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: Times Online (UK)
December 19, 2006
The discovery of a Japanese submarine that wreaked havoc with the wartime Australian psyche has divided opinion.
For 64 years the remains of two young Japanese sailors have lain in their undiscovered steel coffin — a midget submarine — not far off Sydney’s crowded northern beaches.
The amateur divers who found the M24 have opened up a debate about what should be done with the remains of Sub-Lieutenant Katsuhisa Ban and his navigator, Petty Officer Mamoru Ashibe. Even
Source: Guardian
December 19, 2006
It is the portrait that everyone knew existed but few have been fortunate enough to see in the two centuries or so since it was painted.
Yesterday that painting of a cherubic-looking six-year-old member of the Spanish royal family, the Infante Don Luis Maria, was displayed to the world for the first time since Francisco de Goya put paintbrush to canvas in 1783.
But just as intriguing as the painting is the subject himself - an apparently studious little boy who would g
Source: Persian Journal
December 18, 2006
The curator of the National Museum of Iran (NMI) said in a news conference that the distortion of the name of the Persian Gulf in the Louvre's catalogue is the result of the Arab financial influence in Europe. "The distortion of the Persian Gulf's name in the Louvre's catalogue is not something new. It has occurred due to the Arabs' economic influence over the museum during the 1990s," said Mohammad-Reza Kargar reported by CHN.
Kargar noted that French archeologists becam
Source: ABC
December 17, 2006
Sept. 11 victims' family members and others signed a 53.5-ton steel beam Sunday that is to form part of the base of the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site.
The steel beam, which is to be put in place at ground zero this week, was on display in Battery Park City a few blocks from the trade center site Sunday.
Karen Miller signed in memory of her brother, firefighter John Santore.
"I want people to remember everyone who was lost and to remembe
Source: BBC
December 18, 2006
A print of the only photograph of Mozart's widow, Constanze Weber, has been found in Germany.
The photograph was taken in 1840 in the Bavarian town of Altoetting when she was 78. She died two years later.
The local authorities say detailed examination has proved the authenticity of the image, which is a copy of the original daguerreotype.
Source: BBC
December 18, 2006
One of Japan's most senior politicians has said the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 was impermissible from a humanitarian point of view.
Shoichi Nakagawa, the policy chief of the governing party, said that the use of atomic weapons was a crime.
Mr Nakagawa has attracted controversy recently, calling for a debate on whether Japan should have nuclear arms. He raised the possibility that North Koreans might try to attack Japan with their own nuclear weapons.
Source: Media Matters
December 18, 2006
On the December 17 broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) claimed that, in 1999, the Internal Revenue Service "said there was nothing wrong" with funding a college course he had taught with tax-deductible donations, for which Gingrich was investigated by the House ethics committee, fined $300,000, and formally reprimanded by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Russert failed to challenge Gingrich's claim. In fact, even though the IR
Source: Inside Higher Ed
December 18, 2006
Southern Methodist University has long been considered the front-runner in the competition to be the site of President Bush’s presidential library. Laura Bush is an alumna and trustee. Dick Cheney was a trustee before being elected vice president. And the university’s main challenge — a lack of space — may have been fixed this month when SMU won a court fight over its right to demolish a condo complex the university had purchased, in part to have land for the Bush project.
But now,
Source: NYT
December 17, 2006
The Japanese government’s posters show the map of a blood-red North Korea blotting out the eyes of a Japanese teenager. They hint darkly that this country’s youth are at risk and urge Japanese to open their eyes to the threat from North Korea.
The posters were on prominent display at a rally this week to call attention to Japanese abducted by North Korea three decades ago and who, Japan says, are still held there.
The people who usually show up at such events — family m
Source: NYT
December 19, 2006
The story might sound like grist for a Dan Brown novel or a Steven Spielberg treatment. But the efforts of Allied officers and soldiers like Mr. Taper to save and repatriate stolen treasures during and after the war is a chapter of World War II history still not particularly well known. Even during the war their work — when compared with saving lives and preserving ways of life — was sometimes discounted. Some members of the military referred to these soldiers as “Venus fixers,” a term with more
Source: NYT
December 19, 2006
The Romanian president, Traian Basescu, on Monday formally condemned the Communist dictatorship that ruled his country for more than four decades, the first time a Romanian head of state had officially denounced the Soviet-era system.
