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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: DPA
SOURCE: DPA (7-6-07)
Both men angrily denied this week that they had sought Nazi party membership. It was suggested that local party officials had compelled schoolboys to enroll en masse, perhaps as a "birthday gift" to dictator Adolf Hitler.
The controversy, triggered by journalists fishing for famous names in a Berlin archive of Nazi Party records, has echoes of last year's disclosure by German Nobel Literature laureate Guenter Grass that he enlisted at age 17 in the Waffen SS, the Nazi Party army.
Lenz, whose principal novel, the German Lesson, is about childhood in Nazi Germany, is a notable supporter of the Social Democratic Party.
The debate this week has brought home to Germans that even a childhood connection with the Nazis can still unleash a powerful storm today. That in turn illustrates why Germans of the Second World War generation have largely held back from discussing personal complicity.
The Nazi Party membership records are not yet freely searchable. Researchers are only allowed to apply to see files relating to modern public figures. Journalists who go looking for names risk being accused of muck-raking.
Name of source: Archaeology
SOURCE: Archaeology (7-6-07)
The Irish government met resistance when it announced plans for a 60 km road running straight through the Gabhra Valley between Tara and the nearby Hill of Skreen. Archaeologists and historians claimed that the entire valley, not just the hill, contains historical monuments and artifacts and should therefore be protected.
In its defense, the National Roads Association (NRA) argued that a new road was necessary because the existing N3 highway is deteriorating, thereby making travel dangerous and inefficient for drivers between Dublin and Navan. A deal was signed with Eurolink, an independent contractor, and construction began in Spring 2006.
The M3 proposal was heavily criticized, especially after the recent discovery of Lismullin, a ceremonial enclosure located on the edge of the valley, just 2 km (1.24 mi) away from Tara. It is thought to be from the Early Iron Age, which would make it at least 2,000 years old. The site consists of an outer enclosure 80 m in diameter and an inner enclosure 16 m in diameter. Both are bounded by two rings of stakeholes, suggesting that they were initially made from timber. It has been argued that the presence of a ritual site in the Gabhra Valley confirms earlier claims that Tara is a complex of historical monuments, and not only an isolated hill.
Name of source: Independent (South Africa)
SOURCE: Independent (South Africa) (7-6-07)
The hearings were broadcast live on national radio and television - another first - and held by a state body empowered to look into widespread abuses committed over a period of 43 years, from independence from France in 1956 to 1999.
The Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER) was tasked with investigating and documenting "grave" human rights abuses, notably during the 1960s and 1970s, a period under the rule of the late King Hassan known in Morocco as "the years of lead".
However, to avoid reviving old tensions there was no naming of names as participants were not allowed to identify individuals responsible for the violations.
Some of the torturers are believed to still hold high positions, particularly in the military.
Name of source: AP
SOURCE: AP (7-6-07)
Father Patrick Desbois and his mixed-faith team have been crisscrossing Ukraine for six years and have located more than 500 mass graves, many never before recorded. The project is central to a broader reassessment of the Nazi horrors in Ukraine that followed the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. Last month, a team of rabbis visited a newly found grave site in the Ukrainian village of Gvozdavka-1 where thousands of Jews were killed during the Nazi occupation.
At least 1.5 million Jews were killed on hills and in ravines across Nazi-occupied Ukraine, most slaughtered by submachine guns before the gas chambers became machines of mass death. Researchers are only now peeling back layers of Soviet-era silence about what they call the "Holocaust by bullets."
Part of Desbois' work so far - video interviews with Ukrainian villagers, photos of newly discovered mass graves, archival documents, and shell casings - is on public display for the first time in a haunting exhibit at Paris' Holocaust Memorial through Nov. 30.
"I'm not here to judge," Desbois, whose Catholic grandfather survived a Nazi camp, said in an interview with The Associated Press. The people whose stories Desbois records, he stresses, were "children, adolescents. They were poor. They were afraid."
