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: Xinhua/China View
Apr 13, 2007
ZHENGZHOU, China -- Chinese archaeologists have discovered a complex of 50 tombs, most of which date back 1,800 years, in Jiaozuo City, in central China's Henan Province.
Some of the tombs date from the Han dynasty (206 BC to 220), others belong to the Eastern Jin dynasty (317 to 420), the Northern Dynasties period (386 to 581) and the Tang dynasty (618 to 907).
Archaeologists unearthed more than 200 historical artifacts, including pottery utensils, china objects, bronz
Source: Haaretz (Tel Aviv)
Apr 13, 2007
Hundreds of thousands of books and many thousand Judaica items, which belonged to Holocaust victims and were distributed to public and private bodies in Israel in the 1950s, may now be reclaimed and returned to their heirs.
The state-owned Company for Locating and Retrieving Assets of Holocaust Victims intends to round up the cultural treasures and attempt to restore them to their rightful claimants.
It has recently transpired that more than 5,000 Judaica items, hundred
Source: AP
Apr 13, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Three Frank Lloyd Wright structures and nine other sites in 10 states have been designated U.S. National Historic Landmarks.
The buildings by the famed American architect are the Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins Park, Pa., a glazed glass pyramidal tower built in the 1950s; the Aline Barnsdall Complex (Hollyhock House) in Los Angeles, lauded for emphasizing the relationship between the building and the landscape; and Price Tower in Bartlesville, Okla., a cantilevered 19-story buil
Source: BBC News
Apr 13, 2007
TOKYO -- China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao strode into the parliamentary chamber of Japan's Imperial Diet to a warm round of applause from lawmakers...
Both governments have agreed it seems time to try to reduce the chances of the "history issue" causing problems for them.
They have set up a joint committee of Chinese and Japanese historians to study 2,000 years of their shared history and draw up a report setting out their positions and discussing why they di
Source: AFP
Apr 13, 2007
DALLAS -- Plans to establish a presidential library and think tank for George W. Bush at his wife's alma mater in Texas have come under fire from both faculty and the clergy associated with Southern Methodist University.
A vocal group of professors, concerned about how an institute billed to be "inspired by the principles of George W. Bush's administration" might affect the university's reputation, have been working to block the library.
At a recent vote, the
Source: ABC News
Apr 13, 2007
As radio shock jock Don Imus apologizes to the Rutgers women's basketball team for his racist characterization of its players, the event is playing out exactly 60 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color line in baseball.
When Robinson took the field, he faced racist taunts, and while much has changed since that time, it's clear that much has stayed the same.Related Links
Source: Reuters
Apr 13, 2007
PARIS -- French centrist Francois Bayrou on Friday accused his rightist presidential rival Nicolas Sarkozy of sending a chilling message to EU partner Germany with recent remarks on the Holocaust.
Bayrou, who has narrowed the gap with frontrunners Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal in recent opinion polls, said the rightist candidate was trying to lure far-right National Front voters with his comments...
"He has said things for example about Germany, imputing to
Source: Reuters
Apr 13, 2007
BASEL, Switzerland -- Steel and coal from the Titanic have been transformed into a new line of luxury wristwatches that claim to capture the essence of the legendary oceanliner which sank in 1912.
Geneva watchmaker Romain Jerome SA billed its "Titanic-DNA" collection as among the most exclusive pieces showcased this week at Baselworld, the watch and jewellery industry's largest annual trade fair...
"So many rich people buy incredibly complicated watches w
Source: AP
Apr 13, 2007
Six years after declaring the U.S. killing of Korean War refugees at No Gun Ri was"not deliberate," the Army has acknowledged it found but did not divulge that a high-level document said the U.S. military had a policy of shooting approaching civilians in South Korea.
The document, a letter from the U.S. ambassador in South Korea to the State Department in Washington, is dated the day in 1950 when U.S. troops began the No Gun Ri shootings, in which survivors say hundreds, mostly women and c
Source: AP
Apr 13, 2007
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the manslaughter convictions of Edgar Ray Killen, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, in the killing of three civil rights workers in 1964.
Mr. Killen, 82, was convicted in June 2005 in the deaths of the workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. He was sentenced to three consecutive 20-year prison terms.
