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: Stone Pages
November 27, 2006
Researchers working on the Archaeological Settlements in Turkey (TAY) project have discovered 120 previously unknown ancient settlement areas in various locations in eastern Anatolia, the project's manager said. Assistant Professor Alparslan Ceylan, a lecturer at Erzurum's Atatürk University and the project's leader, said that the 120 settlement areas, thought to belong to the Iron Age, included a temple and several fortresses. Ceylan said inventories for 480 ancient settlements in the region -
Source: Salon
November 27, 2006
Former dictator Gen. Augusto
Pinochet was indicted Monday and ordered to remain under house arrest for
the execution of two bodyguards of Salvador Allende, the freely elected
Marxist president who was toppled in a 1973 coup.
The indictment came after Pinochet's 91st birthday Saturday, which he
marked by issuing a statement for the first time taking full political
responsibility for abuses committed by his regime.
Monday's indictment was the fifth time Pinochet has been put under
Source: NY Daily News
November 27, 2006
He may be a certified lame duck now, but President Bush and his truest believers are about to launch their final campaign - an eye-popping, half-billion-dollar drive for the Bush presidential library.
Eager to begin refurbishing his tattered legacy, the President hopes to raise $500 million to build his library and a think tank at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Bush lived in Dallas until he was elected governor of Texas in 1995.
Bush sources with direct knowl
Source: Guardian
November 28, 2006
The world's most celebrated boy king, Tutankhamun, may have died after badly breaking a leg while playing sport.
A detailed scan of the mummy, which was uncovered in the Valley of Kings in 1922, has revealed the high-impact fracture as the most likely cause of death.
Speculation over the death of Tutankhamun has raged since the mummy was first inspected in 1925, three years after his tomb was excavated by Howard Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon. The first x-ray sca
Source: AP
November 27, 2006
It took two decades for the government to begin recognizing the sites where thousands of citizens were tortured and killed by the military junta during Argentina's so-called Dirty War, and next year the most infamous one will finally be vacated by the military so it can become a museum.
President Nestor Kirchner announced plans in 2004 to create a "Museum of Memory" on the site of the Navy Mechanics' School, resolving a long controversy over what to do with the white-colo
Source: AP
November 27, 2006
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Victor Basterra steps into the cold attic of the Navy Mechanics' School where he once lay hooded and shackled, a secret prisoner of Argentina's last military dictatorship.
During the seven years of junta rule that ended in 1983, some 5,000 people passed through the main torture center in the state crackdown on dissent. Suspected leftists, union leaders and other foes of the regime were tortured and, in most cases, killed.
Overall, the offici
Source: MSNBC
November 27, 2006
With a great deal of tension in the air and concerns for his safety — as well as the fear of repercussions against Turkey's small Catholic population — both the wisdom and the timing of the visit have been questioned.
But with Germanic determination Benedict is marching resolutely into a potential lion’s den, armed with stated good intentions and positive messages but also carrying the liability of his penchant for using blunt language, a trait that has gotten him into trouble in
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
November 27, 2006
ST SOPHIA is a place of dizzying magnificence. One of the most sacred sites in Christendom for almost a millennium, then a mosque for almost 500 years, the Byzantine masterpiece is today a museum that testifies to centuries of feuding between Christianity, Islam and secularism.
So when Pope Benedict XVI takes to the Istanbul tourist trail on Thursday to admire the mosaics under the soaring dome of the sixth-century basilica, it will be the most delicate moment of the most sensitive
Source: International Herald Tribune
November 27, 2006
As histories of the Holocaust go, that of the concentration camp at Jasenovac probably ranks among the most brutal and certainly the most disputed.
Almost everyone agrees that the Nazi puppet regime that ruled Croatia from 1941 to 1945 imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and opponents here and in dozens of other camps and that many, many prisoners were killed.
But in the 61 years since the camp was closed, successive governments have written and rew
Source: NYT
November 28, 2006
Gazprom City, a proposed complex of stylish modern buildings that evoke, among other things, a gas-fueled flame, a strand of DNA and a lady’s high-heeled shoe, would sit on a historic site on the Neva River here, opposite the Baroque, blue-and-white Smolny Cathedral.
In any of six designs under consideration, the main tower would soar three or four times higher than this city’s most famous landmarks, an alteration of the landscape that has drawn heated protests from the director of
Source: Orange County Register
November 28, 2006
There's no use in UCLA fans putting out a contract on the lone, 76-year-old man at the center of USC's campus.
