Yes you are quite right

you just stick something like

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="600">
in the head section of your html document. The thing is that it is not good to take over the refresh control of a users browser because it can really get on your nerves, especially if you trying to read something.

Also you have to think about how people use the web. Most people don't stay on one page and just keep reloading it, often people browse lots of pages and just keep coming back to the homepage, to look for new news or you can put the new box on every page,that way when ever the user changes pages the script will automatically check for new news items.

Speaking from experiance I think that you are getting into a situation of over development where while you are testing the script is really tedius, so you are trying to create what of automating it but in real life you just end up taking the automation that you have spend hours out because it is just not practical or useful.

(My 2 cents worth)