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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: Asian Age (Delhi)
SOURCE: Asian Age (Delhi) (4-28-07)
The authorities here, however, strongly refuted the allegation that the mosque had been pulled down by the security forces, and said that it had caved in due to lack of maintenance...
The now almost flattened mosque stood, in conformity with Kashmir’s ethos, close to a Hindu temple and a Sikh gurdwara inside an 18th century fort built by an Afghan governor atop the Hari Parbat hill in the heart of Srinagar.
With the outbreak of separatist violence back in 1989-90, the security forces had taken control of the fort completely.
When it was reopened to the public around 10 days back after a gap of 17 years, following the withdrawal of the forces, visitors were stunned to see that while both Hindu and Sikh places of worship were intact and had been looked after well, the mosque had "disappeared."
Anger is growing within the Valley, which is predominantly Muslim, and separatist politicians and clerics are squarely blaming the government for the "desecration." Officials of the state archaeological department insist, however, that the mosque was not razed but that it collapsed on its own after being left unattended for years.
Name of source: AP
SOURCE: AP (4-27-07)
The boat was exposed when reefs rose 10 feet above sea level during a 8.1-magnitude quake that caused a devastating tsunami, killing 52 people in the western Solomons in early April, said Jay Waura of the National Disaster Management Office.
The Solomons' main island, Guadalcanal, was the scene of fierce fighting during World War II. The coastline is littered with wrecks including the torpedo patrol boat commanded by President John F. Kennedy, PT-109, which was found in 2002 by shipwreck hunter Robert Ballard.
SOURCE: AP (4-27-07)
The list was released Thursday by the Mississippi Heritage Trust.
The three coastal counties of Harrison, Hancock and Jackson were grouped as the Mississippi Gulf Coast on the 2007 list.
“The whole coast is in danger of its historical character changing,” MHT’s Executive Director David Preziosi said. “The Mississippi Gulf Coast is a group listing because we feel all three counties face similar threats. It would be too difficult to identify one site on the coast.
“Obviously, we all know the coast will be changing, and we just hope that, as it changes, people keep in mind the historic buildings that did survive and incorporate them into new developments or let them stand on their own.”
SOURCE: AP (4-27-07)
Some readers have such fond memories of the "Little House" novels about Laura Ingalls Wilder's frontier childhood that they cry when they walk into her Missouri home and see the desk where she wrote many of the books.
April marks the 75th anniversary of the first publication in 1932 of "Little House in the Big Woods." The story of Laura's early life in a cabin in 1860s Wisconsin launched a nine-book series that made Wilder a household name, helped by the hit award-winning TV series "Little House on the Prairie" that ran on NBC from 1974-1983.
Embraced from the start by America's teachers, the books have been read by or to generations of elementary school kids, which has helped to keep the books in continuous print. The series has sold over 41 million copies in the United States and been translated into over 40 languages, from German and French to Arabic and Japanese.
SOURCE: AP (4-27-07)
Backing a Tokyo High Court ruling, the Supreme Court said that the women had no right to seek war compensation from Japan because of a 1972 agreement with China, a court spokesman and Japanese media reports said.
SOURCE: AP (4-27-07)
An Associated Press review of historical documents shows that U.S. authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate, despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution.
Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S. troops until spring 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the brothels down. The documents show that the brothels were rushed into operation as American forces poured into Japan beginning in August 1945.
"Sadly, we police had to set up sexual comfort stations for the occupation troops," recounts the official history of the Ibaraki Prefectural Police Department, whose jurisdiction is just northeast of Tokyo. "The strategy was, through the special work of experienced women, to create a breakwater to protect regular women and girls."
The orders from the Ministry of the Interior came on Aug. 18, 1945, one day before a Japanese delegation flew to the Philippines to negotiate the terms of its country's surrender and occupation.
The Ibaraki police immediately set to work. The only suitable facility was a dormitory for single police officers, which they quickly converted into a brothel. Bedding from the navy was brought in, along with 20 so-called comfort women. The brothel opened for business Sept. 20.
SOURCE: AP (4-26-07)
"We can put a better case together for a public case. That's what I meant," Tenet said, explaining his remark for the first time in an interview to air Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes." Short excerpts were released Thursday.
The phrase "slam dunk" was associated with Tenet after it was leaked by a senior administration official to author and journalist Bob Woodward.
According to Woodward's book "Plan of Attack," Bush turned to Tenet during the meeting and asked if the information he had just presented on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was the best Tenet had.
