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: LAT
Sep 27, 2007
Stone Age Chinese began cultivating rice more than 7,700 years ago by burning trees in coastal marshes and building dams to hold back seawater, converting the marshes to rice paddies that would support growth of the high-yield cereal grain, researchers plan to report today.
New analysis of sediments from the site of Kuahuqiao at the mouth of the Yangtze River near Hangzhou provides the earliest evidence in China of such large-scale environmental manipulation, experts said.
Source: AP
Sep 27, 2007
In an age of al-Qaida, sleeper cells and the threat of nuclear terrorism, Huntsville is dusting off its Cold War manual to create the nation's most ambitious fallout-shelter plan, featuring an abandoned mine big enough for 20,000 people to take cover underground.
Others would hunker down in college dorms, churches, libraries and research halls that planners hope will bring the community's shelter capacity to 300,000, or space for every man, woman and child in Huntsville and the sur
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 27, 2007
Saddam Hussein offered to go into exile for $1 billion (£500 million) one month before the invasion of Iraq, it has been claimed.
The revelation is contained in a previously unpublished transcript of talks between President George W Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in February 2003 at the US leader's Texas ranch.
According to a report by the Spanish daily El Pais, Mr Bush told his Spanish counterpart that the Iraqi dictator had made the offer to
Source: AP
Sep 27, 2007
Tunnels run beneath Chinatown in Fresno, Calif.: brick-walled passages that were once home to people and activities that couldn't be mentioned aboveground....
Now, a group of archaeologists is using ground-penetrating radar to find evidence of the secret passages, which are believed to branch out from long-abandoned basements littered with animal and human waste, cobwebs and other filth.
The project, funded by the city and headed by a group working to preserve Chinatown
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 27, 2007
Three men have been arrested and charged with vandalising the graves of British soldiers who died in the Indian Mutiny of 1857.
Graves in the New Delhi satellite town of Ghaziabad were smashed and burned following a wave of protests against British tourists currently visiting historical "Mutiny" sites.
A gang of 25 youths attacked the graves following several days of inflammatory anti-British rhetoric by local politicians and Hindi-language newspapers.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 27, 2007
Resembling something like a digital Domesday Book, images of the greatest architectural treasures in England have been collected together online for the first time in order to show off the richness of the nation's heritage to the world.
In a massive undertaking that has cost £7.4 million and seven years of hard work, a new English Heritage website has been launched that is loaded with 315,000 digital images showing almost every building, structure and monument in the country listed
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 27, 2007
Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the exiled former dictator of Haiti, has belatedly asked his countrymen to forgive "wrongs" committed by his regime in an apparent bid to soften opposition to him returning there.
In a speech recorded in Paris, where he has reportedly been living in growing poverty, Duvalier urged supporters to rally around his small political party.
It was Duvalier's first public address in years and the speech was broadcast across t
Source: News-Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)
Sep 27, 2007
Some conservative Republicans in western North Carolina plan to protest an annual state Democratic Party dinner next month because the event is named for a governor who preached white supremacy.The Carolina Stompers, a group comprised of Asheville-area Republicans, will demonstrate Oct. 6 as the Vance-Aycock Dinner is held in Asheville, said group president Chad Nesbitt, adding that the protest may help win black support for the GOP.
Gov. Charles Aycock, who ser
Source: NYT
Sep 27, 2007
Tania Head’s story, as shared over the years with reporters, students, friends and hundreds of visitors to ground zero, was a remarkable account of both life and death.
She had, she said, survived the terror attack on the World Trade Center despite having been badly burned when the plane crashed into the upper floors of the south tower....
Much of Ms. Head’s account was posted on the Web site of the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network, a nonprofit organization for whi
Source: Tehran Times
Sep 26, 2007
A team of archaeologists has recently identified 100 ancient sites at the Seimareh Dam reservoir in western Iran’s Ilam Province.
The sites have been identified as belonging to a whole array of historical eras including Neolithic, Bronze Age, Copper Age, Stone Age, Parthian, Sassanid, and early Islamic, team director Rasul Seyyedin Borujeni told the Persian service of CHN on Tuesday.
