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: BBC News
June 15, 2007
The US has handed over more than 400 Incan and pre-Columbian artefacts to the government of Peru.
The items, which are believed to be worth millions of dollars, had been stolen from several Andean nations. They include a cape made from macaw and parrot feathers, gold and silver jewellery and a clay vessel believed to be more than 3,500 years old.
The artefacts had been stolen from South America by grave robbers and came into the US via
Source: NYT
June 15, 2007
Being the direct descendant of Rochambeau, known hereabout as the Maréchal, for the title of field marshal that was bestowed on him by Louis XVI on his return from America, would be almost a full-time occupation. But the count has supplemented it with the role of a kind of representative of trans-Atlantic relations, which he and his wife, Madeleine, have taken particularly to heart in recent years, when ties between Washington and Paris have been strained. (Those relations have been getting bett
Source: NYT
June 15, 2007
Year after year, Vang Pao, the most recognized leader of Hmong people in the United States, described his dream when he appeared at Hmong New Year celebrations, ceremonies for new refugees, memorial dedications. Someday, he said, he would carry his people home to a free Laos.
So when he was arrested on June 4, accused of conspiring to overthrow the government in Laos, many older Hmong-Americans said they were stunned — not so much at the accusations but at the American prosecutors f
Source: NYT
June 15, 2007
When President Bush declared last week that political openness naturally accompanied economic openness, his counterparts in Beijing and Moscow were not the only ones to object. Liberal and conservative intellectuals, even once ardent supporters, have backed away from the century-old theory that democracy and capitalism, like Paris Hilton and paparazzi, need each other to survive.
From China, where astounding economic growth persists despite Communist Party rule, to Russia, where Pr
Source: NYT
June 15, 2007
Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has largely steered clear of criticizing President Bush as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, took an indirect swipe at the president on Thursday, suggesting that Mr. Bush was failing to provide strong leadership.
“What we’re lacking is strong, aggressive, bold leadership like we had with Ronald Reagan,” Mr. Giuliani told supporters at a Flag Day rally in Wilmington, Del.With Mr. Bush’s job-approval rat
Source: DefenseLink
June 15, 2007
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that an electronic database listing the names of servicemembers still unaccounted for from World War II is now available for family members and researchers.
This new listing will aid researchers and analysts in WWII remains recovery operations. Prior to this three-year effort, no comprehensive list of those missing from WWII has existed.This database, listing nearly 78,000
Source: DefenseLink
June 15, 2007
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. He is Lt. Michael T. Newell, U.S. Navy, of Ellenville, N.Y. He will be buried today in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
On Dec. 14, 1966, Newell was flying an F-8E Crusader aircraft as wingman in a flight of two on a c
Source: Reuters
June 14, 2007
Chinese archaeologists have found an ancient sunken ship in the South China Sea laden with Ming Dynasty porcelain, the Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday.
Divers used satellite navigation equipment to find the vessel, dubbed South China Sea II, which is about 17 to 18 meters (yards) long and lying at a depth of 20 meters."A preliminary study of the sunken ship shows it may have sunk 400 years ago after striking a reef," archaeologist Dr W
Source: Village Voice
June 14, 2007
According to several Internet sites, white supremacist groups around the country had called for "patriot" get-togethers over the three-day weekend. The one organized for the New York area included a Saturday barbecue and a Sunday visit to "the incomparable Metropolitan Museum of (White) Art." Visiting the preeminent art museum, these patriots believed, would be a terrific way to celebrate white culture. But first, there was the barbecue,
Source: Time
June 14, 2007
"Nanyadoyara! Nanyaonasareno! Nanyadoyara!" the elderly women chant, clapping and spinning in careful circles in their white kimonos with orange sashes. They are performing a bon odori ritual summer festival dance in the farming village of Shingo, northeast of Tokyo. The scene is typical of similar pastoral celebrations throughout the Japanese countryside, as the geriatric audience on the town green pay more attention to the free-flowing sake and the glad-handing candidates trawling fo
Source: BBC News
June 14, 2007
An international team of climbers has scaled Everest by retracing the steps of two British men who disappeared just short of the summit in 1924.