"It's a slam-dunk case," Tenet replied, according to Woodward.
Bush administration officials repeatedly used Tenet's "slam dunk" line to show that U.S. spy agencies had intelligence to support the main facet of the administration's argument for invading -- that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
In the "60 Minutes" interview, Tenet said the administration misrepresented his comment and used it to shift blame as the debate heated up about the legitimacy of the Iraq invasion.
Related Links
Ex-C.I.A. chief assails Bush, Cheney on Iraq (NYT preview, based on early copy of book) Tenet on '60 Minutes' (CBS News teaser)
SOURCE: AP (4-26-07)
After largely peaceful rallies throughout the day, a group of protesters tried to break through a line of police officers guarding the grave and the Bronze Soldier statue next to it...
Dozens of police had formed lines to keep some 600 protesters away from the monument after workers erected a tent over the memorial to shield the excavations from public view.
Estonia's government intends to relocate the Soviet grave, believed to contain the remains of 14 soldiers, and the statue next to it.
The Baltic state's ethnic Russians -- about a third of the population -- see the memorial as a tribute to Red Army soldiers who died fighting Nazi Germany and have vowed to protect it. Many ethnic Estonians, however, say the memorial is a bitter reminder of five decades of Soviet occupation.
Late News
'Bronze Soldier' statue removed (AP)
SOURCE: AP (4-26-07)
The May 11 event is timed to come three days after the formation of a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland led by Paisley, long a bellicose opponent of cooperation with the north's Catholic minority -- and with Ahern's government in the mostly Catholic south of Ireland.
"I am delighted that Dr. Paisley has accepted my invitation to visit the site of the Battle of the Boyne," Ahern said, referring to a July 12, 1690, clash between the armies of Protestant King William of Orange and the Catholic he had ousted from England's throne, James II.
SOURCE: AP (4-26-07)
About 1,000 students, teachers and parents observed a moment of silence for those who died in 2002 at the Gutenberg high school in the eastern city of Erfurt, and for victims of the April 16 rampage in Blacksburg, Va.
"We are also pausing to express our disbelief and our sincere compassion for those who are crying for their dead thousands of kilometers away," Principal Christiane Alt told the mourners.
On April 26, 2002, Robert Steinhaeuser shot and killed 12 teachers, a secretary, two students and a police officer before committing suicide in Germany's worst school shooting.
Related Links
List of deadly mass shootings around the world
SOURCE: AP (4-26-07)
"That event is a mirror in which the injustice of today's bombardments are reflected, allowing us to sympathize with the 30 wars still raging on our planet," said Juan Jose Ibarrtexe, president of the Basque regional government, who met with several of the 200 survivors at the event.
The bombing of Guernica in 1937 gave a foretaste of the aerial blitzes of World War II several years later. The attack shocked the world, its impact captured in Pablo Picasso's black and white abstract painting "Guernica" which hangs in Madrid's Reina Sofia Museum and is one of Spain's biggest tourist attractions.
Commemorative ceremonies began with the inauguration of an exhibition on the attack, while floral tributes were laid at the town's cemetery and a documentary on the bombing was screened.
SOURCE: AP (4-25-07)
An Associated Press review of historical documents and records -- some never before translated into English -- shows American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution. The Americans also had full knowledge by then of Japan's atrocious treatment of women in countries across Asia that it conquered during the war.
Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S. troops until the spring of 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the brothels down.
The documents show the brothels were rushed into operation as American forces poured into Japan beginning in August 1945.
Name of source: BBC News
SOURCE: BBC News (4-27-07)
The aircraft, taking part in a flypast at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire, is one of only two airworthy Lancasters.
More than 7,000 Lancasters were built during the 1940s and played a major part during World War II...
The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is an historic collection of aircraft that commemorate the RAF's involvement in all the campaigns of WWII. It includes the Lancaster, a Dakota, five Spitfires, two Hurricanes and two Chipmunks.
Related Links
'Wings of Freedom' takes vintage aircraft around US
SOURCE: BBC News (4-26-07)
Experts from the Museum of London have begun researching the Roman, Viking, medieval and recent industrial history of the 500-acre site...
"Work will be carried out by experts and hopefully more clues to the Lea Valley's past will be found," [David Higgins, of the Olympic Delivery Authority] said.
"We are starting well ahead of the planned start of construction and nothing is expected to be found that could affect our timetable."
