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: AP
Jul 3, 2007
Chinese researchers say they have found a strange pyramid-shaped chamber while surveying the massive underground tomb of China's first emperor and theorize it was built as a passageway for his soul.
Remote sensing equipment has revealed what appears to be a 100-foot-high room above Emperor Qin Shihuang's tomb near the ancient capital of Xi'an in Shaanxi province, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.
Source: http://cnews.canoe.ca
Jul 3, 2007
A Finnish-Swedish research team has discovered a Soviet submarine at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
The submarine, identified as SC305, was sunk in 1942 by the Finnish navy during a Second World War battle. Research team spokesman Bjorn Rosenlof says the eight-member team, using sonar equipment, found the vessel at a depth of 136 metres between the Swedish east coast town of Grisslehamn and the Finnish Aland Islands.
Rosenloft said the sub is "in very good condition
Source: WaPo
Jul 3, 2007
At the nadir of his presidency, George Bush is looking for answers. One at a time or in small groups, he summons leading authors, historians, philosophers and theologians to the White House to join him in the search.
Over sodas and sparkling water, he asks his questions: What is the nature of good and evil in the post-Sept. 11 world? What lessons does history have for a president facing the turmoil I'm facing? How will history judge what we've done? Why does the rest of the world se
Source: NYT
Jul 3, 2007
Other presidential contenders have sold more books, but none of their books have sold for as much as Fred D. Thompson’s.
Mr. Thompson’s amble toward the Republican race has sent the price of used copies of his long-forgotten, out-of-print 1975 memoir soaring to $199.35 on Amazon.com’s network of used-book dealers, providing a gauge of his appeal as a candidate, if not as an author.
The book, “At That Point in Time: The Inside Story of the Senate Watergate Committee,” re
Source: International Herald Tribune
Jul 3, 2007
A suicide bomber killed nine people including six Spanish
tourists Monday when he drove his car into the site of an ancient
temple, police officials said. In addition to the Spanish tourists,
three Yemenis, including the suicide bomber, died, said the police
officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to speak to the media. Witnesses said a car drove through a
gate and then exploded at the Queen of Sheba temple in northeastern
Yemen, which was bu
Source: NYT
Jul 3, 2007
Eighteen young men charged in the assassination of the newspaper editor Hrant Dink went on trial here on Monday in what has been described as a test of the rule of law in Turkey.
Mr. Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, was shot dead in front of his office on Jan. 19. A day later, a Turkish teenager, Ogun Samast, was arrested and charged with the murder. The government has brought charges against 17 other people.
Mr. Dink, the editor of Agos, a bilingual newspap
Source: Japan Times
Jul 3, 2007
Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma resigned Tuesday to take responsibility for controversial remarks he made over the weekend that were interpreted as justifying the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan in 1945.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe accepted Kyuma's resignation when the defense chief visited his official residence Tuesday afternoon.
"People do not seem to understand" the intentions behind the remarks, "so I told Prime Minister Abe that I need to take responsibili
Source: NYT
Jul 3, 2007
The Constitution gives the president the “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” The provision is generally understood to grant complete discretion where federal crimes are involved.
According to Justice Department standards, “requests for commutation generally are not accepted unless and until a person has begun serving that sentence,” and they are generally not granted to those appealing their convictions. Coop
Source: Seattle Times
Jul 3, 2007
Amid the recent tumult, the president has sought refuge in history. He read three books last year on George Washington, read about the Algerian war of independence and the slave trade in Congo, and lately has been digging into "Troublesome Young Men," Lynne Olson's account of Conservative backbenchers who thrust Winston Churchill to power. Bush idolizes Churchill and keeps a bust of him in the Oval Office.After reading Andrew Roberts' "A History of the English
Source: Boston Herald
Jul 3, 2007
Japan’s prime minister sternly reprimanded his defense minister yesterday for his controversial comment backing the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and asked him to curb his tongue in future. Speaking to reporters, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he told Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma to “strictly refrain from making remarks that cause misunderstanding.”
