ROME – Archaeologists on Tuesday unveiled what they think are the remains of Roman emperor Nero's extravagant banquet hall, a circular space that rotated day and night to imitate the Earth's movement and impress his guests. The room, part of Nero's Golden Palace, a sprawling residence built in the first century A.D., is thought to have been built to entertain government officials and VIPs, said lead archaeologist Francoise Villedieu.
The emperor, known for his lavish and depraved lifestyle, ruled from 37 A.D. to 68 A.D.
The dig so far has turned up the foundations of the room, the rotating mechanism underneath and part of an attached space believed to be the kitchens, she said.
"This cannot be compared to anything that we know of in ancient Roman architecture," Villedieu told reporters during a tour of the cordoned-off dig.
She said the location of the discovery atop the Palatine Hill, the rotating structure and references to it in ancient biographies of Nero make the attribution to the emperor most likely.
The partially excavated site is part of the sumptuous residence, also known by its Latin name Domus Aurea, which rose over the ruins of a fire that destroyed much of Rome in A.D. 64.
The purported main dining room, with a diameter of over 50 feet (16 meters), rested upon a 13-foot (4-meter) wide pillar and four spherical mechanisms that, likely powered by a constant flow of water, rotated the structure.
The discovery was made during routine maintenance of the fragile Palatine area, officials said.
Latin biographer and historian Suetonius, who chronicled his times and wrote the biographies of 12 Roman rulers, refers to a main dining room that revolved "day and night, in time with the sky."
Angelo Bottini, the state's top official for archaeology in Rome, said the ceiling of the rotating room might have been the one mentioned by Suetonius, who wrote of ivory panels sliding back and forth to shower flowers and perfumes on the guests below.
"The heart of every activity in ancient Rome was the banquet, together with some form of entertainment," Bottini said at the dig. "Nero was like the sun, and people were revolving around the emperor."
That part of the palace — which sprawled across nearly 200 acres (80 hectares) occupying parts of four out of Rome's seven ancient hills — offered a panoramic view over the Roman Forum and a lake, later drained by Nero's successors to build the Colosseum, Bottini said.
Described by Suetonius as one of Rome's most cruel, depraved and megalomaniac rulers, Nero often indulged in orgies and, fancying himself an artist, entertained guests with his own performances of poetry and songs.
However, Nero did not enjoy the frescoed halls and gold-encrusted ceilings of his Golden Palace for too long. It was completed in A.D. 68 — the year the unpopular emperor committed suicide amid a revolt.

GOTEBORG, Sweden – Hulking gray naval frigates fanned out across the Gulf of Aden have combined with monsoon storms to sharply reduce pirate attacks in the world's busiest shipping lanes in recent weeks.
But the commanding officer of the European Union armada warned Tuesday that it is too early to declare victory over heavily armed Somali pirates in tiny, fast-moving skiffs.
"This is not a thing where we can say 'job done,'" Rear Admiral Peter Hudson said on the sidelines of an EU defense ministers' meeting.
Hudson's warning came as EU officials hailed their anti-piracy flotilla as a resounding success, saying it has helped shepherd hundreds of thousands of tons of World Food Program aid to starving Somalis and foiled 100 pirate attacks since it began patrolling the Gulf nine months ago.
The EU is joined patrolling the region by the United States, which has been at the forefront of fighting piracy, and NATO, Japan, South Korea, and China.
On Saturday, Turkish marines operating under NATO command captured seven pirates before they could attack two Panamanian-flagged freighters.
Earlier this year, U.S. Navy snipers from the USS Bainbridge killed three Somali pirates holding hostage the American captain of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship, which had been captured April 8 off Somalia.
And just a month ago, pirates opened fire at a helicopter from the American guided missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville as it flew over a Taiwanese ship being held hostage near the Somali port of Hobyo.
The EU mission, originally slated to last one year, has been extended by a further 12 months to end in December 2010.
Dutch Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop visited the Dutch ship currently commanding the EU fleet over the weekend and also praised the naval effort, which helps protect an estimated 35,000 merchant ships that ply the Gulf each year.
But Van Middelkoop cautioned that some merchant ships continue to try to slip through the pirate-infested waters unprotected rather than wait to join a convoy with naval escort, figuring that any delay in delivering their freight will cost them money.
"We can't be responsible for them," Van Middelkoop said. "I would appeal to them: Please don't do it, it is much more responsible to take a certain financial loss and arrive safely than risk being hijacked."
Piracy in the Gulf of Aden soared as the rule of law crumbled in Somalia and organized criminal gangs ramped up the lucrative business of holding ships, their crews and cargos to ransom.
Choppy seas whipped up by monsoon storms largely confine the small skiffs to their home ports during the summer months, but Hudson said that the monsoon season is nearly finished and with it will end the lull in pirate attacks.
"So it's not victory — far from it — but we've had a good period of weather that has been supportive of us," he said. "The weather is now back on the side of the pirates and I would expect to see activity increase."
There have been 169 pirate attacks reported off the Horn of Africa this year, including 35 successful hijackings, according to Risk Intelligence, a Danish-based maritime security firm that has tracked pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa since 2004. In all of 2008 there were 46 hijackings in 141 attempts, said Hans Tino Hansen, the company's director.
He said that since May there have only been 37 attacks, five of them successful. "The EU has done a great job, but the recent dive has mostly been due to weather conditions," Hansen said.
EU defense ministers meeting in this Swedish port city of Goteborg on Tuesday said they would look into training Somali security forces in either Djibouti or Uganda as a way of boosting the bloc's eight-ship anti-piracy flotilla. France already is running a training camp in Djibouti.

