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: International Herald Tribune
December 5, 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.
Archaeologists have been taking advantage of the greatly increased access that became possible, once the statues were gone, to make new discoveries - and to pursue ancient tales of a third giant Buddha, possibly buried between the two that were d
Source: Media Matters
December 4, 2006
Summary: A December 4 Washington Post article pointed out that the newspaper's own reporting from October 2002 on the House's passage of the Iraq war resolution failed to quote a single Democrat expressing concerns about "postwar challenges," though many had done so. Media Matters found that contemporaneous articles from three other major print outlets also left out any mention of such warnings.
In a December 4 article, Washington Post staff writer Walter Pincus highlighte
Source: NYT
December 5, 2006
ABOARD THE INTREPID IN THE HUDSON RIVER, Dec. 5 — The Intrepid is no longer stuck in the mud.
This morning, one month after the first attempt failed, a team of tugboats yanked the old, gray ship from its berth on the West Side of Manhattan, where it has served as a military museum for 24 years.
After three weeks of dredging provided by the United States Navy to clear the Intrepid’s four giant propellers from the river bottom for a second try, the lead tug, the Christine
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
December 1, 2006
Britain’s Victoria and Albert Museum will make digital images of objects in its collections freely available to scholars beginning in early 2007, a move that The Art Newspaper said “could transform art publishing.” The move comes at a time when art-history scholars are facing a host of problems in getting their research published, including rising permissions costs.
The new policy will allow visitors to the Collections Online Web site to download high-resolution files free of charge
Source: Reuters
December 4, 2006
Foreigners wanting to settle in the country will be tested on their knowledge of British history and customs from next year, the Home Office said on Monday,
From April, applicants will be expected to answer questions on subjects ranging from The Queen, to regional dialects and customs in the 45-minute "Life in the UK" test already taken by those applying to become British citizens.
The government says the test helps integrate migrants into society.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 4, 2006
As an antidote to over-fussy modern cuisine it could not be better, and as a source for sensible, healthy and economical recipes it could not be improved.
In the pinched austerity of 1944 The Daily Telegraph appealed to its readers to send in their answers to the problems posed by rationing for the contemporary cook.
The newspaper's "Home Cook", a reassuringly anonymous figure, wrote in the foreword to the appropriately lean volume - now being republished by T
Source: Yahoo
December 1, 2006
A volcano avalanche in Sicily 8,000 years ago triggered a devastating tsunami taller than a 10-story building that spread across the entire Mediterranean Sea, slamming into the shores of three continents in only a few hours [image].
A new computer simulation of the ancient event reveals for the first time the enormity of the catastrophe and its far-reaching effects [video].
The Mt. Etna avalanche sent 6 cubic miles of rock and sediment tumbling into the water—enough ma
Source: Reuters
December 1, 2006
Raffaela La Pasta is not sure but thinks that the still half-buried skeleton she is unearthing in downtown Rome is female, and at least 1,600-years-old.
A leg-bone is sticking up through the dirt and the outline of the skull is just visible, even in this pit 8 meters (26 feet) below the surface of the city.
"She's not the only one. There are others we found too," La Pasta said, coolly.
This archaeological site, which has also yielded a trove of Ro
Source: AP
December 2, 2006
Public access to millions of Nazi war documents, kept in closed archives for 60 years, could help Holocaust survivors win larger claims for restitution, survivors groups say.
Plans to open the Red Cross-administered archives at Bad Arolsen, Germany, should persuade committees handling compensation for survivors "to halt the rush to judgment" in settling claims, said the Holocaust Survivors' Foundation-USA, a national coalition of American survivors' organizations.
Source: AP
December 2, 2006
After six decades of wrangling, Egyptians living in the hills near Luxor have agreed to move out and give tourists and archaeologists access to nearly 1,000 Pharaonic tombs that lie beneath their homes, the government said Saturday.
