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This page features brief excerpts of news stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Highlights
Breaking News
This page features brief excerpts of news stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used. Because most of our readers read the NYT we usually do not include the paper's stories in HIGHLIGHTS.
Name of source: Ottowa Citizen
SOURCE: Ottowa Citizen (10-4-06)
The name of the First Special Service Force, better known as the Devil's Brigade, has been censored from all the records that outline which unit has the closest historical military links to Canada's existing commando unit, Joint Task Force 2.
Also censored from the records, released to the Ottawa Citizen under the federal Access to Information law, are the locations where the Devil's Brigade fought in Europe in the 1940s.
The May 2002 records detail that the joint U.S.-Canadian Second World War unit ''never met defeat in battle'' and ''accomplished the most difficult missions with an elan and proficiency that astonished all outside observers, including the Germans.'' It concludes that JTF2 should try to emulate the high standards of the unit, whose name is censored.
But, information referring to the link between the Devil's Brigade and JTF2 is on the Defence Department website and was previously released through other access to information requests.
In 2003 media interviews, a JTF2 spokesman also acknowledged the unit wanted to build strong historical links to the Devil's Brigade and at one point was considering establishing formal ties to the unit.
According to the Defence Department, revealing the words First Special Service Force would be ''injurious to the conduct of international affairs, the defence of Canada or any state allied or associated with Canada or the detection, prevention or suppression of subversive or hostile activities.''
In addition, the name of the First Special Service Force and the locations where it fought were censored because such details are considered part of advice provided to government.
Numerous history books show the First Special Service Force was used in operations in the Aleutian Islands and later fought major battles in Italy. The unit also fought in France before being disbanded.
Canadian Devil's Brigade veteran Bill Story says withholding such information doesn't make sense.
''It's idiotic,'' said Story, executive director emeritus of First Special Service Force Association. ''You can't really censor history.''
The information was censored at the request of JTF2 officers, according to Defence Department officials.
The Devil's Brigade incident is the latest example of a push by the Defence Department to boost the level of secrecy on issues not usually seen as being linked to security concerns.
Among details now being kept from the public are the costs to the department to run individual pieces of equipment, a list that ranges from electric snowblowers to forklifts.
Name of source: Reuters
SOURCE: Reuters (10-5-06)
Local officials said on Thursday that the skeletons of 22 children and 29 adults had been exhumed from the grave in a Catholic church cemetery in the village of Menden-Barge. The exhumation process was still underway.
"We assume that these were victims of the Nazi regime," state prosecutor Ulrich Maass said, pointing to signs that those buried met a violent end, especially the children.
The children's tiny skeletons had been tossed into the grave without coffins and three of them showed signs of physical disability, he said.
Forensic investigators dressed in white anti-contamination suits used an excavator to dig out the bones at the picturesque cemetery. They took notes and photos of the scene, which was roped off.
Next to where the excavator was digging stands a stone monument commemorating the victims of World War Two bombings -- a sign that the reasons for the mass deaths may have been knowingly or unknowingly misrepresented by past officials.
During Hitler's 12-year rule, which ended with the Nazi leader's suicide in 1945, he oversaw the slaughter of six million Jews and other minorities across Germany and Europe.
People with mental and physical disabilities were murdered with poison gas and lethal injections as part of a program aimed at "cleansing" the German gene pool of those the Nazis deemed unfit for a master race of Aryan supermen.
Local church historian Theo Ostermann, who helped bring the grave to the attention of prosecutors, told WDR public television that local residents had long known that as many as 200 war dead were buried at the site but had kept quiet.
"It was at the unveiling of a war memorial in 2000 that a woman said something that caught my attention. She said that dead from a clinic in the neighboring village of Wimbern had been brought here," Ostermann said.
"At this clinic, as is now well known everywhere, euthanasia was practiced," he said.
The prosecutor's office will now look for witnesses and documents from the period. Maass said he had the testimony from a former church assistant who said he saw corpses brought on horse-drawn carts and dumped into the grave.
However, he added it would be difficult to indict anyone 61 years after World War Two and said it would be hard to detect traces of poisons that might have been used to kill the victims.
Maass said he would investigate whether the victims came from a nearby Nazi clinic which was established on the orders of Hitler's personal physician Karl Brandt, who headed the Nazi euthanasia program and was executed after the war.
Once the investigation is completed, officials plan a memorial service at which the dead will be laid to rest.
