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: Reuters
April 21, 2007
TOKYO -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said Tokyo feels"responsible" for forcing women to work in brothels during World War II, Newsweek magazine has reported.
Abe's remark appears to be an effort to deflect U.S. criticism over comments he made last month that there was no proof the government or the military had forced the women, mostly Asian and many Korean, to serve Japanese soldiers in the brothels."We feel responsible for having forced these women to go through that hardsh
Source: Times (of London)
April 22, 2007
Speaking ill of the dead could become a lot more expensive. The [UK] government is to consider extending the laws of defamation so that even the deceased -- or at least their representatives -- can sue for libel.
Under current laws, litigants need to be alive for a court action to be pursued claiming someone has wrongly damaged their reputation. The government is now discussing proposals that could eventually mean reputations -- from newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell’s to Victorian pr
Source: CBC
April 21, 2007
An 18-line poem written by William Shakespeare is being published for the first time since it was discovered by American scholars. [It was apparently read Saturday on BBC Radio 4's"Today" program by actor Geoffrey Streatfeild.]"To the Queen by the Players" is believed to have been written for a performance at the court of Queen Elizabeth in 1599.
The poem was actually unearthed 30 years ago by Americans William Ringler and Steven May, who were searching through collectio
Source: Independent
April 21, 2007
SYDNEY -- The Australian War Memorial has unearthed what it believes is only the footage of Anzac Cove during the Gallipoli battle of World War One, an iconic event in Australian history that is commemorated each year on Anzac Day.
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) forces landed at Gallipoli in April 1915, part of a British-led campaign to confront Turkey and open up a sea route for Russia. Although the campaign was a disaster, with the two sides suffering more than 300,
Source: Los Angeles Times
April 21, 2007
FRESNO, Calif. — Rick Norsigian discovered the object of his obsession one sunny Saturday seven years ago at a garage sale.
A painter for the Fresno school district by day and inveterate antique buff the rest of his waking hours, Norsigian was combing through suburban castoffs when he came across a time-weathered wooden box. The crate was heavy with old glass-plate photographic negatives.
Frozen in early 20th century black and white were sharply detailed shots of Yosemi
Source: Times (of London)
April 21, 2007
On a crisp spring morning in 1973 a pale and emaciated man made his way slowly across the Lo Wu bridge from China into Hong Kong. A British soldier at the frontier post saluted him as he approached. This was, the man later reflected, “the first act of dignity shown to him in 20 years”.
His name was Jack Downey. He was a CIA agent, and since 1952 he and a colleague, Richard Fecteau, had languished in a Chinese prison, often in solitary confinement, secret hostages in the Cold War bet
Source: Preservation Online
April 11, 2007
PITTSBURGH -- On Jan. 3, Pennsylvania state-funded construction crews entered Pittsburgh's Point State Park and began burying a 250-year-old bastion to make way for concert and festival grounds.
The Fort Pitt Music Bastion, one of the only remnants of the French and Indian War's Fort Pitt, built in 1759, is now covered with 10 feet of demolition debris and sand. This spring, while work continues on a $35 million construction project in downtown's state park, a group of historians an
Source: Preservation Online
April 3, 2007
Closed for more than half a century, a 73-year-old building on Ellis Island's long-abandoned south side opened to the public [April 2] after a seven-year restoration.
Twelve million immigrants passed through the art deco Ferry Building, built in 1934 by the Public Works Administration before the Ellis Island Immigration Station shut down in 1954. Now, after a $6.4 million project funded by a 1999 Save America's Treasures matching grant of $1,145,975, the restored Ferry Building is a
Source: Guardian
April 21, 2007
Winston Churchill We shall fight on the beaches June 4 1940
John F Kennedy Ask not what your country can do for you January 20 1961
Nelson Mandela An ideal for which I am prepared to die April 20 1964
Harold Macmillan The wind of change February 3 1960
Franklin Delano Roosevelt The only thing we have to fear is fear itself March 4 1933
Nikita Khrushchev The cult of the individual February 25 1956
Emmeline Pankhurst Fr
Source: Los Angeles Times
April 21, 2007
ROME —- Limbo has been in limbo for quite some time, but is now on its way to extinction.
A Vatican committee that spent years examining the medieval concept published a much-anticipated report Friday, concluding that unbaptized babies who die may go to heaven.
That could reverse centuries of Roman Catholic traditional belief...
