Jordan battles to regain 'priceless' Christian relics. 29 March 2011Last updated at 06:30 By Robert Pigott BBC News religious affairs correspondent They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave. They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born.
A group of 70 or so "books", each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007. A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol. A Jordanian Bedouin opened these plugs, and what he found inside might constitute extremely rare relics of early Christianity.
That is certainly the view of the Jordanian government, which claims they were smuggled into Israel by another Bedouin. Jordan says it will "exert all efforts at every level" to get the relics repatriated. Six Moldovan 'uranium smugglers' arrested. 29 June 2011Last updated at 18:05 ET Moldovan authorities seized another form of uranium - Uranium-238 - last year Moldovan police have arrested six people suspected of trying to sell a type of uranium that can be used in nuclear weapons.
Those held wanted to sell more than 1kg (2.2lb) of uranium-235 with a value of at least $20m (14m euros; £12m), an official said. The were conflicting reports as to whether the men were accused of trying to sell the uranium to an African country, or to an African national. Four of the suspects are Moldovan. Two others are from the breakaway Trans-Dniester region, one of whom also holds Russian citizenship, Vitalie Briceag, an official from the interior ministry, told reporters on Wednesday.
Police seized 1.8kg of uranium-238 in Moldova's capital, Chisinau, last year. Uranium-238 is the most commonly found, naturally occurring form of the substance. The type needed for nuclear fuel and weapons is the less common uranium-235. E-books in this category: Robotics. How to Publish Your Book on Amazon Kindle. Review of Comparing Book Publishing Applications: Lulu, WeBook, Blurb ... January 23rd, 2009 When comparing book applications there’s one thing to keep in mind: what’s the purpose. Say you’ve got a manuscript and you want to put it out there, bring it to the world, and for that you may want application that can print it, slap an ISBN on it, and send it out for distribution as widely as possible.
What if, though, you have a personal project? Or a few poems but not enough for a book? This is why the applications that we’ve reviewed this week each have benefits of their own. This week we reviewed Lulu, Qoop, Blurb, and WeBook, keeping in mind that not all users want the same thing, but measuring the features of each as publishing platforms. For printing applications, the first trick was to establish what the user needs. Additional services Lulu provides include book scanning (perfect for preserving vintage sources), videos, calendars, and a range of other printed formats. Clean and attractive, Blurb is the most versatile of the layout tools, with a catch. Forum - Analysis - POD Lulu vs Blurb. As commercial book publishing crashes, personal book publishing is booming.
Personal book making entails printing high-quality books in very small quantities, including quantities of one. New technologies permit anyone to print one copy of a softcover or hardcover book, including all-color photo books. These printed-on-demand books are indistinguishable from commercially printed books. In fact, some of the books you buy on Amazon are manufactured with this same technology. You just can’t tell the difference. However, being able to print as few as one copy — instead of a minimum of a thousand — shifts the economics of bookmaking toward individuals with more passion than money. For the past two years I’ve been producing high-quality books in very small quantities using several different services.
Having tried most of the services available and created dozens of books, I’m ready to recommend the best services to use. My recommendation for the best personal color book printer is Blurb. Book Livro Publish. Lightning Source. Self Publishing, Publish a Book, Children's Book Publisher | Trafford. Publishing Your Book. WritersMarket.com. An Incomplete Guide to POD Publishers. Even though these days most POD publishers offer eBook publishing as an option, you may be better off considering both of these things separately... and as a result you may also want to steer clear of those publishers that bundle their eBook services with their publishing packages. There are two main reasons for this. The first one is that both kinds of publishing are different and call for different business models. The second one is that self-publishing an electronic version is a lot easier than self-publishing a printed one and even where going at it completely alone is not an option (as is the case with Apple's iBookstore), there are outfits out there that are geared specifically towards this end and offer you what are in essence much better deals.
On the legal (down)side of things, beware of the fact that most of the services listed below reserve the right to revise the terms of their user agreements whenever and however they see fit and that does represent problem. What Should I Read Next?