"These dead will hopefully never again vanish completely from the consciousness of this village," he said.
SOURCE: Reuters (10-4-06)
The 15th-century altar, part of the Aztec empire's main temple, was uncovered last weekend near the city's main Zocalo square along with the 11-foot (3.5-meter) stone slab, most of which is still buried under earth.
"It is a very important discovery, the biggest we have made in 28 years. It will allow us to find out a lot more," Encinas told reporters.
SOURCE: Reuters (9-24-06)
Researchers say the Cahua-chi compound, built in 400 B.C., is just across the Nazca Valley from the lines, one of Peru's most popular tourist attractions and a U.N. World Heritage site.
"It is logical to think that the Nazca people's religious beliefs originated in this ceremonial site and got expressed on the wide-open plain," Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Orefici, who leads research at Cahuachi, said last week.
Name of source: BBC
SOURCE: BBC (10-3-06)
Scientists from University College London, UK, have been analysing grave goods from indigenous burials on Cuba dating to the Spanish contact.
They were surprised to find little gold - which is abundant in the region.
Instead, the most common artefacts were small brass tubes thought to be cheap lacetags from European clothing.
SOURCE: BBC (10-1-06)
Phase one of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project (AHOB) discovered people were here 200,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Phase two has now secured funds to the tune of £1m and will run until 2010.
Team members hope to find out more about Britain's earliest settlers and perhaps unearth their fossil remains.
Name of source: Guardian
SOURCE: Guardian (10-5-06)
Joshua Levine, who spent almost a year listening to the memories of sailors and civilians, many now dead, said: "History is never black and white. Instead it's many shades of grey.
"There was heroism, but there are stories of real people behaving badly under stress, lots of sexual activity, fiddling rations, looting, getting through it all as well as they could.
"This was a crucial time in the whole social structure of the country. All the barriers were down, people were eating the same food, wearing the same clothes, sheltering together. Poor city children were evacuated to much richer families. All the old rules were broken and could never be put back together again. For good or ill the origins of modern Britain lie in this period."
SOURCE: Guardian (9-29-06)
The government and police records, released by the National Archives in Kew, reveal that an informant had warned that the women were members of the suffragette movement - the "half-insane women" then picketing the House of Commons to demand votes for women - and that one of the two was planning to shoot Herbert Asquith, who was known for his implacable opposition to women's suffrage.
Scotland Yard dispatched an inspector to interview the source, and ministers debated a topic not unfamiliar to today's government: how far it was possible, prudent or politically acceptable to get rid of the Westminster pickets.
Name of source: Independent (UK)
SOURCE: Independent (UK) (10-5-06)
The population of the tiny Crown dependency, 20 miles off the French coast, voted yesterday for a new system of government which will mean it is ruled entirely by elected representatives for the first time in its history.
The referendum ends the rule of the Seigneur of Sark - an inherited office which can be traced back to Hellier de Carteret, an aristocrat from Jersey who was granted the island by Elizabeth I in 1565 to keep it free of marauding privateers.
SOURCE: Independent (UK) (10-2-06)
The New Zealand government said, however, that it was "unlikely" that the investigation of the attack on the ship by French government agents would be formally reopened.
The fact that Lieutenant Gérard Royal, of the French intelligence service, was part of the large team of French agents which attacked the ship has been public knowledge for 11 years. Another member of the Royal family, his and Ségolène's brother, Antoine, has now alleged that Gérard actually planted the bomb which damaged the ship and killed a Greenpeace photographer in Auckland harbour in July 1985.
This revelation caused little initial interest in France, but stirred a wave of indignation in New Zealand over the weekend.
SOURCE: Independent (UK) (10-2-06)
Now 1970s perfumes and aftershaves are making a comeback, as a new generation discovers the somewhat questionable joys of Charlie, Brut and Old Spice.
Sales of so-called "heritage scents" are increasing, particularly among younger customers, according to market research by the high-street chain Superdrug.
SOURCE: Independent (UK) (10-2-06)
This week, the Victoria and Albert Museum unveils an exhibition dedicated to the little-known domestic world in which Donatello, Carpaccio, Botticelli and Titian first picked up their paintbrushes. Some of their most important paintings will be displayed in a gallery adapted to recreate the affluent urban homes in which they were originally displayed. It contains rare examples of the fireplaces, fabrics and furniture coveted by the yuppies of the period.