SOURCE: AP (7-4-07)
Part of the trail leads to the Monacan Ancestral Museum in Amherst County, where visitors can learn about Virginia's "lost" tribe. Monacans say they were only able to survive as a nation hundreds of years after colonists thought they'd died out because they lived in the middle of nowhere.
The Virginia Indian Heritage Trail guide contains photographs, a history of the eight state-recognized tribes, a listing of events such as the July 21-22 American Indian Intertribal Cultural Festival, and 24 places to visit, including the Pamunkey Indian Museum on the Pamunkey Reservation near Jamestown and the Monacan Indian Living History Village at Natural Bridge.
SOURCE: AP (6-30-07)
Carter had brokered the historic peace accord between Israel and Egypt in 1978 at Camp David, and he wanted a similar venue to further his diplomatic work. But 25 years later, the center's focus has expanded from that initial focus on traditional human rights work to addressing basic human needs.
"We began to find that if a family is starving to death and has no place to live and has no chance for any kind of rudimentary health care and is in a war zone, those deprivations become their main concern about human rights," Carter said.
The Carter Center has scheduled events throughout the year to commemorate its 25th anniversary. "Beyond the Presidency: 25 Years of The Carter Center," a special exhibit at the center's Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, opens Saturday.
SOURCE: AP (7-3-07)
The report released late Monday by the All China Lawyers Association and China Legal Aid Foundation, comes as Japan faces increased pressure from the United States to further apologize for sending women to work in wartime brothels.
The legal groups said they located 17 women who were forced to work as 'comfort women' _ a euphemism for sex slaves _ including one who was only 12 at the time. Fourteen were under the age of 18 when they 'suffered repeated sexual violence,' the report said.
The groups did not say why the study was carried out now. The All-China Lawyers Association is the national umbrella group for government-sanctioned lawyers' groups.
SOURCE: AP (7-2-07)
Both are offered by NY Waterway Tours.
The history cruise, developed in collaboration with the New-York Historical Society, takes a "then and now" approach to four centuries of New York's past, mentioning sites like Governors Island, which served until recently as a Coast Guard installation but was named Nut Island in the 1600s for the chestnut and walnut trees that grew there; Bowling Green, a park that played a role in Revolutionary War era events; and Chelsea Piers, an upscale recreation center on the Hudson, located near where the Titanic was expected to dock.
The architecture cruise, developed in collaboration with the American Institute of Architects, include The Solaire, a "green building" in Battery Park City, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Battery Maritime Building, the New York Life Insurance Building, known for its gilded roof, and several buildings in Brooklyn and New Jersey.
SOURCE: AP (6-30-07)
The barrier was part of more than 15 miles of border fence built in 2000, stretching from the town of Columbus to an onion farm and cattle ranch.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said the vertical metal tubes were sunk into the ground and filled with cement along what officials firmly believed was the border. But a routine aerial survey in March revealed that the barrier protrudes into Mexico by 1 to 6 feet.
James Johnson, whose onion farm is in the disputed area, said he thinks his forefathers may have started the confusion in the 19th century by placing a barbed-wire fence south of the border. No one discovered their error, and crews erecting the barrier may have used that fence as a guideline.
Name of source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
SOURCE: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (7-5-07)
Schools must start using the new curriculum when the 2007-08 school year begins in August.
"I'm just astonished and appalled," said Jeannie Whayne, chairman of the history department at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. "It's a devastating blow to Arkansas history." The Arkansas Curriculum Frameworks define what students must know in major subject areas such as math, English and science.
Name of source: WaPo
SOURCE: WaPo (7-5-07)
Given how little there is to see, those are impressive numbers -- and a striking lesson about how history is told in this country. The site Levin is excavating once contained a structure many consider the first real White House, the presidential mansion where George Washington and John Adams lived while Philadelphia served as the capital of the United States in the 1790s. Plans to build a memorial marker over the site have kindled a broader interest not just in the house but in the people, including slaves, who lived there.
