Breaking News
Highlights
- Girl from iconic Great Depression photo: 'We were ashamed'
- Clinton's Confirmation May Spark Constitutional Battle
- Archaeologists discover lost city in Peru built by pre-Inca Cloud Forest people
- Tapes show Nixon wanted to "remove this irritant" of the Vietnam War; declares press, professors "are the enemy"
- Beatings and abuse made Barack Obama's grandfather loathe the British
- Nixon tapes: ruthless, cynical, profane
- WaPo architecture critic pans design of new Capitol visitor center
- Bernanke says crisis 'no comparison' to Great Depression
- Fight continues to preserve Civil War sites
- For it or again' it, the New Deal's the rage
WEEK OF DECEMBER 1, 2008
Archaeologists discover lost city in Peru built by pre-Inca Cloud Forest people
Jewish Leader: Race to Catch Holocaust Culprits Has Been Lost
Beatings and abuse made Barack Obama's grandfather loathe the British
Lawmakers to Army chief: Honor soldiers held as slaves by Nazis
WaPo architecture critic pans design of new Capitol visitor center
Lawsuit Filed Over Museum Complex Approved Near Valley Forge National
A new dam could submerge one of the world's richest historical sites (Turkey)
A handful of patients remain to tell the story of Hawaii's leper colony
President George W. Bush Says He Will Leave Office With 'Head Held High'
WEEK OF NOVEMBER 24, 2008
Lublin's archbishop heralds new era of Polish openness to Jews
Three years later and they're still not done dismantling the old East Berlin palace
Aboriginal man demands $30m for use of great-uncle's image on $50 bank note
Letters from Peter Sutcliffe and Rose West for sale on internet
Town mayor fires 400-year-old gun firing tradition because it might scare children (UK)
Russian dagger given to British geologist makes 48,000 pounds
Defeating Nazis, Stopping Holocaust, Cost Less Than Wall Street Bailout
What Rudyard Kipling couldn't tell us: how the turtle got its shell
A new centre for the study of the Scottish diaspora is already caught up in controversy over slavery
Lost jungle planted by Victorian explorer discovered at country estate
Archaeologists find wreck of slave ship off the Turks and Caicos Islands
NY: In 1968, as Today, Filling a Senate Seat Was a Complex Chore
At Least 52% of Young Americans Voted This Year, New Data Show
Claremont parents clash over kindergarten Thanksgiving costumes
US intelligence 'kept files on Tony Blair's private life', claims ex-US navy operator
Nazi holiday resort Prora to be opened to tourists for first time
Hadrian's wall boosted economy for ancient Britons, archaeologists discover
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Girl from iconic Great Depression photo: 'We were ashamed'
Source: CNN (12-3-08)
The photograph became an icon of the Great Depression: a migrant mother with her children burying their faces in her shoulder. Katherine McIntosh was 4 years old when the photo was snapped. She said it brought shame -- and determination -- to her family.
"I wanted to make sure I never lived like that again," says McIntosh, who turns 77 on Saturday. "We all worked hard and we all had good jobs and we all stayed with it. When we got a home, we stayed with it."
McIntosh is the girl to the left of her mother when you look at the photograph. The picture is best known as "Migrant Mother," a black-and-white photo taken in February or March 1936 by Dorothea Lange of Florence Owens Thompson, then 32, and her children.
British history rules over DNA
Source: http://www.walesonline.co.uk (12-1-08)
THE distinction between the nations of Britain is more in the eye of the beholder than in our genes.
Over thousands of years the blood spilled in wars between the ruling classes “artificially” created Wales, Scotland, Ireland and England, not the DNA in our blood.
DNA studies show that anyone with a few generations of ancestors who lived in any part of the British Isles is descended from the original inhabitants of Britain.
These people arrived in small numbers from the Iberian peninsular (modern Spain and Portugal), some 8,000 to 9,000 years ago. They provided the bedrock of our modern genetic makeup from John O’Groats to Lands End and from Anglesey to Norwich. The infusions of DNA from Danish, Saxon, Norman and others over the last 2,000 years are now almost insignificant.
Whether we call ourselves English, Welsh, Irish or Scottish, the DNA of the invaders has been diluted by generations of breeding with the native stock, people directly descended from the pioneering Iberian settlers who arrived here after the last Ice Age.
Related Links
Juan Cole commentary
Atheists Want God Out of Kentucky Homeland Security
Source: FoxNews.com (12-3-08)
A group of atheists filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to remove part of a state anti-terrorism law that requires Kentucky's Office of Homeland Security to acknowledge it can't keep the state safe without God's help.
American Atheists Inc. sued in state court over a 2002 law that stresses God's role in Kentucky's homeland security alongside the military, police agencies and health departments.
Of particular concern is a 2006 clause requiring the Office of Homeland Security to post a plaque that says the safety and security of the state "cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon almighty God" and to stress that fact through training and educational materials.
Dead explorer fights knife crime
Source: BBC (12-1-08)
As the government battles to steer youngsters away from gangs and knife crime, one group has enlisted the help of a 19th century explorer.
Elders from London's Congolese community have begun a scheme to teach teenagers about Sir Henry Morton Stanley.
He was one of the Victorian age's greatest adventurers and helped to open up the Congo basin.
The scheme hopes to give children with Congolese backgrounds a sense of identity and stop them getting involved in gangs.
'Idealist' tried to halt Saddam's Kurdish slaughter
Source: CNN (12-2-08)
Years before the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was slaughtering Iraq's Kurds with bombs, bullets and gas.
The Reagan White House saw it as a ruthless attempt to put down a rebellion by a minority ethnic group fighting for independence and allied with Iraq's enemy, Iran.
But Peter Galbraith thought it was something worse.
"A light went off in my head, and I said, 'Saddam Hussein is committing genocide,'" said Galbraith, who was on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time.