The team says its success shows that George Mallory and Andrew Irvine may have been the first to climb the peak.
They say that it adds weight to the theory that the pair may have made it to the top in 1924, 29 years before Hillary and Tenzing's historic feat. The climbers wore replica 1920s clothes for all but the last part of the
Source: CNN
June 14, 2007
A jury on Thursday convicted reputed Klansman James Ford Seale of kidnapping and conspiracy in the 1964 deaths of two black teenagers in southwest Mississippi, grisly drownings that went unpunished before federal prosecutors re-examined the forgotten case. Seale, 71, faces life in prison in the deaths of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee. The 19-year-olds disappeared from Franklin County on May 2, 1964, and their bodies were found later in the Mississippi River.
Seale
Source: The Age (Australia)
June 15, 2007
An advertisement, signed by 44 members of Japan's parliament, appeared in the Washington Post newspaper seeking to share "the truth with the American people" about the 200,000 "comfort women" who were driven into brothels during WWII.
The ad was signed by professors, journalists, political commentators and 29 members of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, 13 from the Democratic Party of Japan and two independents."No historical document has eve
Source: International Herald Tribune
June 14, 2007
In recent years, the Bush administration has recast the federal government's role in civil rights by aggressively pursuing religion-oriented cases while significantly diminishing its involvement in the traditional area of race.
Paralleling concerns of many conservative groups, the Justice Department has argued successfully in a number of cases that government agencies, employers or private organizations have improperly suppressed religious expression in situations that the Constitu
Source: Independent (South Africa)
June 14, 2007
Austria's foreign minister on Monday asked the United States to remove former president Kurt Waldheim from the "watch list" of people barred from US soil because CIA files opened on April 27 had no proof he was a war criminal who helped persecute Adolf Hitler's victims."Nothing against him has been found and I think for that reason it was a question of national respect to raise this here. Secretary Powell agreed to a review and that is what I could have expect
Source: The Telegraph
June 14, 2007
One of the Roman Catholic Church's holiest relics, which contains the steps believed to have been climbed by Jesus on his way to trial before Pontius Pilate, has been restored to its former glory.
The Santa Scala, or Holy Stairs, were brought to Rome from Jerusalem in the fourth century AD and placed in the former papal palace opposite the basilica of St John Lateran.However, restorers found that the sanctity of the staircase had not had an effect on
Source: Thanhnien News
June 14, 2007
Residents of the central Binh Dinh Province have recently unearthed the top of a tower dating back to the Cham Civilization over ten centuries ago, said vice director of a local museum Thursday.
Dr. Dinh Ba Hoa, Vice director of the Binh Dinh Museum, said that while collecting stones on Xuan My Mountain, residents of Phuoc Hiep Commune, Tuy Phuoc District, discovered the top of the tower. The top of the tower is 1.8m-high, made of stones, and decorated with lotus petal-shaped patte
Source: Sawf News
June 14, 2007
More than 200 ancient items and 300 paintings were found inside sealed containers in a royal stable and in the basement of the main residence at Tatoi, some 25 kilometres (15 miles) northwest of the Greek capital, culture ministry officials said during a media tour of the site on Tuesday.
"It's a real treasure hunt, we are in the process of removing these marvellous items from boxes stacked in disorderly heaps," restoration supervisor Nikos Minos told AFP.
A
Source: BBC News
June 14, 2007
Archaeologists have discovered a series of mosaics they believe formed part of ancient pleasure gardens built in Rome in the 1st Century BC. The mosaics, in turquoise, gold and bright blue tones, were found nine metres (30ft) beneath street level.
Scholars say the images, which include Cupid riding a dolphin, probably lined a large nymphaeum (grotto).
Source: BBC News
June 14, 2007
Jewish groups and Italian politicians have expressed anger at the decision to grant day release to a convicted Nazi criminal under house arrest in Rome. Erich Priebke, 93, is serving a life sentence for the murder of 335 people at the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome.
The 1944 massacre was a reprisal ordered by Adolf Hitler after partisans killed a patrol of 33 German soldiers. The judge's decision also outraged the capital's mayor who said the city wou