Highlights range from a priceless Lippi oil painting - thought to be the first Italian portrait depicting an interior setting - to the oldest surviving pair of Italian spectacles. The exhibition also shows a 16th-century baby-walker, together with personal items such as metal bodices, pastry cutters and an ear-cleaner.
Name of source: Weekly Standard
SOURCE: Weekly Standard (10-9-06)
Writes Medoff: "The president told Sen. Burton Wheeler (D-Mont.) in August 1939 . . . [that] Mrs. Hull's Jewishness 'would be raised' by [Hull's] opponents. FDR added: 'Mrs. Hull is about one quarter Jewish. You and I, Burt, are old English and Dutch stock. . . . We know there is no Jewish blood in our veins, but a lot of these people do not know whether there is Jewish blood in their veins or not.'"
The political speculation was mooted, of course, by Roosevelt's decision to run for a third term. Hull served as secretary of state until 1944, and received a Nobel Peace Prize the following year.
Name of source: NYT
SOURCE: NYT (10-4-06)
A typical class, perhaps — until the teacher with the shock of white hair rose from the table at the front of the hall, greeted the students and asked a question: “How many of you have experienced a hate crime against yourself? Let’s see the hands.”
So began the lecture by the Rev. James M. Lawson Jr., 78, who returned to teach at Vanderbilt this fall, 46 years after the university expelled him for his role in lunch-counter sit-ins that made Nashville a springboard for a generation of civil rights activists.
SOURCE: NYT (10-4-06)
Researchers at institutions including Cornell, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Utah intend to test the system on hundreds of articles published in 2001 and 2002 on topics like President Bush's use of the term "axis of evil," the handling of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, the debate over global warming and the coup attempt against President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.
SOURCE: NYT (10-3-06)
Saying it ran “counter to the tradition of our great nation,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill on Saturday that would have automatically allocated all the state’s 55 electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate received the national popular vote.
The bill, which passed the state’s Legislature this summer, was devised by John R. Koza, a computer scientist who envisioned a system in which a series of states holding the number of electoral votes needed to elect a president — 270 — would commit their electors to casting ballots for the winner of the popular vote, regardless of how their individual electorates voted.
SOURCE: NYT (10-1-06)
But the sex subcaucus is easily the biggest.
“You always seem to have politicians doing bizarrely self-destructive things, especially involving sex,” says Lawrence Kestenbaum, creator of “Political Graveyard,” a history Web site that includes an exhaustive cataloging of transgressions by politicians.
Under the heading “Politicians Who Were Ever in Trouble or Disgrace,” the section contains 420 entries, in chronological order, many of them involving present and former members of Congress.
SOURCE: NYT (10-2-06)
The account by Sean McCormack came hours after Ms. Rice, the secretary of state, told reporters aboard her airplane that she did not recall the specific meeting on July 10, 2001, noting that she had met repeatedly with Mr. Tenet that summer about terrorist threats. Ms. Rice, the national security adviser at the time, said it was “incomprehensible” she ignored dire terrorist threats two months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mr. McCormack also said records show that the Sept. 11 commission was informed about the meeting, a fact that former intelligence officials and members of the commission confirmed on Monday.
When details of the meeting emerged last week in a new book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, Bush administration officials questioned Mr. Woodward’s reporting.
Now, after several days, both current and former Bush administration officials have confirmed parts of Mr. Woodward’s account.
SOURCE: NYT (10-1-06)
At a news conference at a synagogue opposite Mr. Kepiro’s apartment here, members of the Wiesenthal Center ended what for him had been 60 years of relative anonymity as they issued copies of a recently rediscovered wartime court verdict. The document shows that Mr. Kepiro was charged and found guilty along with 14 other Hungarian Army and paramilitary police officers of taking part in the Novi Sad massacre in northern Serbia in January 1942, in which more than 1,000 people, mostly Jews, were killed.
In an extraordinary scene, Mr. Kepiro returned home from the doctor shortly after the news conference and discovered a crowd of reporters outside his apartment building. Over the next hour, he took questions from reporters at his front door, acknowledging that he had helped round up people before the massacre but denying that he had killed anyone or given orders to shoot.