At the same time, spontaneous public curiosity about the dig (done in preparation for building the memorial over the house's remains) has shown how poorly Philadelphia, and the nation, has been served by efforts to generate tourist interest at all costs at Independence National Historical Park, where the site is located. All around this muddy little hole, private tour buses clog the streets, new and undistinguished buildings have risen, and the latest in interactive history with all the bells and whistles has been marketed to visitors. Yet in a low pit on a street corner near the Liberty Bell, a few archaeologists are carefully excavating some very minimal foundation walls, uncovering old wells and privies and sifting dirt for shards of crockery. And they're stealing the show.
SOURCE: WaPo (7-3-07)
Over sodas and sparkling water, he asks his questions: What is the nature of good and evil in the post-Sept. 11 world? What lessons does history have for a president facing the turmoil I'm facing? How will history judge what we've done? Why does the rest of the world seem to hate America? Or is it just me they hate?
These are the questions of a president who has endured the most drastic political collapse in a generation. Despite a reputation for lacking intellectual curiosity, Bush is seeking out those who are, embarking on an exploration of the currents of history that have swept up his administration. For all the setbacks, he remains unflinching, rarely expressing doubt yet trying to understand how he got off course.
SOURCE: WaPo (7-1-07)
"Because they can't," says Ray Wetzel, 55, a resident of Hanover, Pa., and member of the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves, a reenactment unit that portrays those Union infantrymen. He's referring to the hundreds of thousands who served and died during the Civil War. They're not around to remind us, Wetzel says, but he is.
And so are hundreds of other reenactors in the District, Maryland and Virginia, especially now that we're in the thick of reenactment season in an area swollen with Civil War battlefields. More than 3,000 reenactors will invade south central Pennsylvania on Friday for the Annual Gettysburg Civil War Battle Reenactment, just as 80 reenactors did in Westminster, Md., last weekend for a commemoration of Corbit's Charge, one of the small but consequential conflicts that paved the way for that tide-turning battle.
Name of source: LAT
SOURCE: LAT (7-5-07)
Lowenstein is no student organizer; he's a noted professor and vice chairman of the department of neurology at UCSF.
Four years into the war, student protests at campuses across the country have been rare, but a handful of academics have begun speaking out and conducting studies within their own disciplines to make the case against the conflict.
SOURCE: LAT (7-3-07)
In a 10-day expedition, Stinchon and his seven-member team -- the first U.S.-led search on Iwo Jima in nearly 60 years -- were looking for what wasn't on his map: caves and tunnels that were closed and sealed, then missed when U.S. searchers combed the island for American dead.
"We need to find places that haven't already been searched," he said.
Following the motto "Until They are Home," JPAC, which was created in 2003, identifies about six MIAs each month -- some 1,300 so far. The command, which also runs permanent branches in Thailand, Vietnam and Laos, has at any given time about 1,000 active cases.
"It's such an incredible mission," said Lt. Col. Mark Brown, the JPAC spokesman. "There's a lot of families who have been waiting a long time."
Name of source: NYT
SOURCE: NYT (7-5-07)
Cologne’s Muslim population, largely Turkish, is pushing for approval to build what would be one of Germany’s largest mosques, in a working-class district across town from the cathedral’s mighty spires.
Predictably, an extreme-right local political party has waged a noisy, xenophobic protest campaign, drumming up support from its far-right allies in Austria and Belgium.
But the proposal has also drawn fierce criticism from a respected German-Jewish writer, Ralph Giordano, who said the mosque would be “an expression of the creeping Islamization of our land.” And he does not want to see women shrouded in veils on German streets, he said....
Mr. Giordano, a Holocaust survivor, has been sharply criticized, by fellow Jews, among others, and has even received death threats. But others say he is giving voice to Germans, who for reasons of their past, are reluctant to express misgivings about the rise of Islam in their midst.
SOURCE: NYT (7-4-07)
Five Declaration signers are buried in the Garden State: four New Jerseyans and a Pennsylvanian. An effort to preserve their graves, promote their lives and honor them with graveside plaques has stalled in a state that was home to several key Revolutionary War battles and dubs itself the ''Crossroads of the American Revolution.''