An unabashed idealist, Galbraith was known for tackling unconventional issues.
"If you're going to be idealistic in life, you're going to be disappointed," he said. "But that's not a reason to abandon idealism."
Galbraith was one of the first Westerners to witness the effects of the slaughter. During a fact-finding trip for the Senate in 1987, he saw something troubling.
Cluster bomb treaty to be signed
Source: BBC (12-3-08)
A treaty banning the stockpiling and use of cluster bombs is to open for signature in Norway's capital, Oslo.
Campaigners are hailing the treaty as a major breakthrough.
More than 100 countries are expected to sign, but some of the biggest stockpilers, including the US, Russia and China will not be among them.
First developed during World War II, cluster bombs contain a number of smaller bomblets designed to cover a large area and deter an advancing army.
But campaigners, including some in the military, have long argued they are outmoded and immoral because of the dangers posed to civilians from bombs that do not explode and litter the ground like landmines.
Clinton's Confirmation May Spark Constitutional Battle
Source: FoxNews.com (12-3-08)
The biggest obstacle facing Hillary Clinton's Senate confirmation as President-elect Barack Obama's top diplomat may not be her husband's wheeling and dealing abroad for his foundation, as many suspected.
Instead, it could be the U.S. Constitution.
According to an emolument clause in the Constitution, no lawmaker can be appointed to any civil position that was created or received a wage increase during the lawmaker's time in office.
President Bush ordered Cabinet salaries raised to $191,300 from $186,600 by executive order early this year, while Clinton was senator.
"My understanding is that does prohibit her unless they can find some way around it and I gather that they have in the past," former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger told FOX News.
"This isn't the first time this has come up," he said, referring to appointees of other presidents. "Maybe she has to renounce the salary increase but I'm sure they'll find a way around it."
Bottle from 1941 'Whisky Galore' wreck fetches £2,200
Source: Times (of London) (12-3-08)
A bottle of whisky recovered from the wreck of a ship that inspired the film Whisky Galore! was sold at auction for £2,200 to a teenager fascinated by its story.
The bottle of Ballantine Scotch was one of about 240,000 that sank with the SS Politician in the Outer Hebrides in 1941. For weeks the islanders celebrated on the spirits they had looted from the wreck, hiding the bottles from government officials.
The incident inspired a novel by Compton Mackenzie and the 1949 Ealing comedy film.
The bottle was sold at Gorringes auctioneers in Lewes, East Sussex, to the family of Tam Burt, an 18-year-old student, from Dollar, Clackmannanshire. He said: “I like to drink whisky but this one will stay untouched.”
Archaeologists discover lost city in Peru built by pre-Inca Cloud Forest people
Source: Daily Mail (UK) (12-3-08)
A fortified citadel that appears to belong to the pre-Inca era has been discovered by a team of archaeologists in remote Amazonian rainforest in Peru.
The citadel comprises fortifications, parts of which are covered in rock paintings, stone houses and large platforms believed to be used to grind seeds and plants for food and medicine.
It sits atop a chasm that may have been used as a lookout, said archaeologist Benedict Goicochea Perez.
The encampment is thought to belong to the ancient Chachapoyas civilisation whose glory days occurred over a thousand years ago, pre-dating the powerful Incas, he said.
It was discovered under five acres of overgrown jungle in the remote Jamalca district of Utcubamba province, part of the northern Amazonas department and about 800 kilometres north east of Lima.
Jewish Leader: Race to Catch Holocaust Culprits Has Been Lost
Source: Deutsche Welle (12-1-08)
Knobloch was speaking at ceremonies marking 50 years of work by the so-called central office, which was established Dec. 1, 1958.
The agency's greatest achievements include compiling evidence between 1963 and 1965 to prosecute the key surviving commanders and guards from the Auschwitz death camp.
At Ludwigsburg in south-western Germany, where the agency has its office, German President Horst Koehler highlighted its contribution to restoring German honor in the world by ensuring that Nazis were duly punished for Holocaust crimes.
"We can thank these efforts to punish Nazi crimes for the fact that our nation is once again a respected member of the family of nations and is friends with former enemies," he said.
Powerless agency?
Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews, praised the agency but said the German justice system had not done enough.
"The race against time has been lost," she said. "An unknown number of grave crimes remain unpunished."
She accused Germany of not giving the Ludwigsburg agency sufficient powers to act fast against former Nazis.
Tapes show Nixon wanted to "remove this irritant" of the Vietnam War; declares press, professors "are the enemy"
Source: Dr. Luke A. Nichter at nixontapes.org (12-2-08)
On December 2, 2008, the Nixon Presidential Library released 198 additional hours of Nixon tapes originally recorded between November 1972 and January 1973. With this release, 2,217 hours of tapes have been declassified and released to the public out of a total of approximately 3,700 hours recorded. This release was a sequel to a small release of tapes that occurred on July 11, 2007. For more information on the 2007 release, click here.
The topics discussed on these "Fifth Chron" tapes include the 1972 presidential election, Vietnam peace talks and the "Christmas bombing", foreign policy including the Soviet Union and China, Nixon's cabinet reshuffle in advance of the beginning of his second term, Nixon's interest in renaming or even abolishing the Republican Party and supporting prominent Democrat and former Nixon Secretary of the Treasury John B. Connally as the 1976 Republican presidential nominee, plans for the 1973 policy "the Year of Europe", domestic policy, and others.
nixontapes.org has obtained a copy of this new tape release, and will be soon adding the complete audio, finding aids, and analysis. For those who cannot wait to hear some of the real "gems" in this release, the following are a few samples.