"Piracy is not going to be solved at sea alone," Hudson said. "The solution to piracy ... rests in Somalia."

What to do with captured pirates remains a vexing issue among the world's navies. Many have been transported to Kenya for trial, and the Dutch — who are prosecuting five pirates captured by a Danish ship — are keen to have an international piracy tribunal in the country.

Hudson said the EU also is close to finalizing a deal with the Seychelles for that country to take custody of captured pirates. Even so, some pirates just have their weapons and equipment destroyed and are then released back onto dry land in Somalia.

Part of the success of the EU mission is its cooperation with other navies, Hudson said.

European commanders swap information with other ships to ensure the best possible coverage of the vast area and alert one another to attacks.

"Exchanging tactical information with the (Chinese navy), is not something we expected to be doing a year ago," Hudson said. "But we are now doing it and China is involved in our secure chat rooms, we exchange tactical information."

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
A top general's warning that the Afghan war could be lost without more troops puts US President Barack Obama on perilous political ground, between his military and an increasingly skeptical public.

US and NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal's blunt assessment, in a classified report partly published by The Washington Post, adds an explosive element to a quickening debate over war strategy.

McChrystal cautioned that failing to gain the initiative against the Taliban insurgency within 12 months could make victory impossible.

Given timelines for allocating military resources, Obama appears to face a narrow window for making fateful evaluations on whether to send more soldiers into the unpopular eight-year war.

The White House insists it will not be rushed into decisions with critical political implications, saying it could be "many weeks" before Obama makes a recommendation.

The administration also suggests McChrystal is just one of several voices Obama will take into account.

"We're soliciting and receiving advice and assessments from a broad range of those who are directly involved," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday.

Obama believes clear goals must be defined in Afghanistan before more troops are sent.

"We're going to conduct that strategic assessment and do that in a way that lays out the best path forward before we make resource decisions, rather than having this go the other way around where one makes resources decisions and then finds a strategy," his spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Increasingly, it seems the White House is examining the core rationale for US involvement in Afghanistan after Obama laid out a plan in March to "disrupt, defeat and dismantle Al-Qaeda."

Several times during television interviews Sunday, Obama stressed a narrow definition of war aims.

"We're going to test whatever resources we have against our strategy, which is if by sending young men and women into harm's way, we are defeating Al-Qaeda," he said on ABC.

"(If) that can be shown to a skeptical audience -- namely me, somebody who is always asking hard questions about deploying troops -- then we will do what's required to keep the American people safe."

Whether that can best be achieved with a bigger US force, and a full Iraq-style counter-insurgency strategy, appears to be under review.

It is possible that the leaking of the McChrystal report indicated some frustration at White House deliberations in the Pentagon.

Admiral Michael Mullen, the most senior US military officer, told lawmakers last week that accelerating the training of the Afghan army will not be sufficient, and that more US troops will probably need to go to Afghanistan.

And one US defense official admitted privately there was indeed some impatience over the White House timeline.

As well as domestic political forces, events in Afghanistan and an apparently fraud-tainted election are also weighing on Obama's decision.

McChrystal's report may indicate the Pentagon is invested in a full-blown counter-insurgency strategy that would require thousands more than the 65,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan.

But public opinion is souring swiftly on the war, as US and civilian casualties rise.

A CNN Opinion Research poll last week showed record US opposition to the war with 58 percent of respondents against the conflict.

That makes a tough political environment for Obama, who partly rose to power opposing one unpopular war, in Iraq, and who now must decide whether to escalate another.

Some of Obama's top Democratic allies in Congress also are keen to further slow White House decision making, and stave off more troop deployments.

Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Monday he agreed with McChrystal that "additional resources" would be required, but emphasized expanding the size and capability of the Afghan army and police.

House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi has warned there was not a "great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan" in the Congress or across the country.

Republicans, who broadly support the idea of more troops for Afghanistan, are piling pressure on Obama for a swift decision.

"It's time for the president to clarify where he stands on the strategy he has articulated, because the longer we wait the more we put our troops at risk," said Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner.

