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: Sau Landau at Counterpunch
January 15, 2007
After 9/11, George Bush began firing fear-loaded spitballs at Congress and the media, which reacted by being frightened. Five years and three months later, Gore Vidal in Havana countered W’s discords of panic with chimes of truth.
On December 12, at the University of Havana, Vidal dismissed “our little President” (“presidentcito,” said the interpreter) and mocked him into proper perspective – the worst and most dangerous president in US history: “I’m a wartime president.” The audi
Source: Kyodo.com
January 19, 2007
The Tokyo High Court on Friday rejected an appeal by families seeking
not-guilty verdicts for five deceased men who were convicted of promoting
communism during World War II in the"Yokohama Incident," the worst case of
wartime suppression of free speech in Japan in which over 60 journalists and
magazine editors were arrested.
The court upheld a lower court ruling terminating a retrial for the five --
Toru Kimura, Eizaburo Kobayashi, Hiroshi Yoshida, Kenjiro Takagi and Toshio
Hiradat
Source: BBC
January 19, 2007
Most experts agree that it is Lisa Gherardini - the wife of a wealthy merchant in Florence. But Giuseppe Pallanti now says records from the time show that she died aged 63 in July 1542 and was buried in a now dilapidated convent in Florence. The historian says she had seen out the last years of her life there.
After poring through thousands of official records from the time, Mr Pallanti believes Lisa Gherardini was widowed and ill when she died.
Source: Deutsche Welle
January 19, 2007
To its long list of ambitious goals as EU president, Germany recently added a controversial one that is set to spark debate across Europe about whether governments can uphold freedom of expression on one hand and outlaw certain viewpoints at the same time. German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said she would like to see Holocaust denial -- already a crime in some European countries -- become punishable by up to three years in prison in all 27 of the bloc's mem
Source: http://www.washingtonian.com
January 18, 2007
At Nathans Restaurant in Georgetown, Bob Woodward sat beneath David Hume Kennerly’s iconic photo of former American presidents. George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon smiled and waved above Woodward’s combed silver mane. But as Woodward’s light-sensitive tinted glasses gradually lost their opacity, the cheerful Presidents looked more and more like a row of sitting ducks.
"I'm scared of you," joked Nathans owner, former journalist Caro
Source: Reuters
January 18, 2007
JOHANNESBURG -- Medals chronicling Saddam Hussein's "glorious victories" have turned up at a museum in a leafy Johannesburg suburb, drawing curious viewers just two weeks after the former dictator's controversial hanging.
Badges and photographs of Saddam once displayed across the country he ruled with an iron fist made their way to the museum through a former South African army officer who showed up in Iraq after the 2003 war.
It is not clear how Colonel Willi
Source: Yahoo
January 18, 2007
Jordan's ancient city Petra was officially declared a candidate Tuesday in the contest to name the new seven wonders of the world at a ceremony amid its rose-colored stone buildings.
Contest founder Bernard Weber presented Jordan's Queen Rania with Petra's official candidacy at the event that included a presentation on the way the city's first inhabitants lived.
The New 7 Wonders of the World contest was launched in 2001 by Weber's Geneva-based NewOpenWorld Foundation,
Source: Reuters
January 18, 2007
BEIJING (Reuters) - About 1,100 cultural relics were unearthed at Beijing Olympic venue construction sites last year, state media reported on Thursday.
The relics were discovered at 10 different venues and included about 700 tombs dating from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Xinhua news agency said, citing Shu Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics.
Source: Independent (UK)
January 18, 2007
The year was 1814 and Samuel Taylor Coleridge had not only confirmed his reputation as a literary genius but also as a chaotic figurehead of the Romantic movement who disappeared on opium-fuelled sojourns across the Somerset valleys for days.
So it may have come as little surprise to his publishers, who had paid Coleridge an advance of £100 that year to translate Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's seminal poem, Faust, from its original German into English, when nothing was produced by th
Source: AP
January 18, 2007
A group of Methodist ministers from across the nation launched an online petition drive Thursday urging Southern Methodist University to stop trying to land George W. Bush's presidential library.
The petition, on a newly created Web site,http://www.protectsmu.org, says that "as United Methodists, we believe that the linking of his presidency with a university bearing the Methodist name is utterly inappropriate."