- Sample conversation 1: December 10, 1972
- In advance of the collapse in peace talks on December 13, President Nixon calls Soviet Ambassador to Washington D.C. Anatoly Dobrynin. Nixon leans heavily on Dobrynin to get a message to Moscow. Nixon requests Soviet intervention with ally North Vietnam in order to save the jeopardized peace talks. Nixon argues that it is in both American and Soviet interests to "remove this irritant" of the Vietnam War. To listen to the audio, click here (mp3, 2.4m).
- Sample conversation 2: December 12, 1972
- In the Oval Office, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Alexander M. Haig briefs President Nixon on the Paris peace talks, which were in the midst of collapse. Nixon appreciates the tough approach national security advisor Henry Kissinger was taking in the peace talks, noting that the impasse could continue until the end of the month. The following day, Nixon issues an ultimatum that peace negotiations must resume within 72 hours. To listen to the audio, click here (mp3, 2.9m).
- Sample conversation 3: December 14, 1972
- In the first part of a long Oval Office conversation that included President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Alexander Haig, Nixon provides the rationale for the Christmas bombing, a.k.a. Operation Linebacker II, which would begin on December 18. To listen to the audio, click here (mp3, 815k).
- Sample conversation 4: December 14, 1972
- In a second excerpt of this same Oval Office conversation, Nixon notes the need to demonstrate toughness with the North Vietnamese, and not to give in to "the other side." To listen to the audio, click here (mp3, 461k).
- Sample conversation 5: December 14, 1972
- In this final excerpt from this critical conversation, Nixon admonishes Henry Kissinger, that "the press are the enemy, the professors are the enemy." Kissinger points out that he is a professor. When Nixon seems not to notice Kisinger's rebuttal, Kissinger quickly agrees with Nixon about his views on the press. To listen to the audio, click here (mp3, 479k).
- Sample conversation 6: December 28, 1972
- In a telephone conversation between President Nixon and Henry Kissinger, after ten days of the heaviest bombing since World War II, both men agree that the North Vietnamese were eager to return to the negotiating table. Nixon agrees to cease bombing within 36 hours, which did end the following day. Nixon notes to Kissinger that if necessary, new negotiations should take place with North Vietnam only, and that any agreement reached would then be promulgated with South Vietnam. To listen to the audio, click here (mp3, 9.7m).
Beatings and abuse made Barack Obama's grandfather loathe the British
Source: Times (of London) (12-3-08)
Barack Obama’s grandfather was imprisoned and brutally tortured by the British during the violent struggle for Kenyan independence, according to the Kenyan family of the US President-elect.
Hussein Onyango Obama, Mr Obama’s paternal grandfather, became involved in the Kenyan independence movement while working as a cook for a British army officer after the war. He was arrested in 1949 and jailed for two years in a high-security prison where, according to his family, he was subjected to horrific violence to extract information about the growing insurgency.
“The African warders were instructed by the white soldiers to whip him every morning and evening till he confessed,” said Sarah Onyango, Hussein Onyango’s third wife, the woman Mr Obama refers to as “Granny Sarah”.
Mrs Onyango, 87, described how “white soldiers” visited the prison every two or three days to carry out “disciplinary action” on the inmates suspected of subversive activities.
“He said they would sometimes squeeze his testicles with parallel metallic rods. They also pierced his nails and buttocks with a sharp pin, with his hands and legs tied together with his head facing down,” she said The alleged torture was said to have left Mr Onyango permanently scarred, and bitterly antiBritish. “That was the time we realised that the British were actually not friends but, instead, enemies,” Mrs Onyango said. “My husband had worked so diligently for them, only to be arrested and detained.”
Related Links
Tale of torture may add fuel to Obama’s fire
They fought for Britain, then turned to rebellion
People who were there for the Mau Mau revolt
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Bank of New York: Where History Intersects With the Bailout
Source: NYT (12-1-08)
The Bank of New York — America’s first financial firm — was founded in a rich man’s house on Pearl Street in 1784. While it is no surprise that the august institution has a long history of business in the country, it is less well known that it has also made a business of the country’s history — writing, for example, the first loan to the federal government (for $20,000) that helped retire debts from the Revolutionary War.
The original copy of that note hangs today in a small alcove just outside the office of Robert P. Kelly, the chairman and chief executive of the bank, who, much like those before him, is elaborately entangled in the nation’s financial fate. Just six weeks ago, in fact, the Treasury Department named his bank — now called the Bank of New York Mellon — the master custodian of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (known in the vernacular as the Massive Wall Street Bailout). Given Mr. Kelly’s centrality to the economy, one wonders what is — literally — on his desk.
Beyond a clock, a cloisonné pen jar and a surprisingly empty outbox, there are hastily scribbled notes on a monogrammed pad from a meeting with a certain “Tim G.” (Timothy F. Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Barack Obama’s pick to run the Treasury?). The notes make reference to “ad com updates” and “FVA’s,” and contain the jotted notion that the current situation may not be a “pushback issue” after all.
“I can’t tell you how many people have come to me recently and said, ‘I hope you’re keeping notes,’ ” Mr. Kelly, a self-described history buff, confessed. “But it’s not like this is stuff that you forget. I always have a sense of gravitas and of history in the making.”
Lawmakers to Army chief: Honor soldiers held as slaves by Nazis
Source: CNN (12-2-08)
Two U.S. lawmakers have urged U.S. Army Secretary Peter Geren to recognize 350 American soldiers held as slaves by Nazi Germany during World War II, saying "these heroes have not received the recognition and honor they deserve."
"As Anthony Acevedo, one of the soldiers chosen, recently described to CNN, the Nazis picked those soldiers who looked Jewish, had a Jewish name or were considered 'undesirable,' " Reps. Joe Baca, D-California, and Spencer Bachus, R-Alabama, said in a later sent to Geren last week.
"The trials and sacrifices made by those detained have largely gone unrecognized even to this day. As proud Americans, we wish to recognize and honor them for their service."