The statue of Tommy Trojan has been wrapped in plastic and mummified with duct tape as protection from the UCLA-loving Jackson Pollocks who shake blue and gold spray-paint cans....
On Monday, a local radio station furnished Trojan haters with a Buick Park Avenue sedan, painted brick red (almost Trojan cardinal) and painted with "Beat SC" on its doors
Source: Fox News
November 22, 2006
Archaeologists said Tuesday they have unearthed 22 graves in northern Peru containing a trove of pre-Inca artifacts, including the first "tumi" ceremonial knives ever discovered by archaeologists rather than looted by thieves.
The find, which prominent archaeologist Walter Alva called "overwhelmingly important," means that scientists can study the tumi — Peru's national symbol — in its original setting to learn about the context in which it was used.
Source: Fox News
November 21, 2006
he winds whipped up to 130 mph, snapping pine trees like pick-up sticks and blowing houses into oblivion. A surge of water, 21 feet high at its crest, engulfing victims as they desperately scurried for higher ground.
The merciless storm, pounding the coast for hours with torrential sheets of rain, was like nothing ever seen before. One observer predicted the damage would linger for decades.
This wasn't New Orleans in August 2005. This was New England in August 1635, bat
Source: CentralOhio.com
November 27, 2006
Plans for an extension of James Parkway to Kaiser Drive are under way, but national magazine coverage has stirred up tension between developers and an archaeologist.
Bradley Lepper, of the Ohio Historical Society, said the remnants of a 2,000-year-old road might be present on two 300-acre sites.
"It may be the only remnants of what I call the Great Hopewell Road," he said.
The Heath-Newark-Licking County Port Authority, a developer of one of the s
Source: Reuters
November 27, 2006
Divers have found the wreck of a Japanese midget submarine that attacked Sydney Harbour in 1942 and brought World War Two to Australia's biggest city, ending a 64-year mystery over its fate.
The missing two-man submarine M24 was one of a trio that slipped in darkness past protective nets stretched across the harbour entrance on May 31, 1942, with a plan to attack shipping, including the American battle cruiser USS Chicago.
Two of the 46-tonne subs were sunk. But the M24
Source: BBC
November 28, 2006
Ukraine's parliament has voted in favour of declaring a Soviet-era famine an act of genocide against its people.
Historians say Soviet leader Joseph Stalin created the famine, confiscating the harvest of Ukrainian peasants to force them to join collective farms.
The bill was proposed by President Viktor Yushchenko, who wants the UN to also recognise the famine as genocide.
Up to 10 million people died during the 1932-1933 famine.
Source: MSNBC
December 4, 2006
It's "The Long Goodbye"—Pentagon style. Donald Rumsfeld's successor as Defense secretary, Robert Gates, is due to have his confirmation hearing in early December—a process Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada predicted would be swift. "We want the change to take place very quickly," Reid said.
Not so quickly, after all. A White House spokesperson confirms that Gates will be sworn in as the new Defense secretary "in the new year," a good two wee
Source: BBC
November 27, 2006
Prime Minister Tony Blair has voiced his "deep sorrow" over Britain's role in the slave trade on Monday - a trade that helped Britain become one of the world's greatest powers in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Slavery had been illegal in Britain since 1102, but there were no laws to stop the use of slaves to toil in the fields and plantations of the growing empire.
Soon after the discovery of North America and the setting up of British colonies, the native popul
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
November 24, 2006
Herodion, West Bank -- At least two nights a week, Abu Moussa, the Bedouin leader of Herodion, takes his sleeping bag, tools and a small group of men and heads into the mountains to practice the trade he learned from his father and grandfather before him -- robbing the treasures of ancient tombs.
It's a tradition that goes back centuries, and these days it is considered illegal by both Israeli and Palestinian police. But as the Palestinian economy crumbles in the face of Israeli sec
Source: CNN
November 27, 2006
On Monday, Tony Blair will issue, if not a full formal apology, at least a statement of "deep sorrow" for Britain's role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, a business that, between the 16th and 19th centuries, forcibly transported an estimated three million black Africans across the Atlantic and into servitude in the New World. The statement will appear in the New Nation, a British Afro-Caribbean community magazine. Blair's comments come in advance of the 200th an