Twelve trenches up to four metres deep are to be dug on the north-east corner of the site on Thursday near a Second World War gun emplacement and a medieval waterway.
Any remains will be recorded or moved to the Museum of London.
SOURCE: BBC News (4-26-07)
Works by mathematician Archimedes and the politician Hyperides had already been found buried within the book, known as the Archimedes Palimpsest.
But now advanced imaging technology has revealed a third text -- a commentary on the philosopher Aristotle.
Project director William Noel called it a "sensational find".
The prayer book was written in the 13th Century by a scribe called John Myronas.
But instead of using fresh parchment for his work, he employed pages from five existing books...
Name of source: Newsweek
SOURCE: Newsweek (4-30-07)
Though most Italian-Americans are liberals, "they're all proud of me," conservative Justice Antonin Scalia tells the authors. Scalia's implicit question is: why do blacks not feel the same way about Thomas? Why can't Americans accept and celebrate him? For a country desperately trying to rid itself of a legacy of prejudice and discrimination, such questions are anything but trivial....
Thomas had served less than a year and a half on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit when Bush nominated him to replace Thurgood Marshall. He seemed headed toward a relatively easy confirmation until Anita Hill, a former colleague, accused him of talking dirty to her. Thomas responded by charging the Senate with conducting "a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks." The Senate, mortified, went on to confirm him. The authors suggest that Thomas still seethes at those he believes set out to humiliate him.
Name of source: UPI
SOURCE: UPI (4-27-07)
There are five proposed designs for the quarter, which will be produced by the U.S. Mint as part of the 50 State Quarters Program. Oklahoma's coin would be released in 2008.
Four of the proposed designs feature Pioneer Woman and the other features the scissortail flycatcher, the state bird, the Daily Oklahoman reported Friday.
But, some Oklahomans, including Gov. Brad Henry, want the Pioneer Woman to be holding her Bible on the quarter.
Name of source: Reuters
SOURCE: Reuters (4-27-07)
In a rare public airing of a vigorous debate within the U.S. military, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling compared generals' management of Iraq to their conduct in Vietnam and warned of a crisis facing the armed forces due to the "intellectual and moral failures" of U.S. generals broadly.
"For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency," wrote Yingling, an Iraq war veteran and commander of an Army unit. "These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps."...
The mid-ranking officer's cover article in the May issue of Armed Forces Journal reflects the debate among officers about the conduct of the Iraq war as well as the decisions and public statements made by commanders advising civilian policymakers.
SOURCE: Reuters (4-27-07)
The Web site, www.Ancestry.co.uk, posted 100,000 names of Barbados slaves registered in 1834 in the colony.
By December the site will contain the names of 3 million slaves from 700 registers in 23 British colonies, from South Africa to Sri Lanka between 1812 and 1834.
Members of the site can search free for ancestors by entering their relatives' first and last names and place of enslavement during that period.
SOURCE: Reuters (4-27-07)
In 2004, the Hiroshima High Court ordered Japanese construction firm Nishimatsu Construction Co. Ltd. to pay a total of 27.5 million yen ($230,000) to a group of five Chinese in compensation for forcing them to work in Japan during World War II.
"The ruling is disgraceful in light of friendly relations between Japan and China," said Shinzo Tsuchiya, a supporter of the former laborers.
[The company] had argued that the statute of limitations had expired on violations of obligations to ensure safe working conditions for the workers.
SOURCE: Reuters (4-26-07)
The purple cotton of Kano was once famous throughout Africa's arid Sahel belt, in the days when the Nigerian emirate was a center of trans-Saharan trade in salt and gold, rivaling the fabled riches of Timbuktu.
Now more than 100 pits have fallen into disrepair and many of them are clogged with refuse and stones.
"Before it was much busier here," said chief dyer Hamidan Uba Zango, a glassy-eyed 80-year-old who has worked in the pits since he was six.
"There is foreign competition everywhere. Before there was no foreign cloth in Africa, but now it comes from China, England, Holland."
Founded in 1498, the Kofar Mata pits are said to be the oldest in Africa and are the only survivor of Kano's dye trade -- which once included 13 pit complexes. Close to the royal palace, its colors have adorned the fabrics of Kano's traditional rulers for centuries.
SOURCE: Reuters (4-26-07)
When 15 ambassadors of the United Nations visit this Kosovo village on Saturday, 71-year-old Shehu plans to tell them how he pulled himself unhurt from under the bodies of almost the entire male population of Mala Krusa.