Slaves helped build White House, U.S. Capitol
Source: CNN (12-2-08)
January, President-elect Barack Obama and his family will make history, becoming the first African-American first family to move into the White House -- a house with a history of slavery. In fact, the legacy of American presidents owning slaves goes all the way back to George Washington.
Twelve American presidents owned slaves and eight of them, starting with Washington, owned slaves while they lived in the White House. Almost from the very start, slaves were a common sight in the executive mansion. A list of construction workers building the White House in 1795 includes five slaves - named Tom, Peter, Ben, Harry and Daniel -- all put to work as carpenters. Other slaves worked as masons in the government quarries, cutting the stone for early government buildings, including the White House and U.S. Capitol. According to records kept by the White House Historical Association, slaves often worked seven days a week -- even in the hot and humid Washington summers.
In 1800, John Adams was the first president to live in the White House, moving in before it was finished. Adams was a staunch opponent of slavery, and kept no slaves. Future presidents, however, didn't follow his lead. Thomas Jefferson, who succeeded Adams, wrote that slavery was an "assemblage of horrors" and yet he brought his slaves with him. Early presidents were expected to pay their household expenses themselves, and many who came from the so-called "slave states" simply brought their slaves with them.
Indictments against Cheney, Gonzales dismissed
Source: AP (12-2-08)
RAYMONDVILLE, Texas – A judge dismissed indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday and told the southern Texas prosecutor who brought the case to exercise caution as his term in office ends.
Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra had accused Cheney and the other defendants of responsibility for prisoner abuse. The judge's order ended two weeks of sometimes-bizarre court proceedings.
Iraq-Iran war dead are exchanged
Source: BBC (12-1-08)
For the first time since 2003, Iran and Iraq have exchanged the remains of soldiers killed in the war between the two countries.
The bodies of 241 soldiers, most of them Iraqis, were handed over at a border crossing near Basra.
It is the first time remains were exchanged since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Cuban friar put on path to sainthood
Source: CNN (12-1-08)
Thousands of Cubans, including President Raul Castro and Communist Party leaders, flocked to a Catholic ceremony on Saturday putting a 19th century monk on the path to sainthood.
Saturday's Mass honored Friar Jose Olallo Valdes, known as the father of the poor. It was the first beatification ceremony on the island.
"From here on, let him be called blessed," said the pope's representative, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints at the Vatican.
Did Aids change America?
Source: BBC (12-1-08)
More than 500,000 people have died from Aids-related illnesses in the US in the last 27 years - but has Aids really changed the country?
The actor Paul Michael Glaser, who presents a Radio 2 documentary on the subject on Tuesday, has no doubt it has had a tremendous impact at a personal level.
Best known as Starsky in the long-running television show "Starsky & Hutch," Glaser said: "Aids had a huge impact on my life and on hundreds of thousands of my fellow Americans."
Glaser's own wife, Elizabeth contracted the HIV, which causes Aids, from a blood tranfusion in 1981 - the year Aids was first reported in the US.
Nixon tapes: ruthless, cynical, profane
Source: MSNBC First Read (blog) (12-2-08)
Richard Nixon's reputation takes a fresh pounding every time the National Archives releases another batch of audio tapes from his presidency, and today's opening of nearly 200 hours of Nixon White House recordings is no exception.
Again and again, Nixon comes across as ruthless, cynical and profane in conversations with staff members.
Here are some examples:
-- On July 1, 1971, Nixon instructs Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman to have someone break into the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.:
"I can't have a high-minded lawyer ... I want a son-of-a-b----. I want someone just as tough as I am. ... We're up against an enemy, a conspiracy that will use any means. We are going to use any means... . Get it done. I want it done. I want the Brookings Institution cleaned out and have it cleaned out in a way that has somebody else take the blame."...
-- On May 18, 1972, Nixon talks to Henry Kissinger about the National Security Adviser's meeting with Ivy League college presidents regarding the war in Vietnam:
NIXON: "The Ivy League presidents? Why, I'll never let those sons-of-b------ in the White House again. Never, never, never. They're finished. The Ivy League schools are finished ... Henry, I would never have had them in. Don't do that again ... They came out against us when it was tough ... Don't ever go to an Ivy League school again, ever. Never, never, never."
Related Links
AP: Nixon records show aides dishing dirt on critics
Memo dramatizes Nixon White House dilemma over Vietnam
Source: AP (12-2-08)
WASHINGTON — Documents released Tuesday from Richard M. Nixon's White House years shed new light on just how much the government struggled with growing public unrest over the protracted war in Vietnam.
The National Archives opened nearly 200 hours of White House tape recordings and 90,000 pages of documents.
A newly declassified memo to Nixon from his secretary of defense at the time reflects just how much the administration felt and discussed public pressure — even as it weighed U.S. geopolitical strategy — in anguished internal debate over war policy.
The seven-page document cautions the president against a proposal from military brass to conduct a high-intensity air and naval campaign against North Vietnam.
Then-Defense Secretary Melvin Laird said such a plan would involve the United States in "expanded costs and risks with no clear resultant military or political benefits."
WaPo architecture critic pans design of new Capitol visitor center
Source: Philip Kennicott in the WaPo (12-2-08)
Over time, the U.S. Capitol has taken on two very different faces. What was once deemed the back side of the building -- facing the Mall -- became a grand, ceremonial front, with the addition of dramatic stairs, terraces and landscaping that emphasized its prominence on a hill. To the east, the old "front" of the Capitol became, by contrast, more modest, accessible and pastoral. Before ground was broken for the new Capitol Visitor Center in 2000, you could stand on the east side and imagine cows and sheep grazing, as if in the foreground of a romantic landscape painting.
This duality -- grandeur and authority vs. simplicity and openness -- also expressed an ideal of government. To survive, a republic must have authority, tradition and ceremonies. But it must also have its yeoman side, which allows the people to wander the halls of power as equals with their legislators.