The massacre, which is known in Serbian history books as the Racija, based on the Serbian word for raid, took place over three days. Hungarian forces, who occupied Novi Sad after their German allies conquered Yugoslavia in 1941, rounded up hundreds of families and eventually mowed them down with machine-gun fire on the shores of the Danube. The bodies were then dumped into the icy waters, which had to be broken up by artillery fire.
SOURCE: NYT (10-1-06)
The insurgency was growing and the country was spiraling into sectarian bloodshed, Mr. Powell warned. Elections in Iraq would not solve the problems, and the president’s ability to act decisively was being crippled by divisions within his own administration, according to the account in “Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell” (Knopf, 2006) by Karen DeYoung, an associate editor at The Washington Post. Mr. Bush appeared disengaged, the book says, and brushed off Mr. Powell’s complaints about dysfunction in his government.
The book is among the latest accounts of the divisions in the administration as it hurtled toward war and stumbled through its aftermath. The Powell biography provides further detail on his early misgivings about the war and the size of the force assembled to fight it, doubts that have been reported in several other books, including those by Ms. DeYoung’s colleague at The Post, Bob Woodward.
SOURCE: NYT (10-1-06)
The holdup was a final eruption of Vietnam-era extremism and a shattering event for Rockland County, which lost two local police officers and a Brink’s guard.
The deep wounds left by that crime were reopened three years ago when Kathy Boudin, who served as a decoy in a getaway car, won parole.
Now, the victims’ families face the prospect of a new trial for another admitted participant, Ms. Clark, who was in another getaway car. On Sept. 21, a federal judge overturned Ms. Clark’s conviction, in a decision that held that she effectively had no legal counsel at her trial in 1983, when she chose to represent herself and then boycotted some of the proceedings.
Name of source: AP
SOURCE: AP (10-3-06)
In 1983, an investigation into dozens of reports of sexual misconduct between House members and pages noted the more permissive nature of society at the time, with the age of consent dropping, sexual mores relaxing and people appreciating ''an increasing recognition of the frailty of human nature.''
Even so, the inquiry stated in so many words: Hands off....
The 1983 inquiry uncovered repeated trysts with pages on the part of Reps. Daniel B. Crane and Gerry Studds, as well as one senior House employee.
These liaisons were consensual in ways that Foley's come-ons apparently were not -- one page described Foley repeatedly as ''sick, sick, sick.''
The consensual nature of Crane's encounters with a page girl and Studds' encounters with a page boy were considered no defense at the time. Not when powerful men in their 30s and 40s and teenagers of 17 or younger were involved.
The page girl told investigators that in the winter of 1980, when she was 17, she made a friendly bet over a basketball game with the 44-year-old congressman for a six pack and, when she lost, took the Heineken to his office.
They ended up in his apartment for the first of at least several sexual episodes over the course of a succession of Thursdays. ''It was my decision just as much as it was his,'' she stated.
The Republican congressman from Illinois was censured by the House and lost his seat in the 1984 election.
The page boy seduced by Studds, D-Mass., said the congressman invited him to his Georgetown home for dinner, and they talked until 4 a.m., drinking vodka and cranberry juice. ''I was told by the congressman that he was too drunk to give me a ride home and so he said, 'Why don't you sleep here?' and I did.''
Thus began a sexual relationship that continued over more dinners and a trip together to Europe.
''I was flattered and excited,'' the page testified. ''If I could have had my druthers, I would have had the friendship that I had with the man without the sex.''
He said ''I was somewhat uncomfortable'' with the sex but ''I did not think it was that big a deal.''
Studds was 36; the page was either 16 or 17 when they first had sex. Studds also was censured but his political career survived until his retirement in the mid-1990s.
SOURCE: AP (10-3-06)
Blurred by odd shadows and striations, the silhouettes are the biggest clues in more than 60 years to the fate of his father's World War II submarine, the USS Grunion, which sank nearly 5,000 miles west of Massachusetts, near the obscure islands at the tip of Alaska's Aleutian chain.
SOURCE: AP (12-31-69)
The Mountain View-based company bought the 1,900-square-foot home in nearby Menlo Park from one of its own employees, Susan Wojcicki, who had agreed to lease her garage for $1,700 per month because she wanted some help paying the mortgage.
Wojcicki, now Google's vice president of product management, didn't work for the company at the time and only knew the Stanford University graduate students because one of her friends had dated Brin.
During Google's five-month history there, the garage became like a second home for Page and Brin.