A plan to spend $200,000 to spruce up grave sites and mark their locations with new plaques has bounced around the Legislature for more than three years without becoming law, a victim of chronic state budget woes.
SOURCE: NYT (7-4-07)
Instead, this ancient treasure, a giant statue from the fifth century B.C. usually identified as the goddess Aphrodite, holds court thousands of miles away, at the J. Paul Getty Museum’s antiquities villa in California.
In the Aidone Archaeological Museum, which houses artifacts from a nearby dig at an ancient Greek settlement called Morgantina, visitors settle for a large poster at the entrance depicting the statue and announcing a national campaign to bring it back.
“This is her rightful place,” said Nicola Leanza, the culture minister for Sicily, who, like many others, argues that the goddess was illegally excavated from Morgantina.
The Getty, which bought the statue in 1988 for $18 million, isn’t so sure.
SOURCE: NYT (7-3-07)
Mr. Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, was shot dead in front of his office on Jan. 19. A day later, a Turkish teenager, Ogun Samast, was arrested and charged with the murder. The government has brought charges against 17 other people.
Mr. Dink, the editor of Agos, a bilingual newspaper, challenged the official Turkish version of the 1915 Armenian genocide, which holds that hundreds of thousands of Armenians perished because of hunger and suffering in World War I.
But he was working to mend relations between Turkey and Armenia and had even taken issue with Armenians who insisted that Turkey’s entry into Europe hinge on its acknowledgment of genocide.
SOURCE: NYT (7-4-07)
Digging through layers of soil, brick and mortar, archaeologists for the city and the National Park Service have exposed remains of a four-story brick and stone mansion that was home to George Washington and John Adams, and was the seat of the executive branch before the White House was finished.
Historians and community activists began demanding the excavation in 2002, after the site, which is adjacent to the Liberty Bell Center, was found to be above the mansion’s living quarters for nine household slaves that Washington brought here from Mount Vernon. Thousands of people have visited since digging began in March, the makeshift observation deck atop the hole serving as a platform for reflection and dialogue on the nature and roots of liberty.
Nathan Buchanan, 25, a graduate student from Spruce Pine, N.C., said Tuesday that the excavation presented him with “the whole picture of history.”
SOURCE: NYT (7-3-07)
Mr. Thompson’s amble toward the Republican race has sent the price of used copies of his long-forgotten, out-of-print 1975 memoir soaring to $199.35 on Amazon.com’s network of used-book dealers, providing a gauge of his appeal as a candidate, if not as an author.
The book, “At That Point in Time: The Inside Story of the Senate Watergate Committee,” recounts his stint as Republican counsel to the panel. Before Mr. Thompson, a former Tennessee senator and actor, became a presidential contender, a reviewer on the site concluded that the book was likely to appeal to only a few “Watergate enthusiasts.”
SOURCE: NYT (7-3-07)
According to Justice Department standards, “requests for commutation generally are not accepted unless and until a person has begun serving that sentence,” and they are generally not granted to those appealing their convictions. Cooperation with prosecutors is usually considered a factor in granting such requests.
With just minor exceptions, Ms. Love said, “I can’t think of a recent commutation that was granted before at least some prison time was served.”
SOURCE: NYT (7-2-07)
The survey, to be released on Monday, is the latest proof of a fact well-known to historians and journalists who regularly seek government documents: Agencies often take months or years to respond to requests for information under the law, known as FOIA, which went into effect on July 4, 1967.
“The law is 40 years old, and we’re seeing 20 years of delay,” said Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a research group at George Washington University. The group, itself among the most prolific requesters under the act, conducted the survey with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The survey will be posted at nsarchive.org.
SOURCE: NYT (7-2-07)
Some of the fans were wearing the black caps of Croatia’s infamous Nazi puppet Ustashe government, which was responsible for sending tens of thousands of Serbs, Gypsies and Jews to their deaths in concentration camps.
The exchange with the audience is a routine part of Mr. Perkovic’s act, and the gesture seemed to lack any conscious political overtones. The audience — most of whom appeared to be in their teens and early 20s — just seemed to be having a good time. But Mr. Perkovic’s recent success among a new generation — many of them apparently oblivious to the history of the Holocaust — has prompted concern and condemnation from Jewish groups abroad and minority groups in Croatia.