“The sites spread over a vast area. Thus we need a large team of archaeologists in or
Source: AP
Sep 26, 2007
Would you like your Civil War history seasoned with baseball trivia? Spritzed up with a winery tour? Do you long to dissect the Battle of Antietam with a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian?
Hire a guide.
As the 150th anniversary of the war between the states approaches, starting with John Brown's 1859 prewar raid at Harpers Ferry, W.Va., customized tours for people fascinated by the conflict are multiplying.
Source: CNN
Sep 26, 2007
IBM and the Smithsonian Institution today announced the virtual opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Smithsonian's 19th and newest museum. This online presence marks the first time a major museum has opened its doors on the Web prior to the construction of its building.
While the physical museum will be built on the National Mall in Washington in 2015, it is opening online now to serve as a place of collaboration among scholars and the general
Source: Angola Press Agency
Sep 26, 2007
The Angolan Prime Minister, Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos, on Tuesday in Luanda appealed to scholars and researchers to deepen the quest to find the historical past of Angola and its peoples, before the presence of the Portuguese.
The Premier made this exhortation at the opening session of the Third International Meeting on the History of Angola, which for four days will analyse matters relating to the history of Angola that up until now have not been properly studied or have
Source: AP
Sep 26, 2007
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned Wednesday against whitewashing the crimes of dictator Josef Stalin, stressing that Russia cannot move forward without facing the truth about its bloody past.
In words that appeared aimed at President Vladimir Putin, Gorbachev also emphasized the need to pursue democracy.
His remarks, less guarded than usual, came amid growing concern among Russia's marginalized liberals that Putin's government is recasting Stalin's legacy to
Source: Reuters
Sep 26, 2007
European Union countries have struck Turkey off the map of Europe as represented on new euro coins, prompting protests from some members of the European Parliament about a bias against Turkey, which wants to join the union. The European Commission had proposed a standard map of Europe that would include Turkey and other countries on the European Union’s borders, for a new series of euro coins. But the final design approved by member governments that make up the European Council excluded Turkey,
Source: International Herald Tribune
Sep 26, 2007
When Boston psychiatrist Jonathan Shay wanted to understand the psychological toll of the Vietnam War on the veterans he treated, he turned to the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey."
The classical Greek epics perfectly encapsulate the mental damage of combat, said Shay, who works for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Boston.
He wrote two books that draw on the similarities between the Vietnam-era trauma of his patients and the stress of combat that Homer
Source: International Herald Tribune
Sep 26, 2007
The center-right government came under fire Wednesday after it scrapped plans to bring out a sixth-grade textbook that would have toned down nationalistic rhetoric by offering a staid account of Greek suffering at the hands of the Ottomans and Turks.
Clerics and rightist critics had demanded that the revision be abandoned, but once it was, on Tuesday, some politicians, academics and parents protested.
"We decided to withdraw the book because of serious reservations
Source: Tass
Sep 26, 2007
Nikolai Patrushev, the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation, on Wednesday handed over to Berl Lazar, the chief rabbi of Russia, copies of documents from the central archives of the Russian FSB regarding the destiny of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
“We made copies of the documents about the life of Raoul Wallenberg and events associated with him and turn them over to you,” Patrushev said.
The FSB director said Russia’s chief rabbi
Source: BBC
Sep 26, 2007
A tapestry that recreates part of a priceless Renaissance work of art has been unveiled at Stirling Castle.
The intricate 12ft by 14ft tapestry, entitled The Unicorn is Killed and Brought to the Castle, has taken a team of weavers four years to complete.
It forms the third part of the famous 16th century Hunt of the Unicorn series of tapestries, being recreated at the castle at a cost of £2m.
Source: http://www.turkishdailynews.com
Sep 26, 2007
A 6,000 square-meter mine field located near the ruins of Karkam??, one of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East, in the Gaziantep region will be cleaned up for archaeological excavations after permission was granted by the General Staff Gaziantep Special Provincial Administration.
Provincial Administration Secretary General Abdulkadir Demir said Japanese Prince Tomohito Mikasa, who is also an archaeologist, had applied in person to the Turkish Ministry of Culture an
