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: AP
April 26, 2007
ERFURT, Germany -- Students and teachers at a German high school where a teenager killed 16 people paid tribute Thursday to the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting, weeping and hugging as they marked the fifth anniversary of their own tragedy.
About 1,000 students, teachers and parents observed a moment of silence for those who died in 2002 at the Gutenberg high school in the eastern city of Erfurt, and for victims of the April 16 rampage in Blacksburg, Va."We are also pausing to expr
Source: International Herald Tribune
April 26, 2007
HONG KONG -- The Hong Kong government on Thursday closed the pier through which British governors had arrived and departed for decades, as a British diplomat said a few blocks away that although his country remained committed to its former colony, relations with Hong Kong had become "just another foreign relationship."
No senior Hong Kong officials showed up for the speech by Stephen Bradley, the British consul general. Some went instead to the airport to greet the arrival
Source: Times (of London)
April 26, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Tony Blair has felt unable to pick up his US Congressional Gold Medal of Honour for four years partly because the ceremony would reinforce the prejudices of those convinced he was “some sort of poodle”, says Sir David Manning, Britain’s Ambassador in Washington.
The Prime Minister’s 1,351-day delay in collecting the medal from President Bush has long been a source of puzzlement in both Washington and London. Downing Street insists that it is still being designed.
But as
Source: Reuters
April 26, 2007
KANO, Nigeria -- For 500 years the dyers of Kano have crouched over circular pits near the mud city wall, plunging fabrics into water infused with indigo.
The purple cotton of Kano was once famous throughout Africa's arid Sahel belt, in the days when the Nigerian emirate was a center of trans-Saharan trade in salt and gold, rivaling the fabled riches of Timbuktu.
Now more than 100 pits have fallen into disrepair and many of them are clogged with refuse and stones.
Source: Reuters
April 26, 2007
MALA KRUSA, Serbia -- The long grass was freshly cut and the thin trunks of the plum trees painted white in the orchard where Qamil Shehu cheated death in March 1999.
When 15 ambassadors of the United Nations visit this Kosovo village on Saturday, 71-year-old Shehu plans to tell them how he pulled himself unhurt from under the bodies of almost the entire male population of Mala Krusa.
His will be one of many stories of loss when a delegation from the Security Council to
Source: National Geographic News
April 26, 2007
Tribes in Southeast Asia are being kept from using the latest high-tech gadgets to help them win land rights.
That's the outcry from activist groups that have been helping indigenous communities mix computers and handheld navigation devices with paints, yarn, and cardboard to make simple but accurate three-dimensional terrain models.
Several tribes have already used such models, based on data from geographic information systems (GIS), to defend their territories from de
Source: Francis Gary Powers Jr., Cold War Museum press release
April 26, 2007
Over the past ten years, the Cold War Museum has made great strides in honoring Cold War Veterans and preserving Cold War history. I am writing to provide you with a brief update on the Museum's activities. The museum is at a critical stage in its development. Fairfax County Park Authority has accepted the Museum's proposal and has begun the negotiation process necessary for our use of the former Nike Missile Base in Lorton, Virginia. We will be negotiating the terms of the lease over the next f
Source: AFP
April 22, 2007
BERLIN -- In the wake of sensational sales of art that was seized by the Nazis, German authors have published the first handbook to help Jewish families win back masterpieces that are still in the wrong hands.
The 528-page tome "Nazi Looted Art - Art Restitution Worldwide" is sold as a do-it-yourself law manual for heirs of Holocaust victims hoping to confront museums and collectors in different corners of the world in a bid to recover lost canvasses.
Co-autho
Source: Daily Star (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
April 26, 2007
Panamnagar, a township set up by Hindu merchants in the colonial era in Sonargaon [the ancient capital of Isa Khan's kingdom in Bengal], is virtually losing its originality and uniqueness as an architectural heritage site, in the name of restoration and conservation.
The Department of Archaeology (DoA) has not involved any historian, archaeologist or an architect in the conservation work, rather hired masons are carrying out the job, distorting and defacing a proud heritage of the c
Source: Independent
April 26, 2007
It is the closest point on the Italian peninsula to Albania and, until efforts by the coastguard some years ago, was the destination of choice for Albanians fleeing poverty for the glamour and prosperity of their wealthy neighbour. But suddenly, the little town of Castro in the province of Lecce has something much more exciting o shout about.