“The regime exterminated people by assassination and deportation of hundreds of thousands of people,” Mr. Basescu told Parliament. He based his assessment on a 660-page report compiled by a presidential commission charged with analyzing the country’s C
Source: NYT
December 19, 2006
Perhaps no corner of the White House has starred in more movies and television shows than the Situation Room, the presidential decision center under the West Wing that Hollywood imagines as a high-tech beehive of activity, where presidents command covert operations around the world.
n reality, it was something of a low-tech dungeon.
Until it closed for its biggest overhaul since John F. Kennedy settled into its wood-paneled conference room, most of the room’s monitors u
Source: Seattle P-I
December 18, 2006
In a recent hand-scribbled note, President Bush insisted he is not giving much thought to life after the White House.
"Thanks for 'Second Acts' and your very kind letter," he said in a letter to Mark Updegrove, author of a new book about post-presidential life. "I'm not quite ready to take the stage for the 2nd act. After a two-year sprint, then I'll take the lessons of your book to heart."
Bush may not be thinking about the next act, but planners ar
Source: UPI
December 17, 2006
Articles written by former Chicago Daily News reporter George Weller, suppressed after World War II, are set to be revealed in a new book.
"First Into Nagasaki" is scheduled to be released Dec. 26, and will feature the articles Weller wrote after sneaking into the Japanese city of Nagasaki four weeks after the United States dropped an atomic bomb, the Chicago Sun-Times said.
The articles, being published by Weller's son Anthony, were censored by the U.S. m
Source: WaPo
December 18, 2006
GLASGOW, Scotland -- At 2:42 p.m. on Oct. 11, Dean Collins heard a thunderous explosion as he worked at his computer in his 30th-floor apartment in Manhattan.
Collins looked out his window and saw a small plane crashing into a building right in front of him -- the accident that killed New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor. Instinctively, he recalled, he pulled his Fuji digital camera from a drawer and started shooting, thinking to himself, "This is going
Source: CBS News
December 17, 2006
For the first time, secrets of the Nazi Holocaust that have been hidden away for more than 60 years are finally being made available to the public. We’re not talking about a missing filing cabinet - we’re talking about thousands of filing cabinets, holding 50 million pages. It's Hitler’s secret archive.
The Nazis were famous for record keeping but what 60 Minutes found ran from the bizarre to the horrifying. This Holocaust history was discovered by the Allies in dozens of concentra
Source: Salisbury Journal (UK)
December 15, 2006
A PROPOSAL to run a land train as part of plans for a new £67.5m Stonehenge visitors centre has come under fire during the second week of the Salisbury public inquiry.
The aim is to use the train to transport tourists from the visitors centre to within walking distance of the ancient stones.
But the chairman of the Stonehenge Alliance, George McDonic, said the trains would conflict with both national and international policies that seek to protect the landscape around t
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
December 17, 2006
Pesti Gizella's life took a turn for the better when a guard came to her Budapest prison cell and told her she was about to be executed.
As a student leader in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Pesti expected her days might be numbered after she was captured during the Soviet crackdown. She had been made to lie on a cot beneath a brightly burning light and keep her hands still and plainly visible. She wasn't so much afraid of dying as she was of the insects that would crawl onto the
Source: Iraqi News Agency/WNA
December 17, 2006
A source from the Ministry of Culture said, that the ministry has set up a committee to re-open the Iraqi museum and to provide the necessary supplies, security and to rearrange again.
The Iraqi Museum has been subjected to looting after the fall of the previous regime, where the number of artifacts stolen from the museum was more than eight thousand assorted pieces.
The source pointed out that the Iraqi museum will be re-opening early next year through the provision of
Source: AFP at Yahoo News
December 16, 2006
Researchers examining what were thought to be Joan of Arc's remains are fast coming to the conclusion that they are no such thing, a forensic scientist leading the investigation said.
"The chances that we are dealing with the remains of the French heroine are diminishing," Philippe Charlier said after completing six months of research.
"The results do not allow us to give an answer with certainty. But my historical prejudices on relics that turn out to be
