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: AFP
May 9, 2007
MIAMI -- A US judge on Tuesday dropped an immigration indictment against anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles, bluntly claiming the government tricked the ex-CIA contractor, whom Cuba and Venezuela call a terrorist."I am free," exclaimed Posada Carriles, 79, on Miami's Radio Mambi, shortly after the judge in El Paso, Texas dismissed all seven charges linked to his sneaking into the United States and lying to immigration authorities.
"Thank Go
Source: Washington Post
May 9, 2007
TALLINN, Estonia -- The passion that erupted in this storybook capital city and on the streets of Moscow in the past two weeks because of divided understanding of a shared history left Igor Britikovski cold.
The 23-year-old ethnic Russian, who is an Estonian citizen, had never visited the bronze statue of a Soviet Red Army soldier whose relocation from central Tallinn to a military cemetery on April 26 sparked riots by ethnic Russians here and a siege of the Estonian Embassy in Mosc
Source: DPA (German Press Agency)
May 9, 2007
TAIPEI -- Taiwan's Cabinet on Wednesday approved a motion to rename a memorial hall originally built to commemorate the late Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, in yet another move to erase the legacy of the late generalissimo.
''With the approval, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall will be renamed as Taiwan Democracy Hall,'' said Cabinet spokeswoman Chen Mei-ling in a news conference...
The latest move was another step in a sustained campaign by the pro-independence Dem
Source: Asia Times (Hong Kong)
May 8, 2007
HONG KONG -- As China races into its capitalist future, it is also rediscovering its philosophical and religious past...
Chinese leaders...are enthusiastically supporting a revival of the ancient philosophical traditions of Confucianism and Taoism. Late last month, for example, the government sponsored a six-day forum dedicated to the interpretation and promotion of Tao Te Ching (or Dai De Jing, "The Book of the Way and Its Virtue"), the foundational text of Taoism, both a
Source: CHN (Cultural Heritage News Agency, Tehran)
May 9, 2007
TEHRAN -- Development activities of Ramhormoz Water and Sewage Department, Khuzestan province, led into accidentally discovery of two historical coffins containing some 500 pieces of invaluable gold ornamentations and artifacts belonging to different historical periods including: Elamite (3400-550 BC),Achaemenid (550-330 BC), Parthian (248 BC-224 AD) as well as Mesopotamia civilization in two coffins.
Discovery of this unique treasury has faced archaeologists with a large number of
Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
May 8, 2007
The Russian Education Ministry's recent decision to review the country's history textbooks follows the recent ban of a book that had been popular with many Russian history teachers for its thought-provoking approach. This weekend, in yet another move, the Kremlin is due to receive a report on the "patriotic content" of textbooks. The trend has teachers worried about the temptation to revert to comfortable, Soviet-style "truths" -- and even some of the historians charged with
Source: AP
May 9, 2007
ROME -- Pope Pius XII, the wartime pontiff who some have accused of remaining largely silent in the face of the Holocaust, has taken another step toward possible sainthood, the Vatican said Wednesday.
A panel of bishops and cardinals at the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved a declaration on Pius' virtues Tuesday and passed it to Pope Benedict XVI, according to a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini.
If Benedict signs the document, it will
Source: Washington Post
May 9, 2007
The Smithsonian Institution has accelerated its search for a public or private partner to redevelop its landmark Arts and Industries Building, which has been closed to the public for three years since pieces of the roof began collapsing.The museum "does not have funding now or in the foreseeable future to rehabilitate" the 126-year-old building, the Smithsonian's facilities director, William W. Brubaker, said in a briefing paper sent to Congress.
The a
Source: AP
May 7, 2007
LINCOLN, N.H. -- Four years after the demise of the Old Man of the Mountain, another of New Hampshire's rocky profiles is getting a little more attention.
At about 98 feet long, the Indian Head on the side of Mount Pemigewassett [visible off Exit 33 on I-93] is nearly 60 feet longer than the Old Man of the Mountain was, but it never attracted much attention in part because the Old Man profile was more distinct and easily visible from the highway.
Stew Weldon of the Indian Head Resort
Source: AFP
May 8, 2007
BELFAST -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday that history would decide whether peace in Northern Ireland or the war in Iraq would be the outstanding part of his legacy.
