An influenza pandemic of the type that ravaged the globe in 1918 and 1919 would kill about 62 million people today, with 96 percent of the deaths occurring in developing countries.

That is the conclusion of a study published yesterday in the Lancet medical journal, which uses mortality records kept by governments during the time of "Spanish flu" to predict the effect of a similarly virulent outbreak in the contemporary world.

The analysis, the first of its kind, found a nearly 40-fold difference in death rates between central India, the place with the highest recorded mortality, and Denmark, the country with the lowest. The reason for the huge variation is not known, but it may reflect differences in nutrition and crowding.

No Christmas celebrations would be complete without them but, with rationing in post-war Britain, Christmas crackers were an expensive luxury few could readily afford.

Now, after spending 60 years hidden in the dusty attic of a family-run newsagents, two rare and untouched boxes dating back to the 1940s have been unveiled for the first time.

Containing 12 crackers in each, the two boxes are sparingly decorated, with little description and few illustrations. On the lid of one - written in pencil - is the price of 8/6d.

The resemblance, you have been told, is uncanny. Yet, even still, when the man himself finally steps out of the shadows, it causes a momentary hesitation, a faltering of your step. And indeed it is true -- even the photos don't accurately portray it.

Yevgeny Dzhugashvili is a compact, solidly built man. His neatly trimmed mustache is white, but at age 70, his gray hair is still thick. He has a fine, broad forehead, a strong nose, large ears and dark, watchful eyes. He speaks slowly and quietly. His home is a small, working-class apartment in Tbilisi, the capital of the mountainous Republic of Georgia, which 15 years ago was a privileged part of the once-mighty Soviet Union.

Yevgeny's family name is virtually unknown beyond Tbilisi. Yet Yevgeny carries an enormous psychological burden, for he is the grandson of one Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili -- better known to the world as Joseph Stalin, one of history's most infamous mass murderers.

According to the prominent Russian human-rights group Memorial, during the time that Stalin ruled the Soviet Union, from 1928 until his death in 1953, he was responsible for the deaths of probably 14 million people, including those starved to death by his purposely launched famines of 1932-33 and 1946-47. Stalin also imprisoned 25 million people in his network of brutal Siberian work camps known as the gulags.

WESTERN Australia's new Education Minister wants to change the teaching of high school history to give students a deeper understanding of international conflicts and Australia's role in them.

Mark McGowan, who has inherited the state's troubled gradeless curriculum, said an assessment and possible overhaul of the state's history curriculum was a priority.

The former naval legal officer landed the state education portfolio last week from Ljiljanna Ravlich, who stumbled in attempting to introduce a system of "outcomes-based" courses into Years 11 and 12.

A proposed high school history course is among 13 new Year 11 and 12 courses that have been rewritten and their introduction delayed to 2008 as a result of mounting criticism that the courses lacked rigour and traditional instruction.

Pressure group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes gained crucial union support with its campaign last year against the new method of assessing students based on eight "levels of achievement" instead of giving them a grade or a percentage, which it claims is confusing for parents, labour-intensive for teachers and does not encourage students to compete with each other.

On the face of it, the Washington Capital Area Historical Autograph and Manuscript Show seemed like many such shows held around the country each year. Some 20 top dealers gathered at an Alexandria, Va., hotel on Dec. 9 to peddle thousands of autographs, letters and official papers of the famous — many of the more expensive items locked in glass cases. But among the customers wandering through the exhibits this time were two investigators from the National Archives. They passed out brochures on how to spot historical documents stolen from the government and chatted with the dealers to let them know that the feds are now becoming more interested in retrieving the valuable loot. The investigators also quietly browsed through the wares on display, looking for anything that might belong to the Archives.

During this particular visit the document hunters found none, but they expect other forays will turn up important contraband. The investigators are part of Operation Historic Protector, which the Archive's Inspector General's Office launched in November to combat what many fear is a growing threat to the federal government's historical repository, as well as to state archives and university libraries: the pilfering of old letters, documents, maps, photographs, books and other historical artifacts.

The National Archives has beefed up security in recent years, with video cameras and staffers watching outside researchers who review material in its reading rooms. But the Archives and other repositories around the country have suffered a number of heists in recent years.

Atlanta's proposed civil rights museum should showcase battles for equality across the globe and be built adjacent to Centennial Olympic Park on land donated by The Coca-Cola Co., according to an advisory panel convened by Mayor Shirley Franklin.

A museum that embraces all human rights issues, not merely the historic efforts of black leaders in Atlanta and the South, is something no other city has attempted, said Central Atlanta Progress president A.J. Robinson, who led the panel.