The "truth to power" side of the Capitol, the East face, has been demolished by the new Visitor Center, a tragically misconceived and overscale addition, which opens today. The East face has become something entirely new, with a false and slick pomposity created by an impressive promenade over an imposing bridge, which seems to cross a kind of moat. It is a historical and aesthetic jumble, a nonsensical place and a gross disfigurement of one of this country's most important and iconic buildings.
Related Links
WaPo News Story: Visitor Center Ready for Its Kickoff Close-Up
Petty disputes led to Nazi denunciation in WWII France
Source: Telegraph (UK) (12-2-08)
But more betrayals were over petty family and neighbour disputes than accusations of being French Jews.
The findings were aired at the world's first international conference on French denunciation in the Second World War, in Caen.
They challenge some of the popular misconceptions about denunciation in wartime France.
Historians now say only a very small percentage related to Jews and a large proportion – around a quarter – of the letters were about French family dramas often involving husbands, wives, lovers and village rivals.
"Denunciation was a very easy way of getting rid of someone," said Laurent Joly, the historian who organised the conference.
British Army to help turn dictator's palace into a museum
Source: http://www.theartnewspaper.com (12-1-08)
The British Army is offering to help create a museum in Basra, which would be set up by the Iraqi authorities in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. British military planners have codenamed the project Operation Bell, after Gertrude Bell, the archaeologist who helped establish the Baghdad Museum in 1926. Assistance is also being offered by the British Museum, but all parties stress that this is an Iraqi venture.
Monday, December 1, 2008
War Crime Tribunals Facing Crisis
Source: http://www.freemarketnews.com (11-29-08)
Two tribunals at the centre of efforts to bring war criminals to justice are under threat because of insecurity among staff, the Guardian has learned. The international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) face losing staff at a record rate, putting existing trials, including that of the former Bosnian Serb president, Radovan Karadzic, in jeopardy, sources inside the tribunals say.
Barack Obama, and the Rush For Election Souvenirs
Source: Time Magazine (11-26-08)
Prosperity has its favorite hobbies, its gold-trimmed roadsters and superyachts and the million-dollar platinum fishing lure studded with 100 carats of diamonds. But in an age of austerity, when we seek satisfaction on the cheap, some pursuits are all about value, but not necessarily about money. This is the beauty of the collector's world. When you don't like the look of the economy, you get to make your own.
At the moment, people have decided that anything related to Barack Obama--not just posters and T shirts but magnets and mouse pads and coasters and clocks--has special value. For most people, I don't think it has much to do with investment; it's about placing inspiration under glass. You can capture historic moments in memory, but those fade and fracture. The buttons allow instant replay: the speeches, the spectacle, the grand finale. And who knows: maybe someday they'll have public as well as private value.
Dig unearths Stone Age sculptures (Russia)
Source: BBC (12-1-08)
Rare artefacts from the late Stone Age have been uncovered in Russia.
The site at Zaraysk, 150km south-east of Moscow, has yielded figurines and carvings on mammoth tusks.
The finds also included a cone-shaped object whose function, the authors report in the journal Antiquity, "remains a puzzle".
It's official: Recession began one year ago
Source: NYT (12-1-08)
The National Bureau of Economic Research, a panel of academic economists charged with the official designation of business cycles, said that the United States economy has been in recession since December 2007, when economic activity peaked.
Venice suffers worst flooding in 22 years
Source: AP (12-1-08)
Venice suffered its worst flooding in 22 years on Monday as water in the Renaissance city stood more than 1.5 metres (five feet) deep before beginning to recede.
A change in the direction of the wind helped the "acqua alta" (high water) water start backing down from a high of 1.56 metres (5 feet, 2 inches), the tide monitoring centre said.
Authorities had warned that the sea lapping at the lagoon city threatened to rise to 1.60 metres, a 30-year high mark, and warned residents and tourists to stay indoors.
The Human Soul: An Ancient Idea
Source: LiveScience (11-28-08)
A friend recently told me that he had finally, in middle age, found his soul mate. She was a woman he barely knew, but he was willing to give up everything to be in her sphere. With glassy eyes, he described how they were special, destined to find each other, and that in coming together they made each other whole.
It was hard to not laugh at my friend's pronouncement of wandering souls crashing together, because most adults are long past that ephemeral kind of love and way into the hard reality of day-to-day living with someone, no matter the condition of their soul.
But my friend would be heartened by the discovery by archaeologists from the Neubauer Expedition of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago of a stone slab with an inscription that confirms that people like him have been into the idea of a soul for a very long time.
The slab, or stele, was recovered from an Iron Age city called Sam'al in Turkey. It dates to around the 8th century B.C. On the 800-pound, three-foot-tall piece of rock was an incised picture of a man, the deceased, who was presumably cremated, and words that explained that the soul of this man now resided within the stone slab.
Bernanke says crisis 'no comparison' to Great Depression
Source: Breitbart (12-1-08)
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday the current economic situation bears "no comparison" to the much deeper crisis of the 1930s Great Depression.
"Well, you hear a lot of loose talk, but let me just ... say, as a scholar of the Great Depression -- and I've written books about the Depression and been very interested in this since I was in graduate school, there's no comparison," Bernanke said in a question period after an address in Austin, Texas.
Bernanke cited "an order-of-magnitude difference" in the current situation compared to the 1930s.
"During the 1930s, there was a worldwide depression that lasted for about 12 years and was only ended by a world war," he said.
"During that time, the unemployment rate went to 25 percent, at least, based on the data that we have. The real GDP (gross domestic product) fell by one-third. About a third of all of the banks failed. The stock market fell 90 percent."
Dirty teeth reveal ancient diet
Source: AP (12-1-08)
Thanks to poor dental hygiene, researchers are getting a more detailed understanding of what people ate thousands of years ago in what is now Peru.