Blair, who is expected to announce his resignation plans this week, hailed the restoration of self-rule in Northern Ireland, which the province hopes will finally bury the dark decades of sectarian violence.
Asked in Belfast whether Iraq would overshadow his achievements in Northern Irela
Source: Times (of London)
May 9, 2007
LONDON -- [An] illustration of Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger is expected to fetch [$60,000] at Bonhams, Knightsbridge, on May 22.
"Tiggers Don’t Like Honey," by Ernest H. Shepard, was created to illustrate a 1958 edition of A. A. Milne’s The World of Pooh, but was cut from the printed version.
[Story includes illustration.]
Source: AP
May 9, 2007
PHILADELPHIA -- Archeologists said records indicate they have unearthed the crescent-shaped rock foundation of a bow window George Washington designed for a house on Independence Mall where he and successor John Adams resided as president.Those excavating the site discovered the foundation wall Monday when they broke through a 19th century basement floor. After checking plans and measurements from historical records, Jed Levin, an archeologist with the National Park Se
Source: Anniston (Ala.) Star
May 9, 2007
Cager Lee Jr. is a man of the earth, a farmer down in the soil scrabbling and scratching with honesty to earn a place more for his family than for himself in this world. In February 1965 his nephew, Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old from Marion was shot dead by an Alabama state trooper during a violence-filled night in that Black Belt town.
And Cager Lee Jr. and his children and grandchildren want to talk about Jimmie Lee Jackson now, after all these years, because today in Selma a
Source: Washington Post
May 9, 2007
HERODIUM, West Bank -- Israeli archaeologists revealed more details Tuesday about their discovery of what they believe is the tomb of King Herod...
The discovery dusted off the competing Israeli and Palestinian claims to the region between Bethlehem and the Judean desert. Israeli settler leaders said the reported find of the Jewish king's tomb supported their historic right to the area, while Palestinians expressed fears that it would be used as a pretext to increase Jewish settlement cons
Source: Times (of London)
May 9, 2007
BERLIN -- It is the most complex jigsaw puzzle of all time, so difficult that even a sophisticated new software program will need at least five years to match the millions of pieces.The German Government has now earmarked €6.3 million (£4 million) for the project: fitting together about 600 million shreds of secret police files ripped up in panic by Stasi agents after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
When the puzzle is complete, the files are likely to shed li
Source: Washington Post
May 9, 2007
Nearly 400 years to the day that English settlers first landed in Virginia, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday that would grant federal recognition and status as sovereign nations to six Indian tribes from the state.The unanimous voice vote came just days after tribal chiefs danced, drummed and greeted Queen Elizabeth II on her visit to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the first permanent settlement by the English in what
Source: USA Today
May 8, 2007
While working for the Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau in 1993, journalist Asra Nomani played volleyball on the National Mall, explored the city's club scene and got her "socialization to America" with friend and colleague Daniel Pearl by her side.
This fall, more than five years after Pearl was murdered while reporting in Pakistan, Nomani will lead a for-credit journalism seminar at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., that seeks to investigate the circumstan
Source: Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer
May 2, 2007
The painting is the size of a football field. It took a team of artists two years to complete the depiction of the battle of Gettysburg, and when they had finished, the work weighed six tons.
For four decades, the 124-year-old oil painting has been rolled up in cylinders and stored at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. Now, three unidentified investors from the Triangle have revived hope that people might see the cylindrical panorama again.
The trio paid at least
Source: NPR
April 26, 2007
Civil War enthusiasts are fighting over battlefields threatened by the urban sprawl surrounding Atlanta, fearing that history will be lost to real estate development.
Dan Brown is in charge of the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield, near Atlanta. He controls 3,000 acres of national land. It's the land outside the battlefield preserve that is being eaten up by development.
"This acreage right here across the street is now all condos. These 64 acres...[have] been
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
May 8, 2007
The sea, a thing of infinite mystery, was up to its mysterious ways today on San Francisco's Ocean Beach.
At high noon, in the middle of low tide, two large pieces of a wrecked 19th century clipper ship decided to poke out above the sand and reveal their long-hidden selves to the world...The visible parts of the shipwreck were nothing more than two 10-foot-long arrangements of lumber in the shape of a V, poking about a foot or so above the shoreline near the end
