Saudi Arabia get away with the murder of US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the President sent a message of startling clarity about how the United States will conduct its business in the world.

Durham University PhD student Matthew Hedges and his wife Daniela Tejada.

A British academic has been sentenced to life in prison for spying in the United Arab Emirates, according to a family spokeswoman.

Matthew Hedges, 31, and a specialist in Middle Eastern studies at Durham University in England, was arrested on May 5 by UAE officials when he was leaving Dubai airport after a research trip. He had previously been held in solitary confinement for almost six months on spying allegations, but was released on bail last month.

Nikita Bernardi, a spokeswoman for the Hedges family, said that Hedges had been sentenced to "life in prison following a five-minute hearing in which he had no legal representation."

https://article.xuexi.cn/html/8948815274407524924.html

Revelers are ringing in 2019 with celebrations spanning the globe.

From Sydney's Opera House to New York's Times Square and beyond, fireworks will illuminate the night sky in parties festooned with confetti and sparklers.

We'll be adding photos to this story throughout the day as the clock strikes midnight in each time zone.

Fireworks light up the sky in front of the Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

People attend New Year's celebrations in Seoul, South Korea.

Fireworks explode over the Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong.

A reveler wears glasses during a party in Quezon City, Philippines.

Tropical Storm Pabuk is expected to make landfall about 7 p.m. local time Friday (5 a.m. ET) near the Chumphon archipelago, on the eastern border of Thailand's Surat Thani and Nakhon Si Thammarat provinces, but heavy rain has already arrived.

Tourist hotspots in the Gulf of Thailand, including Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao islands, along with islands in the Andaman Sea such as Phuket and Koh Phi Phi -- made famous by the movie "The Beach" -- are expected to be affected by the storm.

"We are still compiling the number of evacuees. I can say several thousand people for over 16 provinces," government spokesman Putthipong Punnakanta told CNN by phone.

"It is high season, there are many foreign tourists at popular destinations. We have informed them in advance since two days ago. I would say most of them have left islands and come to the mainland."

Phuwieng Prakhammintara, director general of Thailand's Meteorological Department, told CNN the storm could cause waves as high as seven meters (22 feet), but that waves were more likely to reach 3 to 5 meters in height.

Schools in coastal areas are to be closed and Thailand's armed forces are on standby for Pabuk's arrival.

Thai men move a fishing boat to a safer location in Songkhla, southern Thailand, in preparation for storm weather conditions on Thursday.

Bangkok Airways announced the cancellation of all flights to and from Koh Samui on Friday "for safety reasons." Affected passengers will be able to rebook their flights without paying fees or charges, the airline said.

After crossing the Chumphon Archipelago the storm will, if the current track holds, make a second landfall over Surat Thani province early Saturday.

Existing threats

The forest is being cut down to make way for activities like cattle ranching, soy bean farming, mining, hydropower dams and new highways.

Deforestation fell dramatically between 2004 and 2012, but in recent years it has been increasing, and the powerful agricultural lobby in the Brazilian congress is pushing for more development of the forest. It endorsed Bolsonaro during his election campaign.

A fire burns trees next to grazing land in the Amazon basin on November 22, in Ze Doca, Brazil, 2014. Fires are often set to clear forest for grazing land.

Indigenous lands

Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture is heavily influenced by the agricultural lobby. Soon after taking office this week, Bolsonaro signed an executive order giving the ministry responsibility for certifying indigenous lands as protected territories.

About 13% of Brazil is legally designated as indigenous land, mostly in the Amazon. That land is reserved for the country's 900,000 indigenous people (less than 0.5% of the population). Indigenous groups said the president's order would lead to "an increase in deforestation and violence against indigenous people."

Franck Ribery warms up during the Bayern Munich training camp in Doha.

"He used words that we, FC Bayern, cannot accept and that Franck does not have the right to use, as a role-model and player of FC Bayern."

The statement added Ribery was invited to try the steak as part of an advertising campaign while on holiday in Dubai.

It denied reports he paid 1200 euros for the steak, but added that Ribery and his family were "savagely attacked" on social media before he "publicly "stood up for his family and fought back."

However, talking at the club's training camp in Doha, Salihamidzic said the response was inappropriate.