Dental plaque scraped from the teeth of people who lived as much as 9,200 years ago revealed traces of cultivated crops, including squash and beans, according to a report in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
These ancient people also ate peanuts and a local fruit known as pacay, according to the report by Dolores Piperno, a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the National Museum of Natural History, and Tom Dillehay, professor of archaeology at Vanderbilt University.
Lawsuit Filed Over Museum Complex Approved Near Valley Forge National
Source: National Parks Traveler Online (12-1-08)
A lawsuit has been filed in a bid to halt a museum complex from being built on 78 acres surrounded on three sides by Valley Forge National Historical Park.
Bringing the lawsuit Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania was the National Parks Conservation Association, which was joined by residents from the town of Lower Providence Township, Pennsylvania. The filing argues that township planners approved an unlawful zoning ordinance to permit the American Revolution Center to build the complex, which is designed to feature a hotel and restaurant along with the museum.
As required by Pennsylvania law, NPCA and local residents first filed an appeal with the Lower Providence Zoning Hearing Board. On October 30, the Zoning Hearing Board issued its written decision denying the appeal.
A new dam could submerge one of the world's richest historical sites (Turkey)
Source: Atlantic (11-1-08)
Archaeologists believe Hasankeyf [a town on the banks of the Tigris in the heavily Kurdish region of far southeastern Turkey] may be one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world, dating back some 10,000 years. The cliffs lining the river are speckled with gaping black holes—homes carved out of the soft rock by cave dwellers thousands of years ago. What remains of a citadel built by the Byzantines in the fourth century A.D., and later expanded and reinforced by the Artukids and Ayyubids, rises above the city. Other ruins show the influence of Assyrians, Romans, Seljuks, Mongols, Ottomans—successive waves of conquerors who fought for dominance of the lucrative trading routes in northern Mesopotamia.
Hasankeyf may soon be hit by another conquering wave—this time, a watery one that could drown its history. Fifty miles downstream, near the village of Ilisu, a consortium of German, Swiss, Austrian, and Turkish contractors is preparing to build a massive hydroelectric dam that would catch water from the Tigris just before the river spills into Syria and Iraq. If all goes as planned, most of Hasankeyf will be submerged by a reservoir. Ali pointed out the projected waterline—about halfway up the spire of a 15th-century minaret.
Polish Jew gave his life defining, fighting genocide
Source: CNN (12-1-08)
Paris, 1948. In the shadow of the Holocaust, the fledgling United Nations meets to adopt one of its first human rights treaties.
Applause shakes the room, cameras flash -- and at the center, a single, tired, unassuming man: Raphael Lemkin.
It was, at last, a victory for a tireless crusader who had fought for his entire life against genocide -- and coined the term that describes the world's most heinous crime.
"This new official world made a solemn pledge to preserve the life of the peoples and races of mankind," Lemkin later wrote.
Sixty years ago this month, the U.N. voted unanimously to adopt the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It was ambitious, serious, far-reaching -- and largely the result of Lemkin's lifetime of effort.
A handful of patients remain to tell the story of Hawaii's leper colony
Source: International Herald Tribune (12-1-08)
The peace of morning comes to the small village of famous isolation called Kalaupapa. Breezes rustle the berry bushes.
Myna birds call from treetops to wild pigs below. Life stirs on this spit of land between the soaring Molokai cliffs and the stretching Pacific abyss.
The residents who call themselves patients move about in the hours before the day's few tourists arrive. Here is Danny, who first came here in 1942, lingering a moment in the peekaboo sun; Ivy, who arrived in 1956, standing outside the gas station she runs; Boogie, here since 1959, driving a clattering old van. Boogie, whose given name is Clarence Kahilihiwa, gently explains why he considers himself a patient, not a resident. Some people, the state health employees and National Park Service workers, live here as part of their jobs. Others live here because this is where they were sent, against their will, long ago.
You see, he says, "We are - and you are not."
Fight continues to preserve Civil War sites
Source: http://www.knoxnews.com (11-26-08)
JEFFERSON CITY — Capt. E.J. Cannon fell to an enemy’s bullet within sight of the home he hadn’t seen in two years.
Today he’d barely be able to find the place where his men fought.
Years of development have almost obliterated every trace of the running battle Cannon, an officer of the Union Army’s 1st Tennessee Cavalry, and more than 8,000 other Union and Confederate soldiers fought four days after Christmas 1863 near the community then known as Mossy Creek.
“They fired their guns all day,” said Cleve Smith, a Jefferson County native and author of a book on the Battle of Mossy Creek. “This was the center of everything right here. And right here is what we’re going to lose.”
Smith can stand on the shoulder of Old Andrew Johnson Highway, which runs through the middle of the battlefield, and point out what’s gone. Carson-Newman College baseball players round third base at the spot where Union Capt. Eli Lilly and his artillery company spent nearly three hours trying to hold back the Confederate assault. An industrial park sits on the hill where Lilly’s men fell back just before Cannon and the other cavalrymen charged the advancing Confederate line and Union reinforcements arrived to turn the battle’s tide. A National Guard armory, a WalMart and a trucking center occupy most of what’s left.
For it or again' it, the New Deal's the rage
Source: Tom Engelhardt at tomdispatch.com (12-1-08)
If you want to catch something of the fears and hopes of Americans right now, go to News.Google.com and try searching for a few words. For instance, put in "FDR" -- the well-known initials of the man who was president four times and took America through the Great Depression and all but the last months of World War II -- and endless screens of references pop up.