In his appeal, Mr. Killen had argued that in the 1960s he would not have been convicted by a jury of his peers of any crime under
Source: AP
Apr 13, 2007
An Indiana official publicly apologized for the state's role 100 years ago in pioneering state-authorized sterilization of "imbeciles," paupers and others it deemed undesirable.
Health Commissioner Dr. Judith Monroe expressed regret on behalf of the state Thursday for its passing of the first such eugenics law. She also unveiled a historic marker that will stand across from the Statehouse.
"It is one (law) that we do regret but we should not forget,"
Source: AP
Apr 13, 2007
The charisma king of the 2008 presidential field. The world's best golfer. The captain of the New York Yankees. Besides superstardom, Barack Obama, Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter have another common bond: Each is the child of an interracial marriage.
For most of U.S. history, in most communities, such unions were taboo.
It was only 40 years ago, on June 12, 1967, that the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down a Virginia statute barring whites from marrying nonwhites. The decision also overturned
Source: NYT
Apr 13, 2007
The White House said Thursday that missing e-mail messages sent on Republican Party accounts may include some relating to the firing of eight United States attorneys....
[Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of a House committee looking into the use of political e-mail accounts,] said he now had “serious concerns about the White House’s compliance with the Presidential Records Act,” a 1978 law that requires administrations to keep records of delibe
Source: Independent
Apr 13, 2007
BERLIN -- Communist East Germany officially took pride in its "anti-fascism" yet party youth members used Nazi salutes, the Holocaust was virtually ignored and Jewish cemeteries were flattened to make way for car parks.
A dark and little known aspect of East Germany emerged yesterday at a Berlin exhibition which exposes the communist state's role in creating a fertile breeding ground for anti-Semitism, right-wing violence and xenophobia.
Entitled "We neve
Source: AP
Apr 13, 2007
TOKYO -- Japan's lower house of parliament on Friday approved guidelines for amending the pacifist constitution, a key step in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to give the military a larger global role.
The legislation was passed easily because of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's majority in the chamber. The 1947 U.S.-drafted constitution has never been amended.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Apr 12, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO -- The historic sailing schooner C.A. Thayer was rechristened this morning at the San Francisco Maritime National Park [Hyde Street Pier], marking the completion of a $14 million, three-year rebuilding job on the 112-year-old vessel.
The Thayer is one of only two survivors of a fleet of hundreds of sailing vessels that carried lumber along the West Coast in the heyday of coastal shipping. Ships like the Thayer helped build San Francisco, Oakland and other California ci
Source: CNN
Apr 12, 2007
Since slavery times, "nappy" has been used to malign the natural hair texture of many people of African descent: dense, dark and tightly curled. So when Don Imus referred to the women of the Rutgers basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" -- a widely condemned remark that got him fired Thursday -- it cut deeper than many who are unfamiliar with the term might realize....
"When I hear it from someone who doesn't understand the depth of pain, they just don't hav
Source: Press Release -- National Park Service
Apr 12, 2007
On Sunday, March 11th, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park ranger Chuck Lochart saw three men – Fenton Terembes, Jeremy Burroughs and Vincent Williams – metal-detecting and digging relics up in the Spotsylvania battlefield. The three men were apprehended as they left the park by Lochart and rangers Craig Johnson and Tad Pultorak.
Their metal-detecting equipment and nearly 200 artifacts were seized. Over 450 excavated holes were found on and around park earthwork
Source: NBC
Apr 12, 2007
If you are a regular listener of National Public Radio, then you are probably familiar with the StoryCorps project. For years now, microphones have been set up in public and mobile studios to record the stories of average Americans.
There is no formality — the guests, usually two people, are just told when the recording starts and that they have 40 minutes to talk about anything they want. For most people the narratives are about special moments in their lives or perhaps a brush wit
Source: International Herald Tribune
Apr 12, 2007
The first sign that things aren't quite right comes when Jews are required to wear a badge, a black and yellow star of David, on the outside of their clothes. And yet 13-year-old Petr Ginz remains wryly amused, writing in his diary: "When I went to school, I counted sixty-nine 'sheriffs.' "
Such is the life of a young Czechoslovakian Jewish boy living in Prague in 1941, and it is a life that Petr meticulously documented in his diary until he was sent on a transport to Ther