Name of source: The Australian
SOURCE: The Australian (10-4-06)
The discovery is yet another piece to a puzzle that has fascinated and frustrated historians for more than half a century. The find is the only known link to the Sydney, last seen off Shark Bay, before it was believed to have been sunk on November 19, 1941, by the German raider Kormoran.
All 645 men on board perished, making it the biggest maritime disaster in the nation's history.
But it now seems that at least one sailor may have managed to escape the disaster, only to die on a life raft that eventually washed up on Christmas Island, 2600km northwest of Perth, three months later.
The Royal Australian Navy at the time denied that the mystery man was from the Sydney, despite clothing consistent with navy uniform being found on the body.
A doctor examined the remains and the sailor was buried with full military honours.
But many relatives of those who perished on the light cruiser, desperate for the mystery to be solved, refused to accept the initial denial.
A parliamentary inquiry in 1999 -- nearly 60 years after the event -- found it was highly probable the unknown sailor was a Sydney crewman.
A navy expedition team found the remains very close to the position identified by witnesses to the original burial.
That position was corroborated by separate photographs taken in 1950.
''We are excavating remains in an unmarked grave that may be those of the unknown sailor from the HMAS Sydney,'' expedition leader Captain Jim Parsons said last night.
''Further work will need to be done to establish the characteristics of the skeleton before we can be fully confident.''
The team -- which includes an archeologist, a forensic anthropologist and two forensic odontologists -- have still to remove the remains from the grave.
''The process is long and painstaking, as the complete skeleton has to be exposed and recorded, and all the dirt removed before any bones are removed,'' Captain Parsons said.
''Even then, each bone must be carefully lifted to avoid breakages.
''Subsequent skeletal and dental analysis will be taken to Sydney to possibly identify the remains.''
The remains are expected to be taken to the University of Sydney where forensic pathologists will attempt to establish an identity with dental records and an attempt will be made to recover DNA.
But Captain Parsons said the likelihood of a positive identification was low; only half of the crew's medical and dental records were available.
''All records current at the time were lost with the ship,'' he said.
Name of source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
SOURCE: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (10-2-06)
But a shard of "too-fashionable" pottery stoked his curiosity and led him eventually to claim a thrilling discovery: the site of the home where Pierre Laclede, the founder of St. Louis, likely lived when he first sailed up the Mississippi River from New Orleans.
Name of source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Ed (10-3-06)
A 25-page draft of the commission's proposed Web page on campus anti-Semitism, a set of documents that was obtained by The Chronicle, aims to inform college students about anti-Semitism and the resources available to victims of anti-Semitic harassment or intimidation.
"Many students do not know the rights and protections that they have against anti-Semitic behavior," says the document. The Web page, which will be accompanied by a poster and postcard campaign, encourages witnesses and victims to speak out against anti-Semitism, outlines federal civil-rights statutes protecting students against anti-Semitism, and recommends procedures for reporting anti-Semitic incidents on campuses.
SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Ed (10-2-06)
“This monument is an appropriate way to memorialize the role of the University of Mississippi and James Meredith in opening the doors of higher education to all people across the South,” the university’s chancellor, Robert C. Khayat, said in a written statement released last week. “We hope it will serve as a reminder of the courage of Mr. Meredith and others who led the way in important cultural changes.”
Name of source: Christian Science Monitor
SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor (10-4-06)
They weren't sure what it signified, but they figured their catch of corroded aluminum might be from some sort of aircraft, he recalls. "By looking at the piece and its structure, we knew it wasn't any kind of ship or boat."
During the past 17 years, marine archaeologists have followed that clue from its display on a restaurant wall to Mr. Canepa's meticulous ship logs to the ocean bottom. Last week, researchers completed the first exhaustive survey of the metal chunk's source - the Navy dirigible USS Macon and its small complement of fighter aircraft. Launched in April 1933, the dirigible and four of its planes went down in a storm off Point Sur in February 1935. All but two of its 100-man crew survived. The USS Macon's loss marked the end of one of the most colorful periods in US aviation history.
SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor (10-4-06)
Mr. Ball, a commercial artist, was simply filling a request from Joy Young of the Worcester Mutual Insurance Company to create an image for their "smile campaign" to coach employees to be more congenial in their customer relations. It seems there was a hunger for a bright grin - the original order of 100 smiley-face buttons were snatched up and an order for 10,000 more was placed at once.
