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: Tehran Times
Jul 26, 2008
An addition of the historical book, which has been calligraphed by Master Mir Ali Hervai in 1533 CE, was unveiled during a ceremony at the Imam Ali (AS) Religious Arts Museum in Tehran on Thursday.
The original version of the book, which is also known as “Hervi Devotions”, is keep at the Astan-e Qods Razavi Museum and Library in Mashhad.
Master Gholam-Hossein Amirkhani, who has done the calligraphy for the book’s preface, and Mohammad Jafar Yahaqqi, professor of the F
Source: Reuters
Jul 26, 2008
Russia said on Saturday that U.S. President George W. Bush had insulted veterans of World War Two by equating the evils of Soviet communism with Nazi fascism.
The Foreign Ministry said Bush had coupled Nazi fascism and Soviet communism as "a single evil" and thus "hurt the hearts" of World War Two veterans in Russia and allied countries, including the United States.
"While condemning the abuse of power and unjustified severity of the Soviet regi
Source: Sky News
Jul 26, 2008
150 years ago, on 26th July 1858, the first Jewish MP sat in Parliament. It reminds us that our open and inclusive society was only achieved after a series of significant and hard fought changes. This was one of them.
Lionel Rothschild was elected as MP for the City of London 11 years before. However, he refused to take his seat because Parliament prescribed a Christian oath. Instead he campaigned for change, in order that he could declare his loyalty, but as a Jew. After many set b
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Jul 25, 2008
A review of historic maps, photographs and other resources has confirmed with "reasonable certainty" that part of a burial ground for slaves and other African-Americans rests under a parking lot now owned by Virginia Commonwealth University, officials said today.
The Richmond Slave Trail Commission and VCU said in a joint statement that they will begin to discuss ways to properly memorialize the site, along Interstate 95 in Shockoe Bottom.
"The documentar
Source: AP
Jul 25, 2008
Strolling beside the Reflecting Pool with the Lincoln Memorial
in the distance, it's easy to overlook a gentle rise in the landscape a
few yards to the north.
The small berm is part of an inconspicuous levee system designed to
protect world-famous museums, the National Archives and federal office
buildings from flooding.
But the nearly 70-year-old levee is at risk of failing during a major
storm — a catastrophe that could swamp portions of downtown in up to 10
feet of water a
Source: The Nation (Pakistan)
Jul 25, 2008
Australia’s greatest ancient Aboriginal rock art is at risk of being damaged or destroyed because it sits at the epicentre of the country’s resources boom, experts say.
The etchings of men and animals on the rocks of the Burrup Peninsula, some of which are believed to be up to 30,000 years old, lie in Western Australia’s remote and mineral-laden Pilbara region.
Images carved onto the red rocks scattering the landscape include kangaroos, lizards and emu tracks as well as
Source: The Daily Star (Lebanon)
Jul 25, 2008
In Gemmayzeh, on the northeast end of the Lebanese capital, it's common to find relatively recent structures looming over late-Ottoman and Mandate-period buildings, like warnings of coming development. The architectural record goes back beyond the Ottomans, as it happens, and for the past several months, the diversity of the quarter's historic architecture has been more obvious.
Just east of the Haddad Street gas station, due south of Gouraud Street, is a large hole - at its largest
Source: Spiegel Online
Jul 25, 2008
Only a few weeks after its dramatic Berlin opening, the Madame Tussauds waxworks museum is back in the headlines. First it drew criticism for including Hitler and his bunker in its exhibition. Then a vandal decapitated the Hitler wax figure on the first day it was open to the public. And now the museum has angered politicians in the state of Bavaria for depicting a controversial former German defense minister as a "villain."
In a display entitled, "Heroes and Villain
Source: AP
Jul 25, 2008
A court sentenced one of Argentina's most feared former military leaders to life in prison on Thursday for the 1977 kidnapping, torture and killing of four leftist activists.
Luciano Benjamin Menendez, 81, was commander of the regional Third Army Corps in Cordoba for five years during Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship and controlled one of the regime's most notorious torture centers.
Hours before the sentencing, an unrepentant Menendez read a statement in front
Source: International Herald Tribune
Jul 25, 2008
SREBRENICA, Bosnia and Herzegovina: Fadila Efendik had little time to rejoice this week over the capture of Radovan Karadzic, the man she blames for the death of her only son: She was too busy looking for his missing and scattered body parts.