His will be one of many stories of loss when a delegation from the Security Council tours divided towns and devastated villages before weighing the merits of a Western-backed plan to give independence to the breakaway Serbian province.
The two-day agenda has been crafted to give equal time to the 90-percent Albanian majority and the remaining 100,000 Serbs, stoking a macabre contest over who has suffered most in the southern province.
Name of source: BBC
SOURCE: BBC (4-27-07)
More than 40 people were injured and 300 arrested during clashes at the site as police used tear gas to disperse mainly ethnic Russian demonstrators.
Russia says the memorial should not be removed, but many Estonians see it as a reminder of decades of Soviet rule.
The move provoked angry condemnation from Russian officials and lawmakers.
The memorial, a bronze statue of a Soviet soldier, was erected in 1947. The remains of Soviet soldiers are thought to be buried nearby.
Related Links
Estonia braces itself for violent unrest Russia: Estonia's actions to Soviet soldier monument 'disgusting'
Name of source: Los Angeles Times
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times (4-27-07)
The historic 51-46 Senate vote for a $124-billion war spending bill — which followed House passage of the measure Wednesday — thrust a withdrawal timeline on a fiercely resistant White House....
Over the last three decades, lawmakers have repeatedly dictated how and when American forces can operate abroad, including in Central America, Somalia and the Balkans. But by explicitly setting the terms for an end to U.S. involvement in a war, this Congress has gone further than any since the Vietnam era.
Then, lawmakers imposed limits on what the armed forces could do, ordering troops out of Cambodia after President Nixon's controversial 1970 incursion.
But Congress did not finally ban U.S. military operations in Southeast Asia until after the Paris peace accords were signed in 1973. And lawmakers did not cut funding until all U.S. forces had been withdrawn.
In contrast, Democrats have pushed through a far more confrontational plan that would require the president to wind down the Iraq war. And they did this less than four months after taking power in an election widely viewed as a referendum on Bush's conduct of the war.
Name of source: Lee White at National Coalition for History (NCH) website
SOURCE: Lee White at National Coalition for History (NCH) website (4-24-07)
During the race riots, which occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma from May 30—June 1, 1921, nearly 300 African-Americans were killed, and an estimated 1,250 African-American homes and businesses were destroyed. Attempts by African-Americans to seek legal redress for their injuries have been stymied, despite a recommendation in the Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 that reparations be paid to the survivors or descendants of the survivors. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case on appeal seeking to suspend the statute of limitations and allow the remaining survivors to have their day in court.
One of the witnesses at the hearing was historian Professor John Hope Franklin, whose father was a lawyer in Tulsa at the time of the riots. Professor Franklin has long been one of the leading advocates for the victims of the race riots. The subcommittee also heard testimony from 92-year old Dr. Olivia Hooker, who was six at time of the riots. Also testifying was Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, who is lead counsel for a group of African-Americans who resided in Tulsa in 1921
Name of source: German Press Agency
SOURCE: German Press Agency (4-27-07)
"We have asked the same question countless times: should we reveal every spy one-by-one or finally solve the problem and bring openness to the issue of spying?" the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats said
in a statement.
The liberals' challenge was aimed at senior coalition partner, the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), and the main opposition party Fidesz.
It came after a weekly magazine on Thursday claimed that a former foreign minister had spied for the communist authorities.
Elet and Irodalom (Life and Literature) magazine claimed that Janos Martonyi, using the codename Marosvasarhely, spied on Hungarian emigres during trips abroad as a student in the 1960s.
Name of source: Times (of London)
SOURCE: Times (of London) (4-27-07)
From today this unhappy corner of eastern Germany becomes a tourist attraction with the Federal Garden Show 2007, expected to draw up to 1.5 million visitors. It features a newly planted meadow and landscape area scattered with art installations, including a flock of blue sheep.
The contrast could not be more stark. The region around Gera and Ronneburg, close to the Czech border, used to be dominated by slag heaps and a one and a quarter (2km) hole. East Germany was the world’s largest producer of uranium: 231,000 tonnes were excavated, often at terrible human cost, and delivered to the Soviet Union. The local rivers were irradiated and, as miners died of lung cancer, those in the know began to call it the Valley of Death.
The Darmstadt Institute of Ecology has —- to the relief of the garden show organisers —- pronounced it safe.
SOURCE: Times (of London) (4-26-07)
The Prime Minister’s 1,351-day delay in collecting the medal from President Bush has long been a source of puzzlement in both Washington and London. Downing Street insists that it is still being designed.