"We debated a lot about trying to do too much," Robinson said. "But we may be missing an opportunity if we just focus narrowly on Atlanta in the '50s and '60s."

The new national curriculum of history for classes VI to VIII has chapters on religious tolerance and cultural syncretism to teach the young generation about the “soft image” of Muslim rulers of South Asia, Daily Times learnt on Wednesday.

The curriculum has been sent to the provinces for implementation from the academic year 2007 as a compulsory subject.

The main feature of the new curriculum is that it not only highlights the political developments during Muslim rule, but also gives due importance to the cultural and social aspects with special focus on the Sufi ethos and its spread.

Vidor is a small city of about 11,000 people near the Texas Gulf Coast, not too far from the Louisiana border. Despite the fact that Beaumont, a much bigger city just 10 minutes away, is quite integrated, Vidor is not. There are very few blacks there; it's mostly white. That is in large part because of a history of racism in Vidor, a past that continues to haunt the present.

"We've been trying to live down something for 40 to 50 years," said Orange County Commissioner Beamon Minton. "Once convicted, you're a convicted felon. You can't ever put that aside."

Vidor was one of hundreds of communities in America known as "sundown towns," places where blacks were not welcome after dark. In some of these towns, signs -- handwritten or printed -- were posted, saying things like "Whites Only After Dark." But in general, sundown towns existed by reputation. Blacks knew they were places to avoid after dark.

AMRITSAR, INDIA, Dec 20 (IANS) The 18th century Gobindgarh Fort here, once home toGeneral Reginald Dyer who was responsible for the massacre of 2,000 Indians in Jalianwala Bagh, was Wednesday thrown open to the public by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.


The prime minister handed over the symbolic key of the fort, which was under the Indian Army since October 1948, to the state government, opening up the sprawling 50-acre complex to the public.

The fort was first built in 1760 and called Bhangian da Kila. It was later re-built by Punjab's warrior king Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who converted it into his residence and christened the fort after the last Sikh guru Gobind Singh.

It is believed that the monument once had a tunnel connecting it to Lahore in Pakistan, the erstwhile capital of Ranjit Singh. But army authorities here deny its existence.

The historical complex could accommodate a 12,000-strong army, has 25 cannons and was adequately fortified for repulsing any attack at that time.

During British rule, General Dyer converted the fort into his sprawling residence and constructed a 'Phansi ghar' (gallows) right in front of it.

It is said that Dyer derived sadistic pleasure watching the execution of Indian freedom fighters while sitting in his house.

Senator Paul S. Sarbanes (D-MD) applauded the signing into law today of legislation that would create the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, which would become the first national “Watertrail” in the country. The legislation, which was spearheaded by Senators Paul S. Sarbanes (D-MD) and John Warner (R-VA) and Congresswoman Jo Ann Davis (VA) will trace the route of Captain John Smith’s two-year exploration of the Chesapeake Bay region almost 400 years ago.

In April 1607, three ships arrived at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay after a four-month voyage from England carrying colonists who would establish the first permanent English settlement in North America and plant the seeds of our nation and our democracy. John Smith would then travel in a small 30 foot “shallop” some 3,000 miles, reaching from present day Jamestown, Virginia, to Smith Falls on the Pennsylvania border with Maryland and from Broad Creek in Delaware to the Potomac River and Washington, DC. His journeys brought the English into contact with many Native Americans for the first time, and his observations of the region’s people and its natural wonders are still relied upon by anthropologists, historians, and ecologists to this day.

“The signing of this legislation into law marks a new beginning in highlighting the historic voyages of Captain John Smith as part of the early exploration and settling of our Nation,” said a very pleased Sarbanes.

Robert G. Heft once sat patiently at an autograph signing in Dallas while hundreds of people flocked to NBA legend Michael Jordan to claim one of his $30 signatures.

Standing in Heft's 10-person line, a boy asked his father why they were waiting for the autograph of a man he'd never seen. The father replied that Heft — who designed America's 50-star flag — is a piece of history.

Although he'll grace the pages of history books one day for his accomplishment, Heft, 64, of Thomas Township, Mich., doesn't place himself on a pedestal.

"I never look at myself like anything special," Heft said recently. "I consider myself just a regular person."

Last fall, Heft put up the 48-year-old banner that he sewed as a high school history project on eBay and set the price at $250,000. Although the item received more than 10,000 hits during two 10-day bidding periods, Heft said he didn't get any serious offers.

A year later, he's happy that the flag — now in a glass case for preservation — still is safe with him.

"One thing I was concerned about was where it would end up," said Heft, a retired professor from Northwest State Community College in Archbold, Ohio.

More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.