The Nation and the National Review have both devoted space to him. Paul Krugman and George Will both thought this was the moment to focus on him. Checking out the headlines you might think that the intervening sixty-four years since his death had simply vanished: ("Will FDR Inspire Obama?" "Obama's jobs plan could echo FDR's," "Clinton's potential pitfalls seen in FDR's secretary of State," Channeling FDR," "FDR saved capitalism -- now it's Obama's turn," and so on); headlines galore, not to speak of that Time Magazine "Obama as FDR?" cover.
Or, if you have another moment, try "the New Deal," or even the 2008 Obama version of the same,"the new New Deal"; or, if you really want to get a sense of the moment, try "since the Great Depression," which now seems to be embedded in any article about the present economic situation -- as in the "worst crisis since the Great Depression," or "the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression," or even "the most severe credit crunch since the Great Depression." It's a phrase that hovers between horror and euphemism, between the urge to invoke the word "depression" for our moment and an almost superstitious fear of doing so.
President George W. Bush Says He Will Leave Office With 'Head Held High'
Source: ABC News (12-1-08)
Looking back on his eight years in the White House, President George W. Bush pinpointed incorrect intelligence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as "biggest regret of all the presidency."
President reflects on the camaraderie in his administration.
"I think I was unprepared for war," Bush told ABC News' Charlie Gibson in an interview airing today on "World News."
"In other words, I didn't campaign and say, 'Please vote for me, I'll be able to handle an attack,'" he said. "In other words, I didn't anticipate war. Presidents -- one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen."
Bush, who has been a stalwart defender of the war in Iraq and maintaining U.S. troop presence there, said, in retrospect, the war exceeded his expectations.
"A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein," Bush said. "It wasn't just people in my administration. A lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington, D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence.
"I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess," Bush added.
Sacked Japan air force head defends WWII statements
Source: AP (12-1-08)
TOKYO — A Japanese general who was fired as head of the air force for suggesting Japan deserves credit, not blame, for its World War II actions stood by his claim Monday.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Toshio Tamogami was dismissed a month ago for writing an essay that said Asia benefited from imperial Japan's activities before and during the war.
Tamogami defended that position Monday, saying Japan has been unjustly subjected to what he called "the history of the victor."
He said he decided to write the essay because he believes Japan has been wrongly blamed for being an aggressor in World War II, and that it cannot have a healthy relationship with its neighbors or assume a more active role on the global stage until that view of history is corrected.
"I have to say that Japan was not alone in being an aggressor," he told a news conference. "If you look at what the major world powers were doing at the time, I think Japan was gentler."
Obama's small donor base image is a myth, new study reveals
Source: LAT (11-30-08)
Everybody knows how President-elect Barack Obama's amazing campaign money machine was dominated by several million regular folks sending in hard-earned amounts under $200, a real sign of his broadbased grassroots support.
Except, it turns out, that's not really true.
In fact, Obama's base of small donors was almost exactly the same percent as George W. Bush's in 2004 -- Obama had 26% and the great Republican satan 25%. Obviously, this is unacceptable to current popular thinking.
But the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute just issued a detailed study of Obama's donor base and its giving. And that's what the Institute found, to its own surprise.
"The myth is that money from small donors dominated Barack Obama's finances," said CFI's executive director Michael Malbin, admitting that his organization also was fooled. "The reality of Obama's fundraising was impressive, but the reality does not match the myth."
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Defining the job has challenged US first ladies
Source: AP (11-29-08)
Among the many challenges Michelle Obama will face as first lady, the biggest may be defining the job.
And therein lies the problem: Her newest high-profile job isn't a job, per se.
America's Founding Fathers made no provision for the first lady in the Constitution, and no formal or official description exists. The first lady is neither elected nor appointed, but comes along with the president, for better or worse.
Nor is she paid for all that's required of her.
Many a first lady has said, in retrospect, that she had no idea how hard it would be — even the current one, Laura Bush, according to author and first lady historian Betty Caroli.
National Forest visitors down
Source: AP (11-29-08)
In the years after World War II, Americans packed up their young families and Army surplus camping gear and headed into the national forests to hunt, fish, and hike. Going to the woods was part of what it meant to be an American.
Today, however, visits to the national forests are off 13 percent.
Top officials at the U.S. Forest Service blame it on circumstances outside their control — rising gas prices, the popularity of video games and the Internet, and an increasingly urban and aging population less inclined to camp out.
Critics focus on fees charged for hiking trails and visitor centers, a proliferation of noisy off-road vehicles and the declining proportion of the Forest Service budget dedicated to recreation.
James Johnston, a policy analyst with Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics in Eugene, spent the last year camping out in 67 national forests and talking to 400 people. He concluded that while fewer people may be using the woods, fewer trails and campgrounds are open and there are more people riding noisy off-road vehicles.
"They think that it's harder to find solitude," he said of the people he talked to.
Lublin's archbishop heralds new era of Polish openness to Jews
Source: Jerusalem Post (11-27-08)
Archbishop of Lublin, Josef Zycinski, said this week ahead of a visit to Israel that there was a "new era" of Polish openness to Jews and defended controversial Holocaust-era Pope Pius XII as a "pragmatist."
"I would say that the situation has changed in free Poland," said the archbishop in a telephone interview from Lublin.
"In the late 1970s it was impossible to have access to the parts of Auschwitz that showed the enormity of the Jewish Holocaust," said Zycinski, who will participate Monday in a symposium entitled "Confronting a New Reality: The Polish Catholic Church, the Jews, and Israel."
"Poles were out of touch with the long Jewish history in Poland. But today a younger, more open generation of Poles is growing up with a more nuanced understanding of Jewish reality."
Three years later and they're still not done dismantling the old East Berlin palace
Source: BBC (11-28-08)
Around a dozen people are crammed onto the bridge by the River Spree, pointing their cameras through the fence, determined to catch a glimpse of the huge building site where the Palace of the Republic once stood.
"It's a disgrace that they're tearing down the Palace of the Republic, it's an expression of political superiority after the reunification of Germany," one old man said.