Source: Times Online (UK)
January 18, 2007
Members of the public unearthed 57,566 ancient objects last year, according to the British Museum — an increase of 45 per cent on 2005. The items included a spectacular Viking hoard of 20 silver bracelets.
Two reports published yesterday show how finds by people walking, gardening, farming or actively searching for treasure provide a wealth of information about our past.
David Lammy, the Culture Minister, described metal detector users as “the unsung heroes of the UK’
Source: AP
January 17, 2007
ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada -- Grenada's premier has called on the men convicted of leading a 1983 coup to reveal where they put the remains of slain officials, including former socialist leader Maurice Bishop.
The men who killed Bishop, four Cabinet ministers and six of their supporters have said they do not know the whereabouts of the remains, but Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said Tuesday he believes they could help solve the mystery.
The slain prime minister's mother, A
Source: http://www.newsobserver.com
January 18, 2007
Outgoing Speaker Jim Black said late Wednesday that he will keep secret all work so far on a history of the House that he ordered written.
Taxpayers have spent about $75,000 during the past two years on the research and other work for what was supposed to be an extensive account of the state House, as well as a separate study of its speakers since 1963.
The work was to be completed Dec. 31. His office had released nothing from or about the history since the new year be
Source: http://news.newamericamedia.org
January 17, 2007
What was the first black newspaper in Boston In New England?
Though those questions are straightforward, the answers are not. Much of the history of the black press in the region and its largest city is missing, incomplete or contradictory. Copies of many early ones can not be found. Who published papers, and exactly for how long, is often hazy. The gaps persist even into the last century: No one has copies of the entire run of the region’s most influential black paper, William Monr
Source: Press Association (UK)
January 16, 2007
Prime Minister Tony Blair has mounted a strong defence of the 300-year-old union of Scotland with England, warning it would be "crazy" for Scotland to quit the UK.
His defence came as politicians north and south of the border marked the anniversary with fresh wrangling over Britain's constitutional future.
Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond said the lack of mass celebrations to mark the event showed there was little public enthusiasm for the Union.
Source: Roanoke Va. Times
January 17, 2007
A resolution that would have the General Assembly apologize for Virginia's role in slavery has aroused passions in the legislature even before the measure gets its first hearing from committees in the Senate and House of Delegates.
A Hanover County lawmaker's published comments that blacks should "get over" slavery were denounced on the House floor Tuesday by two black delegates who are supporting a resolution of apology. The comments by Republican Del. Frank Hargrove lit
Source: NYT
January 16, 2007
Archaeologists digging in Syria, in the upper reaches of what was ancient Mesopotamia, have found new evidence of how one of the world’s earliest cities met a violent end by fire, collapsing walls and roofs, and a fierce rain of clay bullets. The battle left some of the oldest known ruins of organized warfare.
Source: National Geographic News
January 12, 2007
Recent excavations of Salisbury Plain in southern England have revealed at least two other large stone formations close by the world-famous prehistoric monument.
One of the megalithic finds is a sandstone formation that marked a ritual burial mound; the other, a group of stones at the site of an ancient timber circle.
The new discoveries suggest that many similar monuments may have been erected in the shadow of Stonehenge, possibly forming part of a much larger comple
Source: Times Online (UK)
January 17, 2007
Giant cranes move into place tomorrow at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence to begin work on a €30 million (£20 million) plan to increase exhibition space at one of the world’s foremost treasure houses of art.
The extension scheme, which will last between four and five years, envisages demolishing the remains of a medieval church where Dante and Boccaccio are said to have preached.
The project will increase space at the Uffizi from 8,100sq m (87,000sq ft) to 12,900s
Source: Times Online (UK)
January 17, 2007
The ladies’ lavatory of Bella Italia in Central Edinburgh has three cubicles, the wall tiles are white with diagonal green stripes and the ceiling is grey chipboard. There is little to suggest that the site was of importance in the unification of England and Scotland and, even yesterday, few visitors were engaged upon pilgrimages.
But, according to Richard Finlay, of the University of Strathclyde, it was there, 300 years ago yesterday, that leaders of the old Scottish Parliament si