The Worcester Historical Museum takes this founding moment seriously.
SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor (9-7-06)
The trend that began vexing cartographers a decade ago when Bombay became Mumbai, Madras became Chennai, and Calcutta became Kolkata has only gained speed. Last month, the "French Riviera of the East" decided it wasn't so French after all, dropping its Francophile name, Pondicherry, for Puducherry.
In part, India is merely sweeping clean the last corners of colonialism - offending few beyond upper-class English-speaking Indians and outsiders who have wrapped India's identity in its anglicized names. In part, its politicians are using words as a tool - sometimes more to divide than to unite.
Name of source: San Francisco Chronicle
SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle (10-3-06)
That makes it a valuable collectible to some of the quarter million registered customers who could bid on it during online auctions scheduled for Friday and Saturday.
SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle (10-2-06)
Thousands of people lived in them from the spring of 1906 to the summer of 1907, when the refugee camps were closed and the shacks were either scrapped or given away.
Just over two dozen still exist, and what to do with them is a dilemma of historic proportions.
The Bernal Heights neighborhood illustrates the problem. Scattered around the hill that rises in the middle of the neighborhood are at least a dozen of the refugee shacks. Most are comfortable small cottages, sometimes made of two of the shacks cobbled together. Some of the shacks have drop-dead views and are worth their weight in dollars.
SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle (9-30-06)
The rakish former pal of George "Machine Gun" Kelly told how he once took six slugs in his backside for not stopping when police yelled "Halt." He decided to keep them, he quipped, "for posterity."
"I was on the top 10 list and didn't even know it," he said, deftly reeling in his rapt audience before delivering the punch line. "I didn't know anybody wanted me."
In the end, everybody -- even the former prison guards on Alcatraz -- wanted Willie Radkay, the last surviving Great Depression-era gangster to be locked up on the Rock.
The man who was shot eight separate times by police and lived to tell about it died of old age on Sept. 24 at in Fort Scott, Kan. It was his 95th birthday.
Name of source: Hartford Courant
SOURCE: Hartford Courant (9-30-06)
But nowadays, Dodd plans to tell the conference, "For 60 years, a single word has best captured America's moral authority and commitment to justice: Nuremberg."
The three-day event at Washington University in St. Louis, being held to review the legacy of the 1945-46 trials of major German war criminals, comes as President Bush prepares to sign landmark legislation creating a new system of justice for suspected terrorists and their allies.
Name of source: Newsweek
SOURCE: Newsweek (10-2-06)
Name of source: Time Europe
SOURCE: Time Europe (10-3-06)
President Jacques Chirac, who attended an advance screening of the film, called the measure "an act of justice and recognition toward all those from France's former Empire who fought under our flag."
It's high time. Nearly a million colonial troops fought for France during the 20th century, but President Charles de Gaulle froze their pensions in 1959, as France's empire was crumbling. The argument was simple, says historian Benjamin Stora: "If they wanted independence, there was no reason to continue adjusting payments." Inflation dropped these pensions to levels 70% or more below the French average. In 2001 France's top administrative court ordered the state to equalize pensions, but the hikes were indexed to the lower cost of living in the former colonies.
Indigènes Indigènes changed that. "It is shocking that it took a film," says its director, Rachid Bouchareb (see full interview). "But that's the role of cinema." The 2007 measure will raise some 80,000 veterans' pensions to the French norm — around €430 a year for wartime service and €690 a month for disability.
Sergeant Mohammed Khaled, 82, who served 14 years in the French army and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery under fire, eagerly awaits the change. He lives in a state-run residence with 13 other veterans in Gien, 150-km south of Paris, and collects a military pension of €71 a month. Khaled, born in Morocco, says while he's "too old" to hold a grudge against France, its pension policies have been unjust.
"We fought the war together with the French, elbow to elbow," he says. But Stora says any sense of reconciliation will remain fleeting unless followed up: "We need new social measures, cultural recognition, a revision of history books, and all that is a long process." True enough, but a fairer shake for Sergeant Khaled and his fellow veterans is a start.
Name of source: Independent (South Africa)
SOURCE: Independent (South Africa) (10-3-06)
Francois Camille Pierre Savorgnan De Brazza founded the city of Brazzaville in 1884 and began to establish the colony that became Republic of Congo after independence from France in 1960. He governed the colony from 1886 to 1897.
De Brazza's family had asked that their forefather be buried in the city he founded and administrated.