"This is reality-check research," said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. "Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades."

Finer is a research director at the Guttmacher Institute, a private New York-based think tank that studies sexual and reproductive issues and which disagrees with government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.

The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people — about 33,000 of them women — in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.

The United States Congress is considering voting in funds next year to help Vietnam clean areas heavily contaminated by toxic defoliant Agent Orange, a US official said in Hanoi."We are going to provide assistance to help clean up sites where dioxin continues to pose serious health threats to people living there," said Tim Rieser, aide to Democrat senator Patrick Leahy.

"We also want to look for ways to extend assistance to people with disabilities," he told journalists in Hanoi.

A battle over history and property is developing high up on a ridge in West Meade.

Gene Scott, who owns four acres in the west Nashville neighborhood, brought a bulldozer up to the ridge Dec. 8 and had the driver plow through a long stretch of a stone wall.

Scott, 76, said he owns the land where that section of the wall stood, and he eventually wants to sell it.

But some neighbors and historic preservationists are fuming. They say the 4-foot-high wall wasn't just any stack of stones: It was built by slaves living and working on the Belle Meade Plantation nearly 200 years ago.

A prehistoric site, almost twice bigger than the Burnt City, has been discovered near the city of Bam, most probably belonging to 5000-6000 years ago. The blade of a bronze axe and statuette of a cow made of burnt brick are among the discoveries in the area.

The first round of grants in the federally funded Hurricane Relief Grant Program for Historic Preservation awarded more than $6.4 million to 57 applicants.

The grants, administered by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, will be used to repair and restore historically significant publicly and privately owned structures that were hurricane damaged.

The largest is $1 million for the Old Hattiesburg High School. Among other significant awards was $400,000 for the Bond-Grant House in Biloxi. Other amounts ranged from $9,000 to $150,000.

Japanese and Chinese experts will meet in Beijing next week to discuss how to bring their historical understandings more in line, officials said Monday.

Experts from both sides will have their first meeting Dec. 26-27 in Beijing, the Japanese government announced. Each side will have 10 experts on the panel.

The meeting is part of an effort to resolve conflicts between the two nations over the interpretation of Japan's invasion and occupation of parts of China before and during World War II. Chinese have frequently claimed that Japanese schools whitewash the nation's militarist past.

But the discussions would also delve into ancient history and touch on sensitive issues in recent Chinese history, including the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square protests.

"Since it covers modern history, I think there will be a broad discussion," Japanese government spokesman Yasuhisa Shiozaki said.

It is the portrait that everyone knew existed but few have been fortunate enough to see in the two centuries or so since it was painted.

Yesterday that painting of a cherubic-looking six-year-old member of the Spanish royal family, the Infante Don Luis Maria, was displayed to the world for the first time since Francisco de Goya put paintbrush to canvas in 1783.

But just as intriguing as the painting is the subject himself - an apparently studious little boy who would go on to become a cardinal at the age of 23 and who would put an end to that most infamous institution, the Spanish Inquisition.

The curator of the National Museum of Iran (NMI) said in a news conference that the distortion of the name of the Persian Gulf in the Louvre's catalogue is the result of the Arab financial influence in Europe. "The distortion of the Persian Gulf's name in the Louvre's catalogue is not something new. It has occurred due to the Arabs' economic influence over the museum during the 1990s," said Mohammad-Reza Kargar reported by CHN.

Kargar noted that French archeologists became pioneers of excavations in Iran after reaching an agreement with the Qajar dynasty (1787-1921 AD). However, after the 1979 revolution in Iran, they began working in Iran's neighboring countries, particularly newly formed Arab states, which provided appropriate financial opportunities, he added.

The money the Arabs spent to pay the archeological mercenaries created some expectations, one of them being the alteration of the name of the Persian Gulf, he explained.

"Most important research centers in the heart of Paris are run by France and Saudi Arabia. Several months ago, Paris played host to an exhibition of Arab civilization, which was opened by Jacques Chirac and King Abdullah of Jordan," he explained. Contradictory but not so surprisingly despite the fact that the exhibition was called "Arab civilization", majority of artifacts on show were Persian.

Sept. 11 victims' family members and others signed a 53.5-ton steel beam Sunday that is to form part of the base of the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site.

The steel beam, which is to be put in place at ground zero this week, was on display in Battery Park City a few blocks from the trade center site Sunday.

Karen Miller signed in memory of her brother, firefighter John Santore.

"I want people to remember everyone who was lost and to remember him," she said.