But as Mr Blair prepares to leave office, Sir David told The Times in a rare interview that the Prime Minister “always had inhibitions” about being handed a medal that was awarded shortly after the invasion of Iraq at his triumphant address to both houses of Congress in July 2003.
Sir David —- who was Downing Street’s chief foreign policy adviser in the run-up to the invasion — seeks to tackle perceptions about Britain’s relationship with America and that between the two leaders, whose place in history is likely to be defined by the Iraq war.
Related Links
US State Department official: 'Special relationship' is one-sided (11-30-06) Bush & Blair's greatest video hits: #1, 'Endless Love' (Times)
SOURCE: Times (of London) (4-26-07)
Homosexuality was illegal in Britain until 1967, but a University of Manchester academic has unearthed a scroll written by a pioneering gay activist that dates back to the 18th century.
The handwritten parchment indicting the printer of Thomas Cannon’s 1749 book, Ancient And Modern Pederasty Investigated And Exemplified, was found at the National Archive in Kew. Dr Hal Gladfelder stumbled across the dusty scroll, which contains extracts from the book, while doing research.
The book, which was suppressed immediately after its publication, appears to be an anthology of stories and philosophical texts in defense of male homosexuality.
The printer had to flee to continental Europe to avoid punishment and no copies of the book itself survive.
SOURCE: Times (of London) (4-26-07)
The culture was mounted in a glass dish just under two inches in diameter. On the back of the case was written: “The mould which makes penicillin. A. Fleming, 1948.”
Sir Alexander Fleming discovered the germ-killing properties of Penicillium notatum in 1928, but it was not put into general use until 1940.
It was mass-produced during the Second World War, and Sir Alexander, with Ernst Chain and Howard Florey, received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1945.
SOURCE: Times (of London) (4-26-07)
The 3,400-year-old bust of the wife of the Sun King Akhenaten has been in German hands since it was dug out of the desert by the archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt in 1912. It was smuggled out of Egypt and became a central part of Berlin’s museum collection.
Now the Egyptians want it back, if not for keeps, then at least on loan to mark the opening in 2012 of a new Grand Egyptian Museum, near the Pyramid at Giza. If the Egyptian Museum in Berlin does not agree, says Zahi Hawass, there will be trouble...
German officials say that the bust is too fragile to travel. “Nefertiti is not a pop star that can simply go on tour,” a senior official said...
The bust, he says, has become globally famous in a way that it would not have had it stayed in Egypt. “Nefertiti has become an outstanding example of how the foreign can be integrated into society,” Dr Wildung says. “She is accepted, not assimilated. She keeps her separateness and her uniqueness, yet she belongs here.”
Nefertiti, in other words, is not budging.
Name of source: New York Times
SOURCE: New York Times (4-27-07)
It was written in May 1787 and addressed to Jacob Morris, grandfather of Julia Kean, the precocious 10-year-old who started the brown leather scrapbook in 1826 and put the letter under a portrait of the nation’s first president.
The letter is just 111 words long, a scant two paragraphs, but it mentions a rival of Washington, Horatio Gates, and includes enough hints of intrigue to whet the appetite of scholars. They learned of the letter’s discovery only recently, after it was found among the private papers of one of New Jersey’s most prominent families.
Name of source: International Herald Tribune
SOURCE: International Herald Tribune (4-26-07)
No senior Hong Kong officials showed up for the speech by Stephen Bradley, the British consul general. Some went instead to the airport to greet the arrival of two pandas, donated by the Chinese government to live at a Hong Kong amusement park. Donald Tsang, Hong Kong's chief executive, was off visiting a trade show in central China.
Hong Kong is still home to 265,000 holders of British passports.
Annual trade between Hong Kong and Britain has quadrupled in the past two decades, to $13.5 billion. British companies still control the dominant airline here, Cathay Pacific, and much of the pricey downtown real estate that is occupied by shops offering international brands like Tiffany and Chanel.
But while Prince Charles came for the return of Hong Kong in 1997, the Chinese government has pointedly not invited leaders from Britain or any other country to attend the 10th anniversary celebrations.
Name of source: National Geographic News
SOURCE: National Geographic News (4-26-07)
That's the outcry from activist groups that have been helping indigenous communities mix computers and handheld navigation devices with paints, yarn, and cardboard to make simple but accurate three-dimensional terrain models.
Several tribes have already used such models, based on data from geographic information systems (GIS), to defend their territories from developers making claims via modern legal systems.
