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: Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Apr 11, 2007
BUENOS AIRES -- An Argentine researcher and journalist said he feels "a strong sense of relief" after a three-year battle in Italian courts ended with a Nazi war criminal's lawsuit against him being thrown out. Goni was referring to a Milan court's decision last month to reject a claim by convicted Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke, who had sued Goni and his Italian publisher for 50,000 euros -- more than $67,000 -- for libel. The court not only tossed out Priebke's claim as unfounded bu
Source: AP
Apr 11, 2007
NEW YORK -- PBS promised Wednesday to amend Ken Burns' upcoming documentary series on World War II to include stories about Latino veterans after activists complained he ignored their contributions to the American effort.
Burns has also agreed to hire a Latino producer to help create the additional content, PBS said.
The 14-hour documentary, "The War," is scheduled to premiere in September. PBS hopes it becomes as popular as Burns' "The Civil War" wa
Source: BBC News
Apr 11, 2007
Fans of The Doors have asked Florida to pardon frontman Jim Morrison nearly 40 years after he was convicted of indecent exposure in the state.
Morrison was charged after a concert in Miami's Coconut Grove in 1969 where he allegedly exposed himself and simulated a sex act.
Now two fans have sent a letter seeking a pardon for the Florida native so he can be remembered for his music.
Governor Charlie Crist said he was "certainly willing to review" th
Source: This Is London/Evening Standard
Apr 11, 2007
William Wordsworth was inspired to write Daffodils by the glorious flowers on the shores of Ullswater in the Lake District.
But verse-lovers should put their fingers in the ears now - for the poem has been 'updated' for the 21st century by being turned into a cringe-making rap song.
Set to a driving beat, the rap encourages the listener to 'Check It' and the daffodils are no longer 'tossing their heads in sprightly dance' but 'tossing up their heads like a pogo dance'.
The rap
Source: Reuters
Apr 11, 2007
MEXICO CITY -- Ancient Mexicans brought human sacrifice victims from hundreds of miles away over centuries to sanctify a pyramid in the oldest city in North America, an archeologist said on Wednesday.
DNA tests on the skeletons of more than 50 victims discovered in 2004 in the Pyramid of the Moon at the Teotihuacan ruins revealed they were from far away Mayan, Pacific or Atlantic coastal cultures.
The bodies, many of which were decapitated, dated from between 50 AD and
Source: AP
Apr 11, 2007
BERLIN -- Benedict XVI, in his first extended reflections on evolution published as pope, says that Darwin's theory cannot be finally proven and that science has unnecessarily narrowed humanity's view of creation.
In a new book, "Creation and Evolution," published Wednesday in German, the pope praised progress gained by science, but cautioned that evolution raises philosophical questions science alone cannot answer...
He stopped short of endorsing intelligent
Source: AP
Apr 11, 2007
PANMUNJOM -- U.S. envoys entered South Korea from North Korea in a rare border-crossing Wednesday after securing the remains of six American soldiers from the Korean War and pushing for action on the North's nuclear disarmament.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Anthony Principi, former U.S. veterans affairs secretary, were greeted at the frontier between North and South by U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow and U.S. military officials...
On Wednesday,
Source: NPR
Apr 11, 2007
A Bangladeshi man who used to sell televisions at a Circuit City store in Los Angeles is fighting deportation back to his home country. Mohiuddin Ahmed faces execution for his role in a 1975 coup that led to the assassination of Bangladesh's first president.
Ahmed was convicted [in absentia] of helping assassinate Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh to independence from Pakistan nearly 40 years ago. [He was sentenced to hang.]...
"I had nothing to do with kil
Source: Reuters
Apr 11, 2007
TOKYO -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, in a speech to Japan's parliament on Thursday, urged Japan to match its words of apology for Tokyo's wartime aggression with action.
"We sincerely hope Japan will use practical actions to manifest its public statements and promises," Wen told the Japanese lawmakers.
Wen, making the first visit to Japan by a Chinese premier since 2000, also called Japan's past military invasion of China a "calamity" but said the Ch
Source: Reuters
Apr 11, 2007
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- In the first purchase of his collection, Sellam Ismail loaded the trunk of his car with old computers he stumbled upon at a flea market for $5 apiece. Soon he had filled his three-car garage with what others would consider obsolete junk.
Years later, his collection of early computers, printers, and related parts is piled high across shelves and in chaotic heaps in a 4,500-square-foot warehouse near Silicon Valley. And it is worth real money.