Archaeologists at the University of Lecce have discovered that the modern town, with its 15th-century walls, sits on the ruins of the port tha
Source: Science Daily
April 25, 2007
In the Yellow River valley of northern China, Zhichun Jing digs through the remains of long-ago cities to find insights for modern survival. Over the past 10 years, Jing has been excavating the cities of the late Shang Dynasty. Flourishing between 1,200 and 1,050 BC, the Shang was one of the first literate civilizations in China and East Asia. Its last capital city was Yinxu, where the present-day city of Anyang now stands....
His study will peel away the layers of China’s 6,000-yea
Source: Smoky Mountain News (Waynesville and Sylva, N.C.)
April 25, 2007
When it comes right down to it, the good will of private landowners is often what stands between saving Indian mounds and losing these pieces of ancient history.
“There are no legal obligations regarding mounds on private property, as long as the owners don’t disturb any burials that might be there,” said Linda Hall, a state archaeologist based in Asheville....
North Carolina’s Unmarked Human Burial and Human Skeletal Remains Protection Act requires that anybody “knowin
Source: Independent
April 26, 2007
Religious and artistic similarities between the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths are to be shown in a groundbreaking exhibition of some of the world's earliest surviving sacred texts.
"Sacred: Discover What We Share," opening tomorrow at the British Library in London, will feature rare and exquisite examples of early bibles, korans and torahs.
It marks the first time a flagship exhibition will display texts from the major monotheistic faiths side by side i
Source: AFP
April 26, 2007
TEHRAN -- Iran has overruled critics and started filling a new dam in the parched south of the country that will drown an ancient archaeological site and could threaten the tomb of Cyrus the Great.
Thousands of activists have rallied and petitioned the government not to flood the dam, which is only seven kilometres (four miles) from Pasargadae -- the first capital of the Persian Empire...
It will also drown parts of the Tange Bolaghi area, a mountain pass with ancient s
Source: BBC News
April 26, 2007
An archaeological dig to unveil the full history of the 2012 Olympics site has begun in east London.
Experts from the Museum of London have begun researching the Roman, Viking, medieval and recent industrial history of the 500-acre site...
"Work will be carried out by experts and hopefully more clues to the Lea Valley's past will be found," [David Higgins, of the Olympic Delivery Authority] said.
"We are starting well ahead of the planned sta
Source: Times (of London)
April 26, 2007
A passionate defense of gay rights written more than two centuries before homosexuality became legal has been discovered.
Homosexuality was illegal in Britain until 1967, but a University of Manchester academic has unearthed a scroll written by a pioneering gay activist that dates back to the 18th century.
The handwritten parchment indicting the printer of Thomas Cannon’s 1749 book, Ancient And Modern Pederasty Investigated And Exemplified, was found at the Natio
Source: Xinhua/China View
April 26, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said here on Thursday that he feels "deeply sorry" for the so-called "comfort women" who were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese forces during World War II.
"As a person and as prime minister, I feel sympathy from the bottom of my heart to former comfort women, who experienced hardships," Abe, who arrived for talks with President George W. Bush, told some members of the U.S. Congress.
Source: Times (of London)
April 26, 2007
LONDON -- A tiny specimen of penicillin from Alexander Fleming’s laboratory sold for £11,400 at Sotheby’s in London.
The culture was mounted in a glass dish just under two inches in diameter. On the back of the case was written: “The mould which makes penicillin. A. Fleming, 1948.”
Sir Alexander Fleming discovered the germ-killing properties of Penicillium notatum in 1928, but it was not put into general use until 1940.
It was mass-produced during the Secon
Source: Deutsche Welle/DW-World (Bonn)
April 21, 2007
Felix Mendolssohn...E.T.A. Hoffmann, Marlene Dietrich, Willy Brandt, Rosa Luxemburg [Bertolt Brecht, Helmut Newton,] and Karl Liebknecht all have something in common: their graves are to be found amidst Berlin's myriad assortment of cemeteries.
Some 260 cemeteries of varying size are to be found in the German capital, of which 190 are still in use today. Extraordinary in their size and character, they sprawl across more than 1,200 hectares (3,707 acres) of land in and around Berlin.
Source: AP
April 26, 2007
MADRID -- Representatives from cities that have suffered bombardment joined survivors from Guernica Thursday to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Basque town's destruction by German and Italian planes during the Spanish Civil War...
"That event is a mirror in which the injustice of today's bombardments are reflected, allowing us to sympathize with the 30 wars still raging on our planet," said Juan Jose Ibarrtexe, president of the Basque regional government, who met w