Government officials said they wanted to Honor the request and to recognise De Brazza's contributions to the country.
"What interests us here is the humanitarian dimension of De Brazza, his fight against slavery and the abuses and excesses of export companies during the colonial period," Presidency Minister Charles Bowao said. De Brazza is remembered in the Central African country for mounting investigations into charges of exploitation of the native population.
But the move rankled some Congolese, who said immortalising a coloniser was a step backward in history.
"It's a dishonour to the collective memory. Never in history have we seen a country construct a monument in homage to its colonisers," said Lecas Antondi-Momondjo, a historian and teacher at Brazzaville's University Marien Ngoubabi.
"It is a waste to devote so much money to the memory of those who have plundered our wealth and massacred native populations," said Loemba Moke, president of a local human rights organisation. The government says it has spent about AUS$2-million (about R15-million) on the project.
On Tuesday, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso will place De Brazza's remains and those of his wife and four children in a marble mausoleum built specially for the purpose near the Congo River.
The coffins, dug up from their previous resting place in Algeria, were flown into Brazzaville on a commercial flight and put on public display at its city hall until the Tuesday ceremony.
De Brazza was born in Italy in 1852, but later took French citizenship and first travelled to Central Africa on exploratory missions for the French navy.
He died in 1905 in Dakar, the present-day capital of Senegal. He had lived out much of his later years in Algeria.
Name of source: National Security Archive
SOURCE: National Security Archive (10-2-06)
According to Woodward, Kissinger recently gave a Bush aide a copy of a memo he wrote in 1969 arguing against troop withdrawals from Southeast Asia, an issue as salient four decades ago as it is now.
Kissinger's September 10, 1969, advice to President Nixon famously characterized withdrawals from Vietnam as "salted peanuts" to which the American people would become addicted.
The National Security Archive has obtained an original copy of the memo and today is posting it on its Web site along with commentary by Archive Senior Fellow and noted Vietnam expert John Prados, who recently edited a major collection of declassified documents on the Vietnam War. The commentary provides some historical context for the document and draw parallels and distinctions between the situations then and now.
SOURCE: National Security Archive (10-1-06)
The question of how many people died when soldiers and government agents opened fire on a peaceful student protest in Mexico City has long puzzled researchers. Eyewitnesses to the massacre speculated that anywhere from dozens to hundreds may have been killed, while government stonewalling prevented investigators from clarifying the incident.
But recently-opened archives from Mexican military and security agencies have fuelled new efforts to understand what happened at Tlatelolco. Among the thousands of files now available to researchers are records containing the identities of those who died on October 2: eyewitness accounts by government agents, lists of the dead compiled by hospitals and the Red Cross, intelligence reports on the funerals of victims, and autopsy reports. Taken together, these documents offer the first opportunity to compile a list of those killed during the clash at Tlatelolco.
After eight months of research in the Mexican national archives, the National Security Archive has found records documenting the deaths of 44 people: 34 are named, and 10 more remain unidentified. The death of each person is documented in more than one declassified government record. Each one is cross-checked against the available secondary sources. Each one represents a life lost in the senseless attack by government forces on the student movement--an attack that killed not only students but soldiers, workers, a teacher, a housewife, a 15-year old domestic worker, an unemployed father.
"There is no better way to fight a government's lies than with the government’s own records," says senior analyst and Mexico Project director Kate Doyle. "For the first time, Mexicans can unearth hard evidence about the casualties of Tlatelolco, and with it begin to write a more accurate history of what happened."
In an effort to continue compiling documentary evidence about the victims of Tlatelolco, the Archive announces today the launching of a new electronic registry, located on the web site of the Mexico Project. It is a place where the families, friends and colleagues of those lost can go to register the names of their loved ones and related documents, photographs and memories. Through the registry, the Archive hopes to construct a final and definitive list of Tlatelolco's dead.
Name of source: Fredericksburg.com
SOURCE: Fredericksburg.com (10-1-06)
"It's up 10 percent this year, and it was up 3 percent last year," she said. "It's because there's a lot that's new to see here."
The stucco that once covered the main house already has been stripped away, as have the 20th-century additions made by the duPonts, the last family to own Montpelier. Inside, workers are peeling back plaster, replacing floorboards and repairing crumbling brick.