“Japan is the only country that suffered an atomic bombing. We need to always consider and stand in t
Source: LAT
Jul 3, 2007
Maj. Sean Stinchon has traveled through Europe and Asia looking for the remains of America's fallen troops. More than 78,000 are still missing from World War II alone. An additional 8,100 are MIA from the Korean conflict, and 1,750 from Vietnam.In a 10-day expedition, Stinchon and his seven-member team -- the first U.S.-led search on Iwo Jima in nearly 60 years -- were looking for what wasn't on his map: caves and tunnels that were closed and sealed, then missed when U.S. se
Source: AP
Jul 3, 2007
Japanese soldiers forced girls as young as 12 into sexual slavery during and after World War II, according to a report by two Chinese legal groups.
The report released late Monday by the All China Lawyers Association and China Legal Aid Foundation, comes as Japan faces increased pressure from the United States to further apologize for sending women to work in wartime brothels.The legal groups said they located 17 women who were forced to work as 'comfort women' _ a eu
Source: NYT
Jul 2, 2007
Sixty years ago a B-29 bomber on a secret mission fell from the sky in Waycross, Ga. Nine men died, and the widows of three of them sued the government for negligence.
The case, United States v. Reynolds, gave birth to the state secrets privilege, which allows the government to shut down litigations simply by invoking national security. The privilege has been a particular favorite of the Bush administration, which has asserted it in dozens of cases, including ones challenging the le
Source: AP
Jul 2, 2007
New sightseeing cruises are sailing the rivers around Manhattan, one focusing on history, one on architecture.
Both are offered by NY Waterway Tours.
The history cruise, developed in collaboration with the New-York Historical Society, takes a "then and now" approach to four centuries of New York's past, mentioning sites like Governors Island, which served until recently as a Coast Guard installation but was named Nut Island in the 1600s for the chestnut and wa
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 2, 2007
It's an unsettling experience to see a politician as dapper as David Steel suddenly breaking down and weeping as his face contorts in a losing battle for self-control.
Tears don't become Baron Steel of Aikwood, the former Liberal leader. He has survived a good deal: from the humiliating jibes about him being Dr David Owen's puppet when the SDP amalgamated with his party to form the Liberal Democrats, to early-stage prostate cancer in 2001.
Sir David Steele believes Mau
Source: http://www.asahi.com
Jul 2, 2007
On June 23, government-appointed scholars from Japan and South Korea met in Tokyo for the first time in two years in an attempt to rekindle talks aimed at bridging the "history gap" between the two countries.
The first round of talks ended in May 2005 with the South Korean and Japanese sides issuing separate statements indicating disagreement on virtually all issues in all the three historical periods covered.
In contrast to the icy atmosphere of the official
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Jul 2, 2007
A DICTATOR'S LIBRARY: At some point in 1938, Joseph Stalin sat down, alone, and literally rewrote history — marking up a draft of The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which would be published by the party's Central Committee in 1939.
First, the Soviet leader used a gray pencil. Then he switched to quill and indigo ink. He scribbled in the margins and wrote over text, deleting words and entire phrases by drawing lines through them. ....
The marked-up m
Source: Inside Higher Ed (Click on SOURCE for embedded links.)
Jul 2, 2007
Opposition continues to grow to the push by leaders of Britain’s faculty union to have professors there boycott academics and universities in Israel. The Guardian reported that faculty members at the University of Oxford are demanding a full vote on the issue. Support for the boycott has generally been strongest at smaller conclaves of faculty leaders, and universitywide votes have suggested that a majority of professors oppose the boycott. On the other side of the pond, the Association of Ameri
Source: http://kvoa.com
Jul 2, 2007
For the world's 13 million Mormons, the ruins of Mexico and Central America are hallowed ground, a place where Old Testament tribes settled after traveling across the ocean and where Jesus came to preach after his Resurrection. Although archaeologists say there is scant evidence to back up such beliefs, a growing number of travelers are paying thousands of dollars to search for connections on Mormon-themed tours and cruises.
"It solidifies the things you read about in the Book
Source: Toledo Blade
Jul 2, 2007
As Dr. Yasuhiko Kaji shuffled through the boxes of flags, senninbari, diaries, and pictures that he has collected over the past 30 years, he came across a lushly illustrated Japanese flag.
The Buddhist goddess Kannon sat midway up the right side, her features inked into the fabric with the strong black strokes of a sophisticated artist. Daruma rolled across the bottom and up the left side of the flag. Daruma was a sage, explained Dr. Kaji, who meditated for seven years (or nine, according