But in Malaysia and the Philippines, the practice—dubbed participatory GIS—has sparked a legal backlash, activists say.
For example, Philippine lawmakers have changed an existing law so that only officially recognized engineers "could do anything related to measuring space," said Dave De Vera, director of the Philippine Association for Intercultural Development.
Name of source: Francis Gary Powers Jr., Cold War Museum press release
SOURCE: Francis Gary Powers Jr., Cold War Museum press release (4-26-07)
The Museum is working with the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC and the Atomic Bunker in Harnekop near Berlin, Germany to temporarily display some of its artifacts. The Cold War Museum is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution and has pledges of support for artifact loans from Smithsonian Air and Space, American History, National Portrait, and US Postal Museums. The Museum is part of the National Combined Federal Campaign and has chapters in Berlin, Germany and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The mobile exhibit on the U-2 Incident, the "Spies of Washington Tour," and related educational activities continue to generate interest and support. The mobile exhibit recently finished a display at the Southwest Virginia Museum in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. It will be at the March Airfield Museum in California later this year. If you would like to reserve the exhibit, please contact the Museum. The educational Spy Tour of Washington (www.spytour.com) is now booking group tours online.
On October 14, 2006, we hosted an international conference to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian and Polish Crises. Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, the son of Nikita Khrushchev, and David Eisenhower, grandson of President Eisenhower participated with VIPs from Hungary and Poland and well renowned scholars. The Hungarian and Polish Embassies, American Hungarian Federation, Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, the Hungarian Technology Center, as well as the Cold War Museum and the South County Secondary School were hosts for the program. A big thank you to our sponsors that included EnviroSolutions, Inc., K. Hovnanian® Homes, Marriott Fairfax at Fair Oaks, Northern Virginia Community College, Verizon, and Vulcan Materials Company. There are a variety of sponsorship opportunities available in conjunction with Cold War Museum events and activities. Please email gpowersjr@coldwar.org for additional information.
I am pleased to announce that Mr. David Eisenhower, grandson of President Eisenhower, has agreed to serve on the Museum's Advisory Board. He will join Fairfax County Board of Supervisor Chairman, Gerald Connolly; Prince William County Supervisor John Stirrup, Gordon Lunn from the Nike Historical Society; former Secretary of the USAF, Tom Reed; Sergei Khrushchev; and Congressman Tom Davis on the Museum's Advisory Board.
If you know of friends or family members that would be interested in our efforts, please share this update with them or encourage them to visit www.coldwar.org. Please consider a year-end tax-deductible contribution or artifact donation. Your gift will help ensure future generations remember Cold War events and personalities that forever altered our understanding of national security, international relations, and personal sacrifice for one's country.
Please help spread the word about the Museum. Together we can make this vision a reality. For more information, or to subscribe to our Cold War Times email newsletter list, please contact:
Francis Gary Powers, Jr.
Founder, The Cold War Museum
P.O. Box 178 - Fairfax, VA 22038
P-(703) 273-2381 / F-(703) 273-4903
www.coldwar.org / gpowersjr@coldwar.org
Name of source: AFP
SOURCE: AFP (4-22-07)
The 528-page tome "Nazi Looted Art - Art Restitution Worldwide" is sold as a do-it-yourself law manual for heirs of Holocaust victims hoping to confront museums and collectors in different corners of the world in a bid to recover lost canvasses.
Co-author Gunnar Schnabel makes an educated guess that "there are still thousands of masterpieces and tens of thousands of lesser paintings that should be returned to the rightful heirs.
"For example, some 30,000 art works were taken out of France, but 16,000 never resurfaced. It is the museums' policy to keep all of this top secret. There are works in basements and vaults," Schnabel, a lawyer who handles restitution claims, told AFP.
SOURCE: AFP (4-26-07)
Thousands of activists have rallied and petitioned the government not to flood the dam, which is only seven kilometres (four miles) from Pasargadae -- the first capital of the Persian Empire...
It will also drown parts of the Tange Bolaghi area, a mountain pass with ancient settlements dating back to 5,000 BC.
Name of source: Daily Star (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
SOURCE: Daily Star (Dhaka, Bangladesh) (4-26-07)
The Department of Archaeology (DoA) has not involved any historian, archaeologist or an architect in the conservation work, rather hired masons are carrying out the job, distorting and defacing a proud heritage of the country, experts said.