Name of source: Yahoo
SOURCE: Yahoo (9-29-06)
Andrew Connell, 15, was on a hike with his classmates in the Gila Wilderness this spring when the group was distracted by what sounded like an owl. While looking for the bird, he spotted something among the rocks and oak leaves.
It ended up being an almost intact prehistoric bowl that dates back to the time when the Mogollon people lived in the area.
"It's a pretty big deal. To find something intact where it's been for 1,000 years is pretty unusual," said Gila archaeologist Carol Telles.
Name of source: ABC.net.au
SOURCE: ABC.net.au (10-2-06)
Dr Philippe Walter of the French state museum agency's Centre for Research and Restoration and colleagues report their findings online in the journal Nano Letters.
The researchers made up a batch of dye according to a recipe used since Greco-Roman times, which includes a mixture of lead oxide and slaked lime....
Name of source: Hollywood.com
SOURCE: Hollywood.com (10-2-06)
Dunst plays the 18th Century monarch in Sofia Coppola's racy new biopic, which was booed by critics at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
Now her overtly sexual performance has been attacked by France's Marie Antoinette Association as well, who insist the queen's bedroom antics are not factually based.
The association's president Michele Lorin says, "I've seen the trailer for the film on the Internet. It is a fright.
"We've spent years trying to convince people that the queen was not just a libertine who told the starving to eat cake. What do you see on the trailer? You see Marie Antoinette eating cake. You see her lying naked on a chaise lounge.
"I fear the film is going to set us back many years."
Name of source: Chicago Tribune
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune (9-30-06)
In fact, the newly remodeled Chicago History Museum is banking on it.
The Chicago Historical Society reopens Saturday after a 10-month renovation with a new name and, for the first time in a long time, a permanent venue to show off one of the largest costume collections in the nation.
Costume exhibits are popular attractions and almost always spark an increase in attendance, a fact that isn't lost on the museum's president, Gary Johnson.
Name of source: Telegraph (UK)
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (10-2-06)
The buildings, many constructed in the early days of free education, are often structurally sound but need some work to fit them for modern needs.
Campaigners say they were built to higher standards than post-war schools but fear that they will be lost under the Building Schools for the Future programme, which aims to rebuild or renew every secondary school in England over the next 10 to 15 years.
The Victorian Society, a heritage charity, is holding a conference next month to discuss preserving the schools.
Name of source: PhysOrg.com
SOURCE: PhysOrg.com (9-27-06)
Using a method called computational stylistics, the researchers count the frequency of common words, and rare words, to detect Shakespeare’s writing style, producing his distinct and unmistakable “literary fingerprint” that can be used to determine if and when there have been collaborations and what exactly Shakespeare wrote. The Shakespeare “fingerprint” also provides strong evidence that he, and not other authors, wrote the works generally believed to be his, because each of the other authors has a unique literary “fingerprint” that is different.
For example, Arthur F. Kinney, director of the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies at UMass Amherst, and one of the lead researchers says, using this method, “I have now proven that Shakespeare is part-author of Arden of Faversham. They guessed that in the 19th century but no one would believe it in the 20th century. Now we know.” The methodology will now be used to look into whether Shakespeare revised King Lear or whether he was in the habit of having other authors revise his original works.
Name of source: Deutsche Welle
SOURCE: Deutsche Welle (9-29-06)
The bones of 20 children were discovered this week during excavation work at a cemetery in the German town of Menden, close to where a World War II hospital run by Hitler's personal physician Karl Brandt was located.
Name of source: Weston Mercury
SOURCE: Weston Mercury (9-28-06)
The ancient site at Goblin Combe Environmental Centre in Cleeve is the only known Iron Age settlement in Britain not to have been dug up.
The trees and plants currently covering the site will be cleared this winter in preparation for a team of archaeologists to study the site in detail.
Name of source: icwales.icnetwork.co.uk
SOURCE: icwales.icnetwork.co.uk (9-24-06)
Prehistoric man died out in the UK 30,000 years ago.
But Bryan Sykes, a professor of human genetics at Oxford University, says the last of the real neanderthal bloodline could have been carried by a pair of Mid Wales twins who died in the 1980s.
It could make the brothers the missing link between ancient and modern man.
In his new book Blood of the Isles, which traces the ancestry of the British, Prof Sykes says he first heard of the Tregaron Neanderthals while visiting the 13th Century Talbot Hotel in Mid Wales during a research trip.
