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: Press Release: David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
December 27, 2007
Holocaust-denial activity increased worldwide in 2007, following a temporary lull in 2006, according to this year’s annual report on Holocaust-denial activity around the world.
The year-end report, Holocaust Denial: A Global Survey - 2007, is published by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which is based in Washington, D.C. The report’s co-authors are Holocaust scholars Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the Wyman Institute, and Dr. Alex Grobman, coauthor of the book D
Source: Reuters
December 27, 2007
Archeologists have discovered the ruins of an 800-year-old Aztec pyramid in the heart of the Mexican capital that could show the ancient city is at least a century older than previously thought.
Mexican archeologists found the ruins, which are about 36 feet high, in the central Tlatelolco area, once a major religious and political centre for the Aztec elite.
Since the discovery of another pyramid at the site 15 years ago, historians have thought Tlatelolco was founded b
Source: Chicago Tribune
December 25, 2007
HAMBURG, Germany - This port city's most famous tourist draw will probably always be the Reeperbahn, the half-mile stretch of neon-lit strip joints, brothels and sex clubs that caters to the hedonistic urges of both sailors and landlubbing types.
But Hamburg's boosters wish to direct your attention to a new, entirely more wholesome waterfront attraction: The BallinStadt Museum, which opened its doors over the summer and offers visitors a glimpse into the remarkable story of how Hamb
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
December 20, 2007
CORRECTION 12/26/07:
Secrecy News was too hasty in writing the December 20 headline that"Foreign Relations in the U.S. [was] Not Published in 2007." That
turned out to be wrong.
On December 21, 2007 the State Department published two print volumes
of the Foreign Relations of the United States series, along with an
electronic document collection.
In addition to the Intelligence Community volume, the State Historian's
Office released a FRUS volume on"Greece, Cyprus, Turkey
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
December 26, 2007
If a new information security policy emerges, it's not likely to come
from the Central Intelligence Agency, which still adheres to the
coldest of cold war secrecy policies.
Due to CIA classification restrictions, a new State Department
documentary collection on The Intelligence Community, 1950-1955 suffers
from significant, basic omissions.
"Between the fiscal years ended June 30, 1947 and 1955 the total budget
has increased from approximately [dollar figures not declassifi
Source: AP
December 25, 2007
Revolutionary War re-enactors are returned to the Pennsylvania shore by rescue craft after attempting to cross the Delaware River as part of a re-enactment of George Washington's historic crossing of the river, at Washington Crossing, Pa., Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2007. A strong current kept the re-enactors from making the crossing.
Source: Newsday
December 16, 2007
A group has formed to oppose the planned Theodore Roosevelt museum in Oyster Bay.
While scattered comments have been made against the proposed $100-million Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Museum and Research Center on Firemen's Field, adjacent to the railroad station, the opposition has been ratcheted up a notch with the formation of Save Firemen's Field.
The group takes its name from the 3.5-acre tract of open land -- now a town parking lot -- where the museum would be
Source: WaPo
December 25, 2007
Was 2007 dull?
America's magazine editors seemed to think so. They kept finding excuses to publish stories about other years. U.S. News & World Report ran a cover story on 1957. Rolling Stone published an entire issue devoted to 1967. Newsweek ran a cover story on 1968. And Spin ran a package of stories about 1977.
Why? Well, 1957 was 50 years ago. And 1967 was the year Rolling Stone was founded. And 1968 was, Newsweek declared, "the year that made us who we ar
Source: NYT
December 23, 2007
They were some of the Cold War’s first warriors. Now they say they are among its last casualties, coping with cancers that may be linked to their work in Buffalo-area factories that made components for nuclear weapons half a century ago.
It took decades for the federal government to acknowledge that it exposed thousands of workers around the country to dangerous levels of radiation in factories handling nuclear materials, starting with the Manhattan Project in the 1940s and continui
Source: NYT
December 23, 2007
A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.
Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.
Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to “protect the countr
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
December 21, 2007
Legislation (S. 2488) to implement the first reforms to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in more than a decade has been sent the President’s desk for his signature after Congress passed the Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act (OPEN Government Act) on December 18, 2007.
The legislation improves transparency in the Federal Government’s FOIA process by:
Restoring meaningful deadlines for agency action under FOIA;
Imposing real c
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
December 21, 2007
As we have reported since September, Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) has been blocking a vote in the Senate on the “Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007″ (H.R. 1255, S. 886). On December 18, 2007, without explanation, Senator Bunning finally lifted his hold. The next day, it was expected that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) would bring the bill to the floor under the Senate’s unanimous consent rule that allows non-controversial legislation to be considered on an expedited ba
Source: National Security Archive
December 21, 2007
Washington D.C., December 21, 2007 - On the fifteenth anniversary of the discovery of the Archive of Terror in Paraguay, the National Security Archive posted Spanish-language documents that reveal new details of how the Southern Cone military regimes collaborated in hunting down, interrogating, and disappearing hundreds of Latin Americans during the 1970s and 1980s.
The collaboration, which became officially known as "Operation Condor," drew on cross-border kidnapping, sec
Source: ABC News
December 16, 2007
In the weeks after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, the charred, partly gutted Iraqi National Library and Archive became a symbol of the chaos and lawlessness that swept through the capital.
During a three-day rampage, looters pillaged and burned the building, stealing hundreds of rare, centuries-old Islamic documents and texts. Fire, smoke and water damaged much of what remained.
Mounir Bouchenaki, the deputy director-general of the U.N. cultural b
Source: NYT
December 21, 2007
In 1998, Bill Richardson, then the United States ambassador to the United Nations, flew to Japan in search of backing for potential military strikes in Iraq.
Landing in Tokyo, he asked how a previous session, conducted by his boss, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, had gone. Not well, Mr. Richardson learned. Dr. Albright’s Japanese counterpart requested permission to smoke, she lectured him on the dangers of tobacco, and things never improved from there.
So Mr.
Source: NYT
December 21, 2007
There was the period last spring when Mitt Romney claimed while campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire that he had been a hunter “pretty much all my life,” only to have to admit later he had seriously hunted on only two occasions.
Then there was the endorsement Mr. Romney claimed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday that he received from the National Rifle Association while running for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, when it turned out the group had never endorsed him.
Source: AP
December 21, 2007
After 800 years at the bottom of the sea, a merchant ship loaded with porcelain and other rare antiques was raised to the surface Friday in a specially built basket, a state news agency reported.
The Nanhai No. 1, which means "South China Sea No. 1," sank off the south China coast with some 60,000 to 80,000 items on board, Xinhua News Agency reported, citing Wu Jiancheng, head of the excavation project.
Archaeologists built a steel basket around the 100-foot v
Source: NYT
December 20, 2007
About four years ago, Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library, began noticing the streaks blackening the marble facade of the Beaux-Arts main building when he walked into work each day.
Mr. LeClerc consulted experts, who told him that pollution and moisture were corroding the statuary ornament and wearing away the marble surface. Precious detail on the neo-Classical Carrère & Hastings building was disappearing, like the edges of elegant cornices and the features o
Source: NYT
December 20, 2007
Columbia University has decided to junk a 70-year-old atom smasher that is the nation’s oldest artifact of the nuclear era, ending weeks of internal debate and lobbying over its fate.
The machine, known as a cyclotron, sits in the basement of Pupin Hall, home of Columbia’s physics department. Covered by dust and graffiti, it weighs 30 tons and stands seven feet tall and 12 feet wide, its giant arms holding aloft a huge electromagnet that once helped guide subatomic particles and spl
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 21, 2007
Two chalk drawings of penguins by the explorers Captain Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton have been discovered in a basement at Cambridge University.
The priceless sketches, which date from 1904 and 1909, were probably done during the lecture tours given by the pair after they returned from their Antarctic voyages.