The arrest Monday of Karadzic, the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs accused of masterminding the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, brought her cold comfort, Efendik said.
She nervously played with her head scarf and s
Source: Reuters
Jul 25, 2008
The Beijing News is being investigated by Chinese officials after publishing a photograph of casualties from the protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The tabloid newspaper carried a photograph of victims being carried away on bicycles alongside an interview with the photographer Liu Xiangcheng. Chinese media are ordered to avoid references to the protests.
Source: Fox News
Jul 25, 2008
A judge Friday ordered former Atlantic City Mayor Robert Levy to serve three years probation and pay a $5,000 fine for lying about his Vietnam War service to receive extra veteran's benefits.
During a sentencing hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Jerome Simandle also ordered Levy to repay the $25,000 in extra benefits he received as a result of the lies.
Known as the "missing mayor" because he dropped out of sight for two weeks last fall, Levy later admitted
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 25, 2008
"I'm back home again," said Maria von Trapp in Salzburg, after spending several nights in her childhood home, which has been transformed into a hotel.
Located in an upmarket district of Salzburg, the "Villa Trapp" once belonged to the von Trapps, who gained global fame in the 1965 blockbuster starring Julie Andrews, which tells the story of a trainee nun who captures the heart of a lonely widower after introducing his seven children to the joy of music.
Source: BBC
Jul 25, 2008
A treasure trove of history preserved by nature for millions of years in eastern India is threatened with extinction.
Plant fossils, scattered all over the Rajmahal Hills in Sahebganj district of Jharkhand state, are fast finding their way into the hundreds of crusher machines that are reducing them into stone chips to be used in road construction.
Spread over approximately 2,600 sq km, the Rajmahal Hills are home to plant fossils dating back between 68 million years
Source: CNN
Jul 25, 2008
Sen. John McCain on Friday said as president he would consider bringing Osama bin Laden to justice through a Nuremberg-like international trial.
He told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "We have various options. The Nuremberg Trials are certainly an example of the kind of tribunal that we could move forward with. I don't think we'd have any difficulty in devising an international -- internationally supported mechanism that would mete out justice. There's no problem there."
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Jul 25, 2008
U.S. military spending on the war in Iraq has nearly matched the cost
of the war in Vietnam, according to a new Congressional Research
Service analysis of the financial costs of wars throughout U.S.
history. And total post-9/11 U.S. military spending has exceeded the
cost of Vietnam by a considerable margin.
The ongoing war in Iraq has incurred an estimated $648 billion to date,
and total post-9/11 military spending including the Iraq War,
Afghanistan and other terrorism-related mi
Source: AP
Jul 25, 2008
Like a religious relic, the heart of composer Frederic Chopin rests in a Warsaw church, untouched since it was preserved in alcohol after his death in 1849 at age 39.
And that's how the Polish government wants to keep it.
Scientists want to remove the heart for DNA tests to see if Chopin actually died from cystic fibrosis and not tuberculosis as his death certificate stated. But the government says that's not a good reason to disturb the remains of a revered native son.
Source: HNN Staff based on a report by ABC News
Jul 25, 2008
Barack Obama drew a crowd estimated at 200,000 people in Berlin yesterday.
This not only surpassed his own record of 75,000 in Portland (which was aided by the presence of a rock band performance earlier in the day), but the record of both Presidents Kennedy and Reagan.
When President Kennedy delivered his famous 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech in 1963 he attracted a crowd of 120,000.
Nearly a quarter century later President Reagan told Gorbachev to "
Source: CNN
Jul 25, 2008
The howling wind across a remote
landscape, a creaky metal gate or a run-in with a rattlesnake or
gun-toting local are the things that attract ghost towners. They are
history buffs who take their outdoor adventures with a dash of mystery.
Just as traditional outdoors enthusiasts enjoy mountaineering or hiking,
and tech-minded gadget lovers enjoy geocaching, ghost towners have their
own agenda: seeking out, documenting and photographing towns that one day
will cease to exist."We a
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
Jul 25, 2008
OSEPA - Benjamin Pykles scans the southern edge of this old townsite in
Utah's desolate Skull Valley, looking for the front wheel of a century-old
tricyle. The New York anthropologist believes the relic reveals a lot
about the Polynesian pioneer community that endured for a 28-year period
straddling the turn of the 20th century."This is not just some dreary place. There were kids here and they were
having fun," Pykles says as he finds his quarry during a tour Wednesday.
He records the w