The Vatican's International Theological Commission issued its findings —- with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI —- in a document
Source: Los Angeles Times
April 21, 2007
WASHINGTON —- It was the year 2000, and Rep. George P. Radanovich was on his way to the Capitol, expecting the House to pass a long-debated resolution he was sponsoring to recognize the Armenian genocide almost a century ago.
But just as the Republican from Mariposa prepared to step onto the House floor, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) called off the vote because President Clinton personally had warned him that the symbolic but emotion-charged resolution could damage national sec
Source: AFP
April 21, 2007
Archaeologists in northeastern Greece have unearthed eight tombs containing the remains of men and women who lived more than 2,000 years ago, along with jewellery, weapons and agricultural tools.
The tombs, dating from the fifth to third centuries BC, were dug into rock, were probably covered with stone slabs and may have lain beside an ancient road, the Culture Ministry said.
They were discovered between Salonika and Edessa during road construction.
Source: Times (of London)
April 21, 2007
Decades of controversy over the right to one of the grandest aristocratic titles in the British Isles has finally been settled, after the Lord Chancellor ruled in favour of a gardener instead of a builder.
Paul Fitzgerald, the Californian head of a construction company, claimed that he was the rightful 9th Duke of Leinster, an Irish title granted by George III in 1766. But Lord Falconer of Thoroton decided that the title should remain with Maurice FitzGerald, whose father inherited
Source: USA Today
April 18, 2007
They're calling it "the unkindest cut of all." As Shakespeare fans prepare to celebrate the Bard's 443rd birthday Monday, researchers for a non-profit group say fewer colleges appear to require students to study the influential author.
Just 15 of 70 institutions studied require English majors to take a course on Shakespeare, says a report by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a Washington-based group that promotes academic quality. At least six of those schools d
Source: BBC News
April 20, 2007
A 76-year-old professor who was killed while protecting his students during the Virginia Tech shooting has been buried in Israel, his adopted home.
Romanian-born Holocaust survivor Liviu Librescu was hailed a hero for holding the gunman at bay as his class escaped.
Romania awarded Mr Librescu its highest medal and officials attended the burial in the central Israeli town of Raanana...
Jewish human rights organisation the Simon Wiesenthal Centre has highlighted the"unbelievable" irony th
Source: U.S. European command press release
April 20, 2007
STUTTGART ARMY AIRFIELD, Germany —- A survivor of seven Nazi labor and concentration camps made good on a promise he made years ago to fellow prisoners when he gave the closing prayer at a Holocaust mass grave here April 15.
Benjamin Gelhorn, 86, said he was the “most happiest man” to give the Kaddish prayer at the placement of gravestones ceremony for 34 Jewish victims at the former World War II forced labor camp known as KZ (concentration camp) Echterdingen...
The 86-
Source: New York Times 'The Lede' blog
April 20, 2007
American forces, struggling to improve security in Baghdad, are turning to an approach with a 4,500-year history in the region: They are building a three-mile wall around the heavily Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya.
A news release said the project, which soldiers jokingly called “the Great Wall of Adhamiya,” was “one of the centerpieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence.”
By limiting entry points to the neighborhood,
Source: UPI
April 20, 2007
The Council of Europe awarded its Europe Museum Prize for 2007 to Geneva's International Museum of the Reformation, which is housed on the spot where the city's citizens voted to adopt the Protestant Reformation in 1536. The president of the Council's parliamentary assembly, Rene van der Linden, presented museum director Isabelle Graesslé with a bronze statuette by Catalan artist Joan Miro, a diploma and a check for 5,000 euros at a ceremony in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
The award jury
Source: Wabaunsee County Signal-Enterprise
April 20, 2007
ALMA, Kansas -- Commissioners have indicated interest in a proposal to give a small reward to those who work to restore stone fences.
In their Monday meeting, [Waubaunsee] County Attorney Norbert Marek, Landowner Paul Miller and Extension Agent Matt Pfeifer brought a draft of a policy that would provide a $1 per rod incentive for restoration of Wabaunsee County’s historic stone fences. [A rod is 16.5 feet.]
“This creates a program that sets a bounty to encourage mainte
Source: AFP
April 19, 2007
ABLAIN SAINT NAZAIRE, France -- The gravestones of 52 French Muslim soldiers have been daubed with Nazi slogans in a military cemetery in northeastern France, officials said on Thursday.
Swastikas and slogans such as "Heil Hitler" were also painted on Wednesday night on the ossuary of the Notre Dame de Lorette cemetery, the biggest military graveyard in the country, said the local prosecutor.
A hundred gendarmes were scouring the site on Thursday for clues abo
