This page features brief excerpts of 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.
Source: Angola Press Agency
September 26, 2007
The Angolan Prime Minister, Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos, on Tuesday in Luanda appealed to scholars and researchers to deepen the quest to find the historical past of Angola and its peoples, before the presence of the Portuguese.
The Premier made this exhortation at the opening session of the Third International Meeting on the History of Angola, which for four days will analyse matters relating to the history of Angola that up until now have not been properly studied or have
Source: AP
September 26, 2007
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned Wednesday against whitewashing the crimes of dictator Josef Stalin, stressing that Russia cannot move forward without facing the truth about its bloody past.
In words that appeared aimed at President Vladimir Putin, Gorbachev also emphasized the need to pursue democracy.
His remarks, less guarded than usual, came amid growing concern among Russia's marginalized liberals that Putin's government is recasting Stalin's legacy to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 27, 2007
Saddam Hussein offered to go into exile for $1 billion (£500 million) one month before the invasion of Iraq, it has been claimed.
The revelation is contained in a previously unpublished transcript of talks between President George W Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in February 2003 at the US leader's Texas ranch.
According to a report by the Spanish daily El Pais, Mr Bush told his Spanish counterpart that the Iraqi dictator had made the offer to
Source: AP
September 27, 2007
Tunnels run beneath Chinatown in Fresno, Calif.: brick-walled passages that were once home to people and activities that couldn't be mentioned aboveground....
Now, a group of archaeologists is using ground-penetrating radar to find evidence of the secret passages, which are believed to branch out from long-abandoned basements littered with animal and human waste, cobwebs and other filth.
The project, funded by the city and headed by a group working to preserve Chinatown
Source: Haaretz
September 24, 2007
Jordan will allocate 1.113 million Jordanian Dinars ($1.5 million dollars) to the Jordan Hashemite Fund for the Reconstruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, King Abdullah II announced yesterday during a meeting of the trustees of the new fund.
The king also instructed a bonus salary to be given to employees of the Waqf, as a gesture of thanks for their commitment and work.
The new fund will be headed by Prince Ghazi, a cousin of the king. At the opening sess
Source: Reuters
September 26, 2007
European Union countries have struck Turkey off the map of Europe as represented on new euro coins, prompting protests from some members of the European Parliament about a bias against Turkey, which wants to join the union. The European Commission had proposed a standard map of Europe that would include Turkey and other countries on the European Union’s borders, for a new series of euro coins. But the final design approved by member governments that make up the European Council excluded Turkey,
Source: International Herald Tribune
September 26, 2007
When Boston psychiatrist Jonathan Shay wanted to understand the psychological toll of the Vietnam War on the veterans he treated, he turned to the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey."
The classical Greek epics perfectly encapsulate the mental damage of combat, said Shay, who works for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Boston.
He wrote two books that draw on the similarities between the Vietnam-era trauma of his patients and the stress of combat that Homer
Source: International Herald Tribune
September 26, 2007
The center-right government came under fire Wednesday after it scrapped plans to bring out a sixth-grade textbook that would have toned down nationalistic rhetoric by offering a staid account of Greek suffering at the hands of the Ottomans and Turks.
Clerics and rightist critics had demanded that the revision be abandoned, but once it was, on Tuesday, some politicians, academics and parents protested.
"We decided to withdraw the book because of serious reservations
Source: http://www.ttc.org
September 20, 2007
A US military team searching for the remains of American soldiers from World War II has discovered the wreckage of two B-17 bombers and a P-47 fighter plane off the coast of Corsica.
The 13-man team led by Captain George Mitroka conducted seven days of marine searches near the French Mediterranean island, equipped with sonars, radars, cameras and video equipment.
Source: Tass
September 26, 2007
Nikolai Patrushev, the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation, on Wednesday handed over to Berl Lazar, the chief rabbi of Russia, copies of documents from the central archives of the Russian FSB regarding the destiny of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
“We made copies of the documents about the life of Raoul Wallenberg and events associated with him and turn them over to you,” Patrushev said.
