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: Radio Prague
Mar 6, 2007
Prague's Olsanske cemetery is by far the largest graveyard in the city. It is the final resting place of over a million people, including many of the leading figures of the Czech national revival and scholars and artists. You can also find there the graves of Czech legionaries from the First World War, as well as Commonwealth