"They're destroying a powerful symbol of Berlin's history," he added.
After years of heated debate about the building's future, even today, feelings are running high.
The demolition work started in February 2006 and it has cost at least 30m euros (£26m; $40m).
Finds that made Basques proud are fake, say experts
Source: Guardian (UK) (11-24-08)
It was hailed as an archeological discovery of global importance showing, among other things, the oldest representation of Christ on the cross and proof that ancient Egyptian influences had survived deep in Roman Spain.
For traditional Basques the pictures, symbols and words found scraped onto pieces of third century pottery dug up near the town of Nanclares, in northern Spain, included miraculous evidence that their unique language of Euskara was far older than ever thought. Eighteen months ago the dig's director, Eliseo Gil, claimed that some finds at the Roman town known as Veleia were on par with those at Pompeii or Rome itself. Basque nationalists bristled with pride. This archeological jewel gave them a far greater claim to a distinctive, millennial and Christian culture than they had dreamed possible.
Now a committee of experts has revealed those jewels to be fakes. "They are either a joke or a fraud," said Martín Almagro, a professor in prehistory from Madrid. "How has something like this been taken seriously for so long?" The hunt is on for an archeological fraudster who defaced fragments of third century pottery with fake graffiti.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Anne Frank's "Best Friend" Recalls Intense Girl
Source: AP (11-29-08)
Anne Frank's status as a symbol of the Holocaust has overshadowed the reality of a girl eager to discover the world around her, a close childhood friend said.
Jacqueline van Maarsen said that while the use of Frank's name to fight anti-Semitism had been very effective, it inadvertently made her larger-than-life.
"Anne as a little girl was lost," Van Maarsen said during an interview in Budapest where she was presenting the Hungarian version of her book "My Name is Anne, She Said, Anne Frank" published in English in 2007.
Anne Frank was 15 years old when she died of typhus in Germany's Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945.
In her famous diary, Frank called Van Maarsen her "best friend," but the 79-year-old former artistic bookbinder said she was long reluctant to publicly claim the title.
Aboriginal man demands $30m for use of great-uncle's image on $50 bank note
Source: Telegraph (UK) (11-28-08)
Allan "Chirpy" Campbell claims the bank gained permission to use the image of celebrated indigenous author and inventor David Unaipon from a woman who was posing as his daughter, and did not obtain authorisation from a genuine family member.
"They jacked this woman up and proclaimed that she is the daughter of my uncle, and when we found out they blocked us and they chucked all the barricades there," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
"We are the family, I had to produce my genealogy, I had to produce my documents and documentation, they don't have to, they just say it, and they accepted it."
Mr Campbell, 61, travelled to Sydney this week to make his case for compensation to the Reserve Bank.
The bank, which has so far denied Mr Campbell's demands, refused to comment on the three-hour meeting, but made it known that it believes the appropriate advances to Mr Unaipon's family were made at the time the note was designed.
However, it is understood that those agreements were verbal and no official document of permission exists.
Mr Campbell, a lifelong campaigner for Aboriginal rights, has said he is willing to take the matter to court to obtain a "fair dinkum settlement". If successful, he plans to use the $30 million to start a charity for mentally ill children.
"They've got to renegotiate this time a proper settlement, not a tea leaf, sugar and flour syndrome, you know," he said.
"They've got no proof, no papers to show she is his daughter."
David Unaipon was Australia's first published indigenous author, an inventor and preacher from the Ngarrindjeri people of South Australia.
Letters from Peter Sutcliffe and Rose West for sale on internet
Source: Telegraph (UK) (11-29-08)
The items are being offered by a British seller via a controversial US-based website, in an enterprise which has been described by the family of one victim as "against common decency".
Adam Walsh, a shop assistant from Beckenham, south-east London, is asking £500 for a poem handwritten and illustrated by Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, which dates from 1981, the year of his arrest. He is serving life for murdering 13 women between 1975 and 1980.
Another item up for sale is a letter from Sutcliffe to a former female pen pal, which includes a small self-portrait depicting the grinning, bearded killer snuggling up to a woman. Letters from Sutcliffe are offered with starting prices of £200 to £250, sent from addresses including the Dorchester Ward and Dunstable Ward of Broadmoor maximum security psychiatric hospital.
A three-page letter from West, the "House of Horrors" killer and widow of Fred West, to a male friend named "Bill", with the address given as the high-security female unit at Durham prison, carries a starting price of £300. In the letter, West claims she is innocent of the 10 murders of which she was convicted in 1995.
"I have never seen anyone selling West letters before. These are ultra rare and I have only one," says Mr Walsh in his description of the item.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Town mayor fires 400-year-old gun firing tradition because it might scare children (UK)
Source: Telegraph (UK) (11-28-08)
A market town's 400-year-old Christmas custom of firing muskets into the sky has been banned because of fears the noise will scare children.
Wimborne council in Dorset has told the town's Militia, which re-enacts traditions dating back to the 17th century, that it can no longer fire muskets over the Christmas tree.
The council said the noise of the blank shots would be too loud for children and would keep families away from the annual event to mark the switching on of the lights.
But members of the Militia said the council was "mollycoddling" children.
National heritage day honors American Indians
Source: AP (11-28-08)
For the first time, federal legislation has set aside the day after Thanksgiving — for this year only — to honor the contributions American Indians have made to the United States.
Frank Suniga, a descendent of Mescalero Apache Indians who lives in Oregon, said he and others began pushing in 2001 for a national day that recognizes tribal heritage.
Suniga, 79, proposed his idea to a cultural committee that is part of the Portland-based Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians. The organization took on the cause of a commemorative day, as did the National Congress of American Indians and other groups.
Congress passed legislation this year designating the day as Native American Heritage Day, and President George W. Bush signed it last month.