The government's approach is just arbitrary, unplanned and aimless, said conservation architect Dr Abu Sayeed M Ahmed adding that the government is carrying out the conservation project without any proper and authentic documentation, which is a prerequisite to conservation of a heritage site.
An office assistant at the site office of DoA, Md Anisur Rahman, told this correspondent, "We are carrying out the restoration work hiring masons on a daily basis. The masons know how to do the job."...
World Monuments Watch rated Sonargaon-Panam City as one of the most endangered heritage sites in 2006.
Name of source: Independent
SOURCE: Independent (4-26-07)
Archaeologists at the University of Lecce have discovered that the modern town, with its 15th-century walls, sits on the ruins of the port that was the first landfall in Italy made by the semi-mythical wanderer of the ancient world, Aeneas. According to Virgil's epic, he fled Troy as the Greeks destroyed it and made his laborious way westwards finally to found a "new Troy", the imperial city of Rome.
In the third book of the Aeneid, according to John Dryden's 17th-century translation, the poet describes the hero's discovery of Italy thus:
... And now the rising morn with rosy light
Adorns the skies, and puts the stars to flight;
When we from far, like bluish mists, descry
The hills, and then the plains, of Italy ...
The gentle gales their flagging force renew,
And now the happy harbour is in view.
Minerva's temple then salutes our sight,
Plac'd, as a landmark, on the mountain's height ...
Minerva's temple is the key: the head of the Archaeology Department at Lecce University has found clinching evidence of the existence of a temple of Minerva, exactly where the poet describes it.
"There is no doubt," Professor Francesco d'Andria said.
SOURCE: Independent (4-26-07)
"Sacred: Discover What We Share," opening tomorrow at the British Library in London, will feature rare and exquisite examples of early bibles, korans and torahs.
It marks the first time a flagship exhibition will display texts from the major monotheistic faiths side by side in order to emphasise their similarities, both in the stories they contain and how they are decorated.
Name of source: Science Daily
SOURCE: Science Daily (4-25-07)
His study will peel away the layers of China’s 6,000-year history of human and environmental interactions, focusing on the Yellow River valley where Anyang numbers among many early settlements.
Name of source: Smoky Mountain News (Waynesville and Sylva, N.C.)
SOURCE: Smoky Mountain News (Waynesville and Sylva, N.C.) (4-25-07)
“There are no legal obligations regarding mounds on private property, as long as the owners don’t disturb any burials that might be there,” said Linda Hall, a state archaeologist based in Asheville....
North Carolina’s Unmarked Human Burial and Human Skeletal Remains Protection Act requires that anybody “knowing or having reasonable grounds to believe” human skeletal remains are being disturbed notify the county’s medical examiner. If the remains are discovered because of construction or plowing, those activities must cease immediately. Work can’t resume without the state’s go-ahead. [But unless the state acts within 48 hours nothing stops the landowner from developing this property.]
Name of source: Xinhua/China View
SOURCE: Xinhua/China View (4-26-07)
"As a person and as prime minister, I feel sympathy from the bottom of my heart to former comfort women, who experienced hardships," Abe, who arrived for talks with President George W. Bush, told some members of the U.S. Congress.
"I feel deeply sorry that they were forced to be placed in such extremely painful situations," Abe said.
Name of source: Deutsche Welle/DW-World (Bonn)
SOURCE: Deutsche Welle/DW-World (Bonn) (4-21-07)
Some 260 cemeteries of varying size are to be found in the German capital, of which 190 are still in use today. Extraordinary in their size and character, they sprawl across more than 1,200 hectares (3,707 acres) of land in and around Berlin...
Today, 90 of the cemeteries belong to the city-state of Berlin, 118 to the German Protestant Church authorities, and nine to the Roman Catholic Church.
There are five Jewish cemeteries in Berlin, including Europe's largest site of Jewish burial, in the city's Weissensee district. There is also a Muslim, a Russian Orthodox Church and a British Commonwealth War Cemetery on the city's Heerstrasse, near the Olympic Stadium.
Some Berlin cemeteries were devastated during World War II, and a few in the border area during the city's postwar division were sealed by the communists and spiked with watch towers and border installations after the Wall went up in 1961.
Those devastations aside, Berlin's cemeteries are in remarkably good shape, having been handsomely restored, often by volunteer working groups.
Name of source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
SOURCE: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (4-26-07)
The report did not provide details of the files requested, but the case could reopen questions and sensitivities about the failure of Dutch peacekeepers to protect Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, which was designated a UN safe area at the time it was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces.
