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: NYT
December 8, 2006
HAVANA, Dec. 7 — Anatomy is a part of medical education everywhere. Biochemistry, too. But a course in Cuban history?
The Latin American School of Medical Sciences, on a sprawling former naval base on the outskirts of this capital, teaches its students medicine Cuban style. That means poking at cadavers, peering into aging microscopes and discussing the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power 48 years ago.
Cuban-trained doctors must be able not only to diagnose an
Source: AP
December 8, 2006
With 10 days left in office, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld bade a sometimes emotional farewell to Pentagon employees Friday and predicted that the period since he took office nearly six years ago would eventually be seen as one of "enormous challenge and historic consequence."
Asked how he wants history to remember him, he said simply, "Better than the local press."
With a couple of dozen troops from each military service and a few civilian Pentagon emp
Source: Livescience.com
December 7, 2006
Infants may have been considered equal members of prehistoric society, according to an analysis of burial pits found in Austria.
Two separate pits, one containing the remains of two infants and the other of a single baby, were discovered at the same Stone Age camp of Krems-Wachtberg in Lower Austria. Both graves were decorated with beads and covered in red ochre, a pigment commonly used by prehistoric peoples as a grave offering when they buried adults.
Using radiocarb
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 8, 2006
Drawings by the renowned architect Robert Adam, who designed some of the most impressive buildings of the Georgian era, have been uncovered for the first time in 170 years.
Adam's family glued around 9,000 of his drawings into 57 albums and in the process hid hundreds of sketches, plans and letters on the back of the paper which he used for his designs.
Some of the hidden material has now been revealed for the first time since the early 19th century with the aid of a t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 8, 2006
The heart-rending diary of a British soldier was sold at auction yesterday, 90 years after it was written in the mud of Flanders.
James Beatson described life on the Western Front after finding the tattered journal of a German officer that had somehow found its way into the British trenches in 1915.
In the months before his own death on the Somme, he conducted an imaginary conversation with the author, and penned his own descriptions of the horrors of the First World Wa
Source: http://www.ynetnews.com
December 6, 2006
The proprietors of the site www.cafepress.com seem to think that the sale of t-shirts with Holocaust inscriptions is amusing.
The most popular t-shirt offered on the online shopping site is a shirt with the inscription "My grandparents went to Auschwitz and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" printed on the front.
Also printed on the shirt is the gruesome inscription "Arbeit Macht Frei", which was the inscription
Source: Reuters
December 7, 2006
VANKOR FIELD, Russia (Reuters) - Half a century ago, Josef Stalin banished
his foes to labor camps in East Siberia. Now volunteers are lining up to
drill the frozen wastelands for their vast reserves of oil.
A 130-strong team of drillers, hardened frontiersmen who live in barracks
set in sparse fir forests, have so far drilled 12 exploration wells.
They are helping fulfill President Vladimir Putin's strategy to wean
Russia of its dependence European markets. Vankor's oil will go
Source: Breitbart
December 8, 2006
The 15th anniversary of the end of the Soviet Union passed practically
without notice in Russia, even though the collapse of the communist
regime is still a traumatic event for many Russians.
The date of December 8, 1991, marks the day of a meeting between Soviet
bloc leaders in a Belarussian hunting lodge where they signed the death
warrant of the USSR.
Now 15 years later, no celebration or demonstration was held in Moscow."What's there to celebrate on this anniversary?" asked Nat
Source: NYT
December 6, 2006
The empty niches that once held Bamiyan’s colossal Buddhas now gape in the rock face — a silent cry at the terrible destruction wrought on this fabled valley and its 1,500-year-old treasures, once the largest standing Buddha statues in the world.
It was in March 2001, when the Taliban and their sponsors in Al Qaeda were at the zenith of their power in Afghanistan, that militiamen, acting on an edict to take down the “gods of the infidels,” laid explosives at the base and the shoulde
Source: NBC News
December 7, 2006
For 65 years, Jim Levealle has treated his role in the attack on Pearl Harbor much like many of his fellow survivors — with grace and humility. In fact, until a few years ago, only a few friends and family even knew he had been at Pearl Harbor.
That's because Levealle was too busy talking and giving interviews about another infamous event in American history.
For Pearl Harbor survivors, the 65th anniversary of the attack represents a chance to reflect on the defining m
Source: WaPo
December 7, 2006
For 65 years, the wreck of the USS Arizona has been leaking oil from its grave at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, staining the water, visitors often say, as if it were the ship's blood.