The FSB director said Russia’s chief rabbi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 27, 2007
Resembling something like a digital Domesday Book, images of the greatest architectural treasures in England have been collected together online for the first time in order to show off the richness of the nation's heritage to the world.
In a massive undertaking that has cost £7.4 million and seven years of hard work, a new English Heritage website has been launched that is loaded with 315,000 digital images showing almost every building, structure and monument in the country listed
Source: BBC
September 26, 2007
A tapestry that recreates part of a priceless Renaissance work of art has been unveiled at Stirling Castle.
The intricate 12ft by 14ft tapestry, entitled The Unicorn is Killed and Brought to the Castle, has taken a team of weavers four years to complete.
It forms the third part of the famous 16th century Hunt of the Unicorn series of tapestries, being recreated at the castle at a cost of £2m.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 27, 2007
Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the exiled former dictator of Haiti, has belatedly asked his countrymen to forgive "wrongs" committed by his regime in an apparent bid to soften opposition to him returning there.
In a speech recorded in Paris, where he has reportedly been living in growing poverty, Duvalier urged supporters to rally around his small political party.
It was Duvalier's first public address in years and the speech was broadcast across t
Source: Louisville Courier-Journal
September 24, 2007
It was a first in Cheryl Ann Munson's 42 years as an archaeologist. She and her team were excavating at Hovey Lake in Posey County last week when they made a rare find.
Buried about 18 inches down on what had been the floor of a centuries-old house probably made of wood posts, mud plaster and straw was a fully intact bowl -- a "deep-rim plate," in archaeologist-speak -- made of clay mixed with shell.
Source: http://en.naukawpolsce.pl
September 25, 2007
Thousands of years ago, Egyptians knew many complicated methods of producing dyes. They used them to create many magnificent frescoes, which cover the walls of temples, royal palaces and tombs. Time and atmospheric factors have caused the paintings to lose their initial colours. The chemical reactions have modified the chemical content of the pigment. Thus, the colours we see today, are very distant from the pieces created by their ancient painters.
This is why scientists, with the
Source: http://www.turkishdailynews.com
September 26, 2007
A 6,000 square-meter mine field located near the ruins of Karkam??, one of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East, in the Gaziantep region will be cleaned up for archaeological excavations after permission was granted by the General Staff Gaziantep Special Provincial Administration.
Provincial Administration Secretary General Abdulkadir Demir said Japanese Prince Tomohito Mikasa, who is also an archaeologist, had applied in person to the Turkish Ministry of Culture an
Source: News-Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)
September 27, 2007
Some conservative Republicans in western North Carolina plan to protest an annual state Democratic Party dinner next month because the event is named for a governor who preached white supremacy.The Carolina Stompers, a group comprised of Asheville-area Republicans, will demonstrate Oct. 6 as the Vance-Aycock Dinner is held in Asheville, said group president Chad Nesbitt, adding that the protest may help win black support for the GOP.
Gov. Charles Aycock, who ser
Source: NYT
September 27, 2007
Tania Head’s story, as shared over the years with reporters, students, friends and hundreds of visitors to ground zero, was a remarkable account of both life and death.
She had, she said, survived the terror attack on the World Trade Center despite having been badly burned when the plane crashed into the upper floors of the south tower....
Much of Ms. Head’s account was posted on the Web site of the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network, a nonprofit organization for whi
Source: David Margolick in Vanity Fair
September 24, 2007
During the historic 1957 desegregation of Little Rock Central High School, 26-year-old journalist Will Counts took a photograph that gave an iconic face to the passions at the center of the civil-rights movement—two faces, actually: those of 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford on her first day of school, and her most recognizable tormentor, Hazel Bryan. The story of how these two women struggled to reconcile and move on from the event is a remarkable journey through the last half-century of race relat
Source: Fox News
September 26, 2007
The Navy will spend as much as $600,000 to modify a 40-year-old barracks complex that resembles a swastika from the air, a gaffe that went largely unnoticed before satellite images became easily accessible on the Internet.
The Navy said officials noted the buildings' shape after the groundbreaking in 1967 but decided against changing it at the time because it wasn't obvious from the ground. Aerial photos made available on Google Earth in recent years have since revealed the buildin