Even as
Source: ABS-CBN (Quezon City, Philippines)
Apr 11, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Filipino World War II veterans marked Bataan Day by honoring their fallen comrades, on the eve of an important US Senate hearing that will tackle a counterpart bill granting full equity to surviving Filipino veterans.
Amid an unusual spring chill, a handful of aging World War II veterans gathered at the World War II Memorial to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Fall of Bataan. On Wednesday, the US Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hears the pros and cons of Senat
Source: Press TV (Tehran)
Apr 11, 2007
Archeologists have unearthed an ancient statue which was buried as if to represent a corpse, shedding new light on Iran's Iron Age.
The archeologists uncovered the statue along with several pottery objects and human bones in the province of Qazvin on a mountain near the township of Abyek.
"The new discovery could lead us to further questions concerning the burial methods of Iron Age man," a member of the excavation team told reporters.
Experts bel
Source: Harvard Crimson
Apr 11, 2007
Professors rejected a call to add more history to the proposed general education curriculum in a close vote at yesterday’s sometimes-chaotic meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Faculty members spent nearly an hour debating whether to add the word “history” to the “Culture and Belief” category of the program that could replace the Core Curriculum as early as Fall 2008. The amendment, initially backed by 65 professors, ultimately failed in an 88-68 vote...
Yester
Source: New York Times
Apr 11, 2007
PRINCETON, N.J. -— In 1936, two of the Soviet Union’s greatest artists decided to work on a new theatrical production of Pushkin’s “Boris Godunov” for its author’s coming jubilee. Sergei Prokofiev wrote 24 musical pieces while the visionary stage director Vsevolod Meyerhold mapped out scenes and started rehearsals. The following year, Stalin’s terror fixed its gaze on Meyerhold and he abandoned the project. Three years later, he was dead, shot by a firing squad.
Now, thanks to the r
Source: Times (of London)
Apr 11, 2007
HYTHE, England -- A fisherman who caught an object weighing 500lb (227kg) off the coast of Kent decided that he had better take the coastguards’ advice on his catch.
After sending them a picture via his mobile phone, he learnt that it was a Second World War bomb, so lowered it back into the water before bomb disposal experts arrived to detonate the device.
Witnesses said that the explosion sent a spout of water shooting skywards. A dolphin that swims in the area was u
Source: Guardian
Apr 11, 2007
One of the last remaining pieces of Berlin Wall in the centre of the German capital was removed by workers on contract to the government in a secretly engineered operation over the Easter weekend, it was revealed yesterday.
In the hope that no one would notice because of the quiet bank holiday, the 18-metre strip of graffitied wall was yanked from its foundations in the dead of night...
At first the media spearheaded a hunt for the tourist attraction which contains well
Source: AP
Apr 10, 2007
WICHITA, Kansas -- Forget the Pyramids of Egypt and the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Let's talk about the eight wonders of Kansas.
A non-profit group called the Kansas Sampler Foundation is asking the public to submit nominations using eight elements of rural culture: architecture, art, commerce, cuisine, customs, geography, history and people.
State officials hope the effort will boost tourism and draw attention to quirky attractions, such as Big Br
Source: AP
Apr 10, 2007
WAPAKONETA, Ohio -- A museum honoring the first man to walk on the moon isn't afraid to confront conspiracy theorists who argue his 1969 lunar landing was a hoax.
"If it takes a controversy to get them here, that's fine with us," said Andrea Waugh, an education specialist at the Armstrong Air & Space Museum, named after Apollo 11 astronaut and hometown hero Neil Armstrong, who lives in suburban Cincinnati.
The museum set up a display Saturday featuring som
Source: Cox News Service
Apr 10, 2007
BAGHDAD -- Of all the frustrating jobs in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion four years ago, imagine the frustration of a man trying to entice tourists to visit here.
"It should be fun, but so far there is no fun," lamented the Iraqi tourism board director, 46-year-old Hamoud Mohsen al-Yacoubi. "When I came to this job I had black hair; now it is gray."
His office sends out promotional magazines to be displayed and distributed by Iraq's embassies abroa
Source: Telegraph
Apr 10, 2007
The river is brown and pungent, the houses are haunted and the streets teem with thieves.
Charles Dickens's England, however, never had construction workers in hard hats and high visibility vests.
News that the finishing touches are being applied to the £62 million theme park may be unwelcome among literary purists, but Dickens World in Chatham, Kent, is expected to attract more than 300,000 visitors a year.
The complex offers a boat ride in a London sewer,