SOURCE: NYT (7-1-07)
Openly hoping for a renewal of relations between China and the Vatican, which were suspended in the late 1950s, Pope Benedict reassured the Chinese government that the Vatican offered no political challenge to its authority, while urging the state-sponsored Catholic Church to acknowledge the Vatican’s control on religious matters.
SOURCE: NYT (7-1-07)
Harris’s characters, including Br’er Rabbit and the Tar-Baby, may have been based on African folktales, but their antiquated and affectionate portrait of life in the old South is not welcome by detractors, and many neighbors have not forgotten the Wren’s Nest’s history of keeping black people out of the house that Uncle Remus built.
Now, however, the Queen Anne-style house — on a busy street in the West End neighborhood — is undergoing an overhaul by its board of directors and Lain Shakespeare, the executive director and a 24-year-old descendant of Harris. They say their goal is to overcome the antipathy many people feel toward Harris.
“We’re going to put our story out into the community,” said Marshall Thomas, chairman of the Joel Chandler Harris Association. “It’s what is called an underappreciated asset.” Harris defenders like Mr. Thomas note that in many literary circles Harris’s writing is admired for its dialogue and as a contribution to American folklore.
Name of source: Boston Globe
SOURCE: Boston Globe (7-4-07)
Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, "At That Point in Time," Thompson said he acted with "no authority" in divulging the committee's knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon's resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson's actions.
"Thompson was a mole for the White House," Armstrong said in an interview. "Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was."
Asked about the matter this week, Thompson -- who is preparing to run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination -- responded via e-mail without addressing the specific charge of being a Nixon mole: "I'm glad all of this has finally caused someone to read my Watergate book, even though it's taken them over thirty years."
SOURCE: Boston Globe (7-1-07)
But in New England, where families trace their roots to the Mayflower, no place is too minor to stake a claim on history. Basketville in Putney, Vt., proudly proclaims itself America's oldest basket company; Stoddard's in Newton, the oldest cutlery shop; and the New England Wild Flower Society in Framingham, the oldest plant conservation organization.
Such claims, for all their romantic appeal, can be as shaky as beams in a colonial meetinghouse. Just over two weeks ago, residents saved the Brick School in Franklin from closing, decrying the loss of America's oldest continuously operated one-room brick schoolhouse. They later discovered that the Croydon Village School in Croydon, N.H., is also brick, also one room, and has been open since 1780, 12 years before the Brick School.
Name of source: NYT Book Review
SOURCE: NYT Book Review (7-1-07)
“Twice as Good,” by Marcus Mabry, the chief of correspondents for Newsweek, works hard to solve the Rice puzzle. It digs deep into the story of her family, including her slave ancestors, and the hugely influential figure of her father, the Rev. John Rice. We follow the family’s journey from segregation in Alabama to educational opportunity in Colorado and finally to California. We learn much — with a detail uncommon in a political biography — of her almost frighteningly intense childhood.
Name of source: International Herald Tribune
SOURCE: International Herald Tribune (7-3-07)
Name of source: Japan Times
SOURCE: Japan Times (7-3-07)
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe accepted Kyuma's resignation when the defense chief visited his official residence Tuesday afternoon.
"People do not seem to understand" the intentions behind the remarks, "so I told Prime Minister Abe that I need to take responsibility, and he accepted it," Kyuma told reporters after speaking with Abe.
Kyuma's resignation comes as the already beleaguered Abe prepares to lead his Liberal Democratic Party in the July 29 House of Councilors election.
Opinion polls from the past few days have shown Abe's approval ratings dipping to record lows in the wake of the government's pension record-keeping debacle, a Cabinet minister's suicide and other scandals, including the defense chief's latest gaffe.
Kyuma caused a stir Saturday when he said in a speech in Chiba Prefecture that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the closing days of World War II were unavoidable because the bombings were aimed at preventing the Soviet Union from entering the war against Japan.
