*http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,492955,00.html
The World's New Seven Wonders* Voting for the new seven wonders of the world ends on Friday night and the results will be announced on Saturday. But how wonderful will the wonders be? The Vatican suspects an anti-Christian bias. One doubts whether the ancients went through quite as much effort to arrive at its list of the world's seven wonders. The monuments, from the Colossus of Rhodes to the Lighthouse of Alexandria, were all huddled around the Mediterranean Sea. And the list was compiled by a handful of scholars at the Museum of Alexandria. This time around, things are being done a bit differently. On Saturday in Lisbon organizers of the "New 7 Wonders of the World" campaign will present the winners of contest that kicked off at the beginning of the decade -- a search that started with 200 nominations and has involved a team of researchers travelling around the world to narrow down the candidates. Fully 90 million people have cast their ballots for the final seven -- a number representing well over half of the entire world's population when the first list was compiled in 140 BC. "It's so exciting," said Tia B. Viering, a campaign spokeswoman. "This is all about bringing people together, to appreciate each other ... to celebrate diversity." The Acropolis in Athens is among the top 10 as is the Eiffel Tower, the statues on Easter Island, the Chichen Itza pyramid in Mexico, the Taj Mahal in India, Petra in Jordan and the Statue of Christ Redeemer towering over Rio de Janeiro. Other finalists include Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, the Statue of Liberty, the Kremlin, and Stonehenge. The rankings are continuing to fluctuate as voters around the world rush to have their say. The "New 7 Wonders" Web site has now taken down the rankings in the run-up to Saturday's announcement. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