The leaks come from about 500,000 gallons of thick, bunker C fuel oil that remain trapped in the deteriorating hulk -- oil whose "catastrophic" release experts now think is inevitable.
Today, on the anniversary of the attack that plunged the United States into World War II, scienti
Source: Yahoo
December 7, 2006
A key fossil found at South Africa's Sterkfontein Cave, a site dubbed "the Cradle of Humankind" for its trove of hominid relics, is far younger than initially thought, a new study says.
"Little Foot," a fossil with both ape-like and human features, was found in the 1990s thanks to remarkable luck and diligent work.
It was first dated to between 3.0 and 3.5 million years old, and later to more than 4.1 million years.
Those dates generated
Source: http://starbulletin.com
December 7, 2006
Pearl Harbor survivor Lonnie Cook remembers completing his morning shower in the forward section of the battleship USS Arizona and returning to his locker just before the Japanese began their attack.
"I was standing in front of my locker changing clothes," the 86-year-old said, "when the bombs started falling."
Had Cook taken a bit longer in the shower, he would have been killed along with 1,177 of his Arizona shipmates. The 1,760-pound armor piercin
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
December 7, 2006
Lennox Tierney, who was on Gen. Douglas MacArthur's staff during the Japanese occupation, says cultural errors by the U.S. can't be hidden in Iraq.
Toward the end of the occupation of his nation, Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced he would formally apologize to U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur for Japan's actions during World War II - including the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.
Lennox Tierney was there, on the fifth floor of the Dai-Ichi Insurance Building in Tokyo,
Source: AP
December 6, 2006
Lawmakers on Wednesday adopted a much-delayed law to open the archives of Bulgaria's former communist secret service, but also voted to keep a small portion of the files secret for "national security reasons."
The new law, adopted more than 17 years after the collapse of the communist regime, requires the publication of all files identifying public figures -- politicians, senior public officials, magistrates, clergymen and journalists -- as former communist secret agents.
Source: AP
December 7, 2006
HONOLULU -- Sixty-five years ago, Takeshi Maeda and John Rauschkolb tried to kill each other at Pearl Harbor. This week, now both 85, they met face-to-face for the first time -- and shook hands.
The Japanese veteran gripped Rauschkolb's arm with his left hand and briefly hesitated, as if he was searching for the right words. Then he said, "I'm sorry."
On Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese Imperial Navy navigator Maeda guided his Kate bomber to Pearl Harbor and fired a t
Source: Times Online (UK)
December 7, 2006
The gas chambers of Auschwitz are to be rescued from decay under a modernisation plan that has sparked controversy over how to preserve the infamous death camp. “We have to preserve rather than reconstruct,” Piotr Cywinski, the new head of the Auschwitz museum, said. “We must take this step if we want to be able to see these gas chambers in 20 years’ time.”
It is a macabre dilemma. Should one give new life to a Nazi camp that has become synonymous with evil? Or should one let the c
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 7, 2006
A priceless collection of Afghan gold, thought to have been destroyed by the Taliban, resurfaced in Paris yesterday after mysteriously disappearing almost 20 years ago.
A hundred items from the so-called Hoard of Bactrian Gold – a trove of stunning artefacts from the first century AD – are now on public display in the Guimet museum near the Eiffel tower. The delicate masterpieces include granite or turquoise encrusted necklaces, goblets, cupids, dolphins, dragons, and a thumb-sized
Source: Guardian
December 7, 2006
The Owens Valley is unique in south-eastern California. A place of unsurpassed beauty nestling between the eastern Sierra Nevada and Inyo mountain ranges, there are no strip malls, no cities to speak of, none of the agriculture that dominates so much of the state.
Instead there is sage brush and dry, dusty earth. But this is no pristine wilderness. A hundred years ago, the Owens Valley had thriving agricultural communities that grew crops and raised livestock.
Then cam
Source: Independent (UK)
December 7, 2006
Why are we asking this question now?
Tate galleries have launched a campaign to buy The Blue Rigi, a late-period watercolour by the great British artist JMW Turner. The work was sold at auction in June to an anonymous bidder who paid £5.8m - three times the expected price. The new owner was required under British laws to apply for an export licence to remove the work from UK.
The body responsible for considering the application, the Reviewing Committee on the Export of