"I understand the bombings brought the war to an end. I think it was something that couldn't be helped," he said.
Name of source: Seattle Times
SOURCE: Seattle Times (7-3-07)
After reading Andrew Roberts' "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900," Bush brought in the author and a dozen other scholars to talk about the lessons. "What can I learn from history?" Bush asked Roberts, according to Irwin M. Stelzer, the Hudson Institute scholar, who participated.
Stelzer said Bush seemed smarter than he expected. The conversation ranged from history to religion and touched on sensitive topics for a president wrestling with his legacy. "He asked me: 'Do you think our unpopularity abroad is a result of my personality?' And he laughed," Stelzer recalled. "I said, 'In part.' And he laughed again."
Much of the discussion focused on the nature of good and evil, a perennial theme for Bush, who casts the struggle against Islamic extremists in black-and-white terms. Michael Novak, a theologian who participated, said it was clear Bush weathers his difficulties because he sees himself as doing the Lord's work.
British historian Alistair Horne was invited to meet with Bush recently after former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger gave the president "A Savage War of Peace," Horne's book on the French defeat in Algeria in the mid-20th century.
Name of source: Boston Herald
SOURCE: Boston Herald (7-3-07)
Speaking to reporters, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he told Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma to “strictly refrain from making remarks that cause misunderstanding.”
“Japan is the only country that suffered an atomic bombing. We need to always consider and stand in the position of the survivors,” Abe said he told Kyuma.
“I understand that the bombing ended the war, and I think that it couldn’t be helped,” Kyuma said last weekend at a Japanese university. Kyuma, a Nagasaki native, said the bombing caused great suffering in the city but said he did not resent the United States because the bombs prevented the Soviet Union from invading and occupying Japan.
Name of source: Telegraph (UK)
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (7-2-07)
Tears don't become Baron Steel of Aikwood, the former Liberal leader. He has survived a good deal: from the humiliating jibes about him being Dr David Owen's puppet when the SDP amalgamated with his party to form the Liberal Democrats, to early-stage prostate cancer in 2001.
Sir David Steele believes Mau Mau camps were our Guantanamo Bay
Yet his steely (no other word for it) self-possession had never deserted him until he was finally ambushed into tears by the filming of a television documentary in which he investigates the subversive history of his Presbyterian minister father, David Steel Senior. The Very Reverend David, who died aged 92 in 2002, was a classic example of a turbulent priest, in true Thomas à Becket tradition.
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (7-2-07)
The new findings will encourage conspiracy theorists
In fresh tests of the Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action weapon, supervised by the Italian army, it was found to be impossible for even an accomplished marksman to fire the shots quickly enough....
The official Warren Commission inquiry into the shooting concluded the following year that Oswald was a lone gunman who fired three shots with a Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle in 8.3 seconds.
But when the Italian team test-fired the identical model of gun, they were unable to load and fire three shots in less than 19 seconds - suggesting that a second gunman must have been present in Dealey Plaza, central Dallas, that day....
The findings will be a frustration to Vincent Bugliosi, the author of a 1,600-page book, also published in May, which claimed to put to rest all the conspiracy theories of the past 44 years.
The Italian findings will be hotly contested by those who believe that Oswald was a lone gunman - not least because they contradict firing tests previously conducted, using Oswald's actual rifle, by the FBI and the US Marines, and another study by Washington police marksmen using an identical gun.
Oswald would only have needed to reload the weapon twice in the eight seconds to get off all three shots, since the time was measured only from the moment he fired the first shot. The FBI concluded that a marksman could have fired a shot at least every 2.3 seconds.
In his book, Mr Bugliosi details how after just two or three minutes' practice with the gun in 1979, three police marksmen aiming at three targets representing Kennedy at the same distance from Oswald, got away three shots in less than eight seconds.
Name of source: http://www.asahi.com
SOURCE: http://www.asahi.com (7-2-07)
The first round of talks ended in May 2005 with the South Korean and Japanese sides issuing separate statements indicating disagreement on virtually all issues in all the three historical periods covered.