On the December 17 broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) claimed that, in 1999, the Internal Revenue Service "said there was nothing wrong" with funding a college course he had taught with tax-deductible donations, for which Gingrich was investigated by the House ethics committee, fined $300,000, and formally reprimanded by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Russert failed to challenge Gingrich's claim. In fact, even though the IRS' final report found no evidence of wrongdoing on Gingrich's part, it also said that the House ethics committee refused to provide all the evidence requested by the agency, despite recommendations from congressional investigators that evidence collected by the ethics committee be sent to the IRS, and that "if the Ethics Committee had rendered full cooperation with our examination, the transcripts might have affected our conclusion."

As Media Matters for America noted when Gingrich's former press secretary and current Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley baselessly claimed that the investigation into Gingrich was a Clinton administration vendetta, the IRS' inquiry was first reported nine months after the ethics committee -- which is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans -- unanimously voted in December 1995 to appoint a special counsel to investigate whether Gingrich had violated tax law. The New York Times reported on December 23, 1995, that the ethics committee had selected former Justice Department prosecutor James Cole to "investigate accusations that a course Mr. Gingrich taught at two colleges in Georgia was a political effort intended to circumvent tax laws." The Washington Post also reported on December 23, 1995, that there was a "question of whether Gingrich violated tax laws by using tax-deductible contributions to finance" the college course.

The ethics committee released its final report on January 17, 1997, and voted 7-1 to recommend that the House fine and reprimand for failing to obtain adequate legal advice regarding the courses and for providing false information to the committee. The New York Times reported on January 18, 1997, that "investigators urged the full ethics committee to send the evidence it had collected to the Internal Revenue Service to assist its investigations involving Kennesaw State University and Reinhardt College, where Mr. Gingrich's college course was taught." The IRS released the findings of its investigation in early 1999. According to a February 27, 1999, Los Angeles Times article:


On its face, the IRS finding seems unequivocal. The 74-page document systematically examines the facts in the complex case and determines that the foundation "did not serve the private interests of" Gingrich or the GOP and did not play a role in any campaign.

However, in an unusual caveat, the IRS said that its conclusions were based "upon the facts available to us" and the agency did not have access to transcripts of witnesses' statements before the House Ethics Committee, which the panel refused to provide.

"It is possible that if the Ethics Committee had rendered full cooperation with our examination, the transcripts might have affected our conclusion," the IRS memorandum said.

It still is not clear why the ethics panel did not provide the IRS with the transcripts.

There also have been debates over whether IRS supervisors really examined the evidence fully or simply took a bow in hopes of heading off a clash with a powerful figure.

From the December 17 broadcast of Meet the Press:


RUSSERT: But you were reprimanded by the full House. They --

GINGRICH: For having signed a letter.

RUSSERT: -- and that you paid a fine or -- $300,000 --

GINGRICH: That's right.

RUSSERT: It's significant. It's significant.

GINGRICH: It is. I just said it's significant. And I paid the $300,000. Now, but here's the point: The rest of the stuff in that article about my -- the ethics charges are false. The Internal Revenue Service said there was nothing wrong with the course. I am a Ph.D. in history. I was teaching a college course. It's totally -- it goes back to free speech. I was allowed to teach courses. The Federal Election Commission was reprimanded by a federal judge and told that the charges against GOPAC were totally false. All in the course -- those things didn't make page one. And I fully expected my opponents -- remember, the Democrats were very mad after the '94 election. They had lost power. They -- for the first time in 40 years. They knew it couldn't be their fault, so it must be mine.

Southern Methodist University has long been considered the front-runner in the competition to be the site of President Bush’s presidential library. Laura Bush is an alumna and trustee. Dick Cheney was a trustee before being elected vice president. And the university’s main challenge — a lack of space — may have been fixed this month when SMU won a court fight over its right to demolish a condo complex the university had purchased, in part to have land for the Bush project.

But now, as President Bush prepares to decide among SMU, Baylor University and the University of Dallas, a new issue has emerged. Professors at SMU are circulating an open letter calling for the university to have a full discussion of the implications of being host to the Bush library. Several recent press reports have quoted Bush advisers as saying that SMU has the edge and that the library’s affiliated think tank will encourage scholarship with a specific political agenda.

An article in the New York Daily News — much discussed on the SMU campus — quotes a “Bush insider” as saying that the center would hire conservative scholars and “give them money to write papers and books favorable to the president’s policies.” Other articles have said that the center will be designed to spread the president’s ideas about “compassionate conservatism.”

Faculty critics say that although many of them disagree with Preside nt Bush’s policies, they would not object to a library-oriented archive and museum — and they say that in discussions with professors, the university has discussed a vision for such a Bush center. But creating an academic center with a specific goal of boosting the Bush image and agenda strikes many professors as antithetical to a university’s academic values.