Officials said most of 3,200 families in the brightly painted, mud-brick houses have agreed to pack up and move to a $32 million residential complex being built three miles away. No deadline for moving has been set and there is no target date for finishi
Source: Press Release-- Washington & Lee
November 18, 2006
Roger Mudd, an acclaimed television journalist and alumnus of Washington and Lee University, has donated his extensive collection of 20th-century Southern writers to the Washington and Lee University Leyburn Library. The collection, some 1,500 volumes in total, will be transferred in installments. Mudd, W&L class of 1950, presented the first 100 volumes at a program sponsored by The Friends of the Library on Oct. 21 during W&L's 2006 Presidential Inauguration Weekend.
The to
Source: Reuters
December 4, 2006
- South Korea started a $30 million (15.2 million pound), three-year project on Monday to move the main gate of an ancient royal palace about 15 metres (50 feet) in order to right a wrong it sees as being caused by Japan's colonial occupation.
The gate burnt then down in the early stages of the 1950-1953 Korean War.
The gate, which stands at the end of a main thoroughfare in the capital, was rebuilt by South Korea in 1968, using materials such as concrete, in a spot rem
Source: Guardian
November 27, 2006
They got the date wrong by some 3,000 years, but the oldest detailed drawing of Stonehenge, apparently based on first hand observation, has turned up in a 15th century manuscript.
The little sketch is a bird's eye view of the stones, and shows the great trilithons, the biggest stones in the monument, each made of two pillars capped with a third stone lintel, which stand in a horseshoe in the centre of the circle. Only three are now standing, but the drawing, found in Douai, northern
Source: http://www.int.iol.co.za
December 2, 2006
Watermill, New York - Archaeologists surveying a property earmarked for a suburban housing development discovered an ancient American Indian skull.
The Suffolk County medical examiner's office determined on Thursday that the skull dated back 1 000 to 3 000 years.
The skull, unearthed on Wednesday, was given to the Shinnecock Indian Nation in nearby Southampton for reburial, the Town of Southampton police said.
Source: AP
November 29, 2006
ALBANY -- Now that he's going digital, maybe Sir William Johnson will finally emerge from the dusty pages of American history.
The William Johnson Papers will be digitized for a DVD, giving students, scholars and history buffs easier access to the 15,000 pages of documents generated by the wealthy and powerful British official who was a towering figure in 18th-century America but is largely forgotten today.
During a news conference Wednesday in Lake George, the site o
Source: Guardian
December 1, 2006
As lumps of rock go it looks much like any other, unexceptional despite the deep red of its cool, smooth surface. The pieces range in size from pea-sized lumps to larger fist-sized chunks. But today, scientists will announce this is no ordinary stone. Prised from a frozen lake in northern Canada, it has become a prime candidate for the oldest known object on Earth.
The chunk came from a meteorite that scored an arc of fire across the skies before slamming into Lake Tagish in Britis
Source: BBC
December 2, 2006
The 79-year-old Pope scored a considerable diplomatic success.
Popes usually go down in history more for what they do than for what they say.
The reign of the 16th-Century Pope Sixtus V is still remembered for his architectural transformations of the city of Rome.
Pope John XXIII is remembered for having called the Second Vatican Council. And Pope John Paul II is remembered as the most travelled Pope in history.
In Istanbul, we have, I beli
Source: Times Online (UK)
December 2, 2006
Pythons were probably the first idols to be worshipped by man, archaeologists said after unearthing evidence of a ritual dating back 70,000 years.
A rock shaped like an enormous python’s head, discovered in a cave in the Tsodilo hills of Botswana, puts back the date of the first known human ritual by 30,000 years, they say.
Behind the rock, which was covered in man-made indentations, was a chamber that the archaeologists believed was used by a shaman who could have sp
Source: AP
December 1, 2006
Germany's national railway, Deutsche Bahn, said Friday it had reached an agreement with the Transport Ministry to open an exhibition documenting its predecessor's role in the Holocaust.
The decision follows a clash between Deutsche Bahn chief Hartmut Mehdorn and Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee over Mehdorn's refusal to host a French exhibit on the former Reichsbahn's role in deporting 11,000 Jewish children to concentration camps.
Mehdorn had argued that the foc
Source: AP
December 1, 2006
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- A court on Friday declared former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight others fugitives from justice in Argentina, where they are wanted in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center.
Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral said the nine must be considered fugitives for failing to respond to arrest warrants he issued earlier this month, when he said he had "serious" evidence of the suspects' involvement in the attack.