In contrast to the icy atmosphere of the official history talks, on the local level, cooperation between Koreans and Japanese has been proceeding more smoothly. On the island of Tsushima, roughly halfway between Kyushu and the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula, preparations are under way for the celebration of the annual Arirang Festival on the first weekend of August.
The Japanese festival with a Korean name commemorates the arrival in Japan of 12 Korean royal embassies, known as tsushinshi, during the Edo Period (1603-1867).
Name of source: USA Today
SOURCE: USA Today (7-1-07)
"The march of improvement, consequent on the introduction of Christianity, through the South Seas, probably stands by itself on the records of the world," Darwin wrote in 1836, chronicling the sea voyage that opened his eyes to the development of species.
"I don't think Darwin would recognize his defenders today and probably wouldn't understand his attackers," says cultural historian Mark Graham of Grove City (Pa.) College, author of the Journal of Religious History report....
Attackers and defenders of Darwin today may be surprised, Graham says, to learn that Darwin's first publication, coming after his 1831 to 1836 worldwide voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle that set him on the path towards describing natural selection, was a defense of missionary work in the Pacific.
Darwin was moved by missionary efforts to help people in Tahiti and New Zealand, Graham concludes. "What's interesting is that it shows Darwin was a man who could change his mind after looking into something," he says.
"It's a mistake to say that missionary work was a primary purpose of the Beagle voyage," says historian John van Wyhe of the University of Cambridge's Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. Missionary work was not part of the Beagle's charter — Darwin's role was to collect samples of exotic species — but the ship's captain, Robert FitzRoy, was a supporter who wanted to take a missionary to South America on the voyage.
Critics of Darwin often overlook his initial plans to become a vicar and his support for missionaries is well-known to historians, van Wyhe says, but is not seen as a major part of his life.
Name of source: Anchorage Daily News
SOURCE: Anchorage Daily News (7-1-07)
hey stare across the nearly 5-mile-wide, rubbled expanse of the Kennicott River valley, say National Park Service officials, and lament the mess left in the wilderness by the Kennecott Copper Corp. some 70 years ago.
The Kennicott valley is, indeed, a barren expanse of rock, gravel and sand that looks like the mother of all mine-tailing piles.
Park Service officials have to explain that, in reality, the fine, crushed rock on which visitors walk between the old mine buildings is pretty much it for tailings. The rest of what fills the valley is natural -- the moraine of the fast-retreating Kennicott and Root glaciers.
The raw wound left by glacial retreat makes what man did here look insignificant.
Name of source: Chronicle of Higher Education
SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education (7-2-07)
First, the Soviet leader used a gray pencil. Then he switched to quill and indigo ink. He scribbled in the margins and wrote over text, deleting words and entire phrases by drawing lines through them. ....
The marked-up manuscript is part of Stalin's personal library, which was declassified by Russian authorities only recently. Since Stalin apparently did not keep a diary or other personal documents, his library provides a rare window into his mind or — this being Russia — his soul.
The Russian archive and Yale University Press have struck a deal to digitize that library and some 440,000 other documents. The press will also publish books — in both Russian and English — featuring research gleaned from the library.
Name of source: Inside Higher Ed (Click on SOURCE for embedded links.)
SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed (Click on SOURCE for embedded links.) (7-2-07)
Name of source: http://kvoa.com
SOURCE: http://kvoa.com (7-2-07)
"It solidifies the things you read about in the Book of Mormon," Randy Andrus of Gilbert said as he walked through a section of Teotihuacan known as the Citadel. "I'm feeling some good things here."
Mormons believe that three groups of people _ the Jaredites, the Mulekites and the family of a Hebrew merchant named Lehi _ sailed from the Middle East and settled in the Americas hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus.
The descendants of Lehi split into two camps, the Nephites and the Lamanites, and were visited by Jesus after his Resurrection around A.D. 34, Mormons believe. The Nephites kept records of their history on gold plates....
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon church is known, does not have an official position on where the ancient tribes lived. Even Mormon archaeologists say more research is needed to pinpoint their cities.