Bob Woodward’s Monday-morning exclusive on a 66-page report from Gen. Stanley McChrystal to President Barack Obama about Afghanistan policy was a rite of passage for the new administration: the first major national security leak and a sure sign that the celebrated Washington Post reporter has penetrated yet another administration.
White House officials greeted the leak with a grimace, but none suggested they’d begin a witch hunt for the leaker. Woodward is famous for his access to the principals themselves — he recently traveled to Afghanistan with National Security Adviser James Jones — and leak hunters couldn’t expect with confidence that they’d find themselves disciplining just an undisciplined junior staffer.
But inside the White House and out, the leak touched off another familiar Washington ritual: speculation about the leaker’s identity and motives.
This is a capital parlor game that, for the Obama administration, has some dire implications. Unless the West Wing somehow orchestrated an elaborate head fake — authorizing what looks at first blush like an intolerable breach of Obama’s internal deliberations — the Woodward story suggests deeper problems for a new president than a bad news cycle.
Woodward — like other reporters, only more so — tends to shake loose information when he can exploit policy conflicts within an administration. There is now a big one over a critical national security decision, along with evidence that some people who ostensibly work for Obama feel they can pressure him with impunity. It took several years within former President George W. Bush’s administration before deep personal and policy fissures became visible.
So who did it?
The simplest theory — and one most administration officials Monday were endorsing — is that a military or civilian Pentagon official who supports McChrystal’s policy put it out in an attempt to pressure Obama to follow McChrystal’s suggestion and increase troop levels in Afghanistan.
But not everyone in Washington is a believer in Occam’s razor, so all manner of other theories flourished.
There are believers in the reverse leak, in which the leak itself is meant to damage McChrystal’s position by inducing White House anger at the general. There’s the fake leak, in which the White House may have been trying to back itself into a corner. A former government official with ties to the Pentagon said the talk in the building was that a senior military official had given it to the reporter for his book on the Obama White House — not realizing it could end up in print sooner.
“That places the ball clearly in the president’s court,” former Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen said, noting that Obama had already publicly placed his trust in McChrystal’s judgment.
“It’s an effort — whether by [McChrystal] or by somebody in the Pentagon or maybe the White House — to say, ‘You’ve asked the military to give you not what you want to hear but what you have to know. Now it’s up to you as commander in chief to decide if you think you have a better idea.’”
The leak is a shot across the bows, he said, of Vice President Joe Biden and of leading congressional Democrats who oppose a buildup in Afghanistan.
Another Clinton veteran with experience in national security matters was not so sure, however, that Obama wasn’t helped by a piece that lays the public ground for an inevitable troop escalation. “This thing has to have some airing and consideration by the public — so in the tactical sense, there’s a benefit to considering it,” the official said.
But some said all this speculation may be overthinking the matter. Many people in Washington, after all, are motivated by personal vanities as much as by policy convictions.
“It’s most likely someone who has or is cultivating a personal relationship with Bob Woodward and positioning himself to look good in Woodward’s next book,” said Matt Bennett, vice president at the Democratic-leaning think tank Third Way, echoing the views of many inside government and out.
The history of Woodward sources portrayed as heroes is long, including the likes of Colin Powell and, for a time, George W. Bush. But Woodward’s take on the Bush administration also changed dramatically with time, and some portrayed positively in his early books were savaged in the later ones.
Whatever the motive, the appearance of McChrystal’s report makes it more difficult for Obama to defer, through an extensive series of consultations, a decision over which side he will take in a debate over the recommendation of adding more soldiers and civilians to a more robust mission with the goal of giving Afghanistan — perhaps for the first time — a strong, functioning central government. The release follows a letter from a range of Obama’s usual critics — from neoconservative foreign policy thinkers to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Bush adviser Karl Rove — pressing Obama to follow just that policy.
“The Pentagon hasn’t changed and there are a lot of people within the Pentagon who understand the strategic use of the leak,” said Heather Hurlburt, executive director of the Democratic-leaning National Security Network. One possibility you have to look at is this being leaked by someone who is in league with the neocon assault on Obama, where anything short of ‘all in’ is framed as weak and a defeat.”

In the larger sense, the document’s contents are completely unsurprising — McChrystal’s views were widely known, and the assessment just spells them out. But giving the document to a brand name like Bob Woodward, who has a flair for the dramatic, ensures big play in The Washington Post and broad pickup by other media.

“This leak would, by all appearances, be the act of someone who supports an increase in troop strength and resources,” said Kevin Kellems, a communications director for former Vice President Dick Cheney, who noted that “the power of Woodward going on page A1 is exceptional” in its ability to dictate to wire services and cable outlets, a vanishing power of the newspapers. “This is the act most likely of a civilian who is an advocate of this position and believes they were right to do this because lives were at stake.”

Third Way’s Bennett, whose group backs a bigger commitment in Afghanistan, said he thought the document would do McChrystal’s position more harm than good.

“It’s not going to pressure the president to go the way they want him to go,” he said. “It’s going to annoy people in the White House, and that’s never a good idea.”

Others argued that the White House itself benefits from the leak.

“It’s a helpful thing to have out in the ether for the White House,” said Dan Senor, a former spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, who said the report would help beat back criticism on the left. “I think the White House wants to convey how much pressure they’re under from the military,” he said, adding that he wouldn’t speculate on the source of the leak.

Others simply welcomed the fact that the leak might force a quicker decision on an urgent question.

“It at least, for the first time, gives people a tangible picture of what the recommended options are, and it to some extent forces the issue,” said Anthony Cordesman, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has been critical of an Afghan buildup. “The tendency in the White House is to try and slip this until health care and possibly the economy are taken care of, but nobody has that kind of time.”

-- Mike Allen and Kendra Marr contributed to this story.

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