A damning independent Dutch report that concluded that the Dutch government sent its soldiers on "an ill-conceived and virtually impossible peace mission" prompted the resignation of the Dutch cabinet in 2001.
The woman, a Bosnian Muslim married to an engineer with the Dutch battalion, is seeking compensation from the Dutch government, though the report did not provide details of her claim.
Name of source: Press Release -- New-York Historical Society
SOURCE: Press Release -- New-York Historical Society (4-25-07)
Endorsement of the new design, developed by architectural firm Platt Byard Dovell White, came yesterday with a vote by the Landmarks Preservation Commissioners at a meeting led by Chair Robert Tierney. The vote came after a year-long conversation between N-YHS, its neighbors, elected officials and Manhattan Community Board 7 that resulted in modifications to the plan to alter the Central Park West and 77 th Street façades of the Roman Eclectic style building, designed by York and Sawyer and built in 1903-1908, with wings added in 1937-1938 by Walker and Gillette.
The modifications will result in improved access and egress, a Grand Entry Staircase at Central Park West, extended windows on West 77th Street--as envisioned by the building's original architects--and restoration or replacement of deteriorating windows. These changes will enable an internal renovation designed to make the Historical Society into a modern and accessible community, education and cultural facility for children, scholars and the general public.
“This approval is very significant for our Society because the renovations will allow us to change fundamentally. Great museums are more than their collections; they’re institutions with the rare ability to tell stories with those collections – stories that resonate in the lives of the people who encounter them. Our renovated building will allow us to fulfill this bold mission,” said Roger Hertog, Chairman of the New-York Historical Society Board of Trustees.
“We thank the Landmark Preservation Commission for its support of the Society's important public service. It is, first and foremost, our desire to enable the broadest possible public to enjoy learning about the history of New York and the nation that has led to our design,” said Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of the New-York Historical Society. “We have listened carefully to our many constituents and have responded with designs that fully respect the architecture of our landmark, but that also convey the evolution of one of the city’s greatest cultural treasures.”
"The New-York Historical Society headquarters at 77th Street and Central Park West was built to preserve the legacy of old, rich, white families. The institution now considers itself to be a home for citizens of every race, ethnicity, and religion, and this more inclusive mission requires a structure that can support big crowds and big events," said Kenneth T. Jackson, Barzun Professor of History, Columbia University and N-YHS trustee.
Name of source: Guardian
SOURCE: Guardian (4-26-07)
Backed by local civic groups, the advisers to Unesco in Spain, and architects and engineers from 50 universities around the world, Jordi Bonet i Armengol, who has worked on Gaudi's daring cathedral for 40 years, said yesterday: "I am astounded by this brutality. This is an attack on culture of the highest order, something one would only expect of a third-world country."
Name of source: Independent (UK)
SOURCE: Independent (UK) (4-24-07)
Residents of Guernica are furious that they cannot borrow the masterpiece that depicts the destruction of their town during the Spanish Civil War.
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Guernica remembered: Picasso's legacy
Name of source: Washington Post
SOURCE: Washington Post (4-26-07)
Yeltsin "sincerely tried to do everything possible to make the lives of millions of Russians better," President Vladimir Putin said at a reception after Wednesday's funeral, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
"Such personalities as Yeltsin do not die, they continue to live in the ideas and aspirations of peoples, in the successes and achievements of the motherland," Putin continued. "We have just said the last goodbye to Yeltsin. We said goodbye to a decisive person with strong will, a person of a scale and soul inherent to Russia."
"I have never heard such words in my life," Yeltsin's widow, Naina, said in response.
Name of source: Stars and Stripes, Mideast edition
SOURCE: Stars and Stripes, Mideast edition (4-26-07)
Sgt. Jim Wilt, assigned to the Combined Joint Task Force-82 Public Affairs Office, wrote: “I find it ironic that the flags were flown at half-staff for the young men and women who were killed at VT, yet it is never lowered for the death of a U.S. servicemember.”
“Is the life of Sgt. Alexander Van Aalten, a member of our very own task force, killed April 20 in Helmand province not valued the same as these 32 students? Surely his death was as violent as the students.”
In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, President Bush ordered all American flags be flown at half-staff for a week. Bagram air base, like many other U.S. installations across the world, has been following that edict.
Wilt’s article was picked up by several news outlets and popular blogs, and has now gained wide circulation.
Related Links
Excerpts From The Flag Code of The United States - Public Law 94-344, July 7, 1976