But that hasn't stopped tour companies from offering Book of Mormon trips to Guatemala, Honduras and southern Mexico, places rich in pre-Hispanic ruins.
"No one is exactly sure where these things happened, but we think we have some good candidates," said Blake Allen, president of Book of Mormon Tours.
Book of Mormon Tours, which started in the 1970s, claims to be the first such company, but at least 10 others now offer tours and cruises. One of the biggest tour operators, Liahona Tours, started in 2001 and has seen its business double every year, President Shelby Saberon said. This year, it will conduct 16 tours.
Name of source: Toledo Blade
SOURCE: Toledo Blade (7-2-07)
The Buddhist goddess Kannon sat midway up the right side, her features inked into the fabric with the strong black strokes of a sophisticated artist. Daruma rolled across the bottom and up the left side of the flag. Daruma was a sage, explained Dr. Kaji, who meditated for seven years (or nine, according to some) while his legs atrophied, withered, and fell off. His rolling image means that a person can roll seven times, but will get up on the eighth.
Dr. Kaji, a retired physician who moved to Toledo as an obstetrics and gynecology intern in 1968, has sent this flag's photograph twice to the government of Japan.
The government still has a department for war victims, but it has yet to find the soldier who owned this flag - or his family.
Name of source: BBC
SOURCE: BBC (7-1-07)
Belfast Lord Mayor Jim Rodgers led a procession of politicians and senior members of the armed forces to lay a wreath at the cenotaph in the city.
The Duke of Gloucester visited the Somme Heritage Centre in Conlig and was given a tour of the simulated trenches.
SOURCE: BBC (7-1-07)
The 30m (100ft) long replica, called Sea Stallion, is said to be the world's largest reconstructed Viking vessel.
It is based on a ship made nearly 1,000 years ago in Ireland, which in 1962 was excavated from the Roskilde fjord.
SOURCE: BBC (6-26-07)
The 2,000-year-old stone building was found in the Bennachie hills on the site of an earlier Bronze Age fort.
The archaeologists who uncovered it said the size of the building suggested it was inhabited by society's elite.
SOURCE: BBC (6-27-07)
Scape is investigating the suspected Iron Age round houses before they vanish in another powerful storm.
The organisation is also carrying out work at another historic site in Brora.
Violent weather exposed the ruined houses at Baile Sear, North Uist, in January 2005.
SOURCE: BBC (6-29-07)
The work on the burial site in Sandwick Bay, Unst, follows an excavation led by the Scottish Coastal Archaeology and the Problems of Erosion Trust (Scape).
It teamed up with the Council for Scottish Archaeology's Adopt-a-Monument scheme for the rebuild project.
The new structures will allow visitors to see the excavation findings.
It is thought that the structures may only last a couple of years, due to coastal erosion.
Name of source: http://www.javno.com
SOURCE: http://www.javno.com (6-11-07)
Numerous politicans have given support to the research in Visoko, formerly a royal town. Experts have protested and the people find all this interesting.
However, Culture Minister Gavrilo Grahovac decided to shut down the source of funding, at least this one, because this was not a serious archaeological research. The credibility of the people who collaborated on the project was “unreliable” and they have published their findings that were kept away from the experts.
Name of source: Reuters
SOURCE: Reuters (6-18-07)
El Moudjahid daily said local tour guide Hadj Brahim found about 40 images near the town of Bechar, about 800 km (500 miles) southwest of the capital Algiers.
Name of source: http://en.epochtimes.com
SOURCE: http://en.epochtimes.com (6-25-07)
The cemetery of the Zhou Dynasty in Liangdai Village, Hanchen City, covers 330,000 square meters. The second excavation project began on March 23 this year. Up until now, twenty well-preserved and undisturbed tombs were excavated.
In two tombs, the archaeological team discovered a large number of cultural relics including bronze ceremonial instruments, kettles, dishes, various musical instruments, chimes, weapons, horse-drawn carriages, pottery, lacquer articles, jade-axes and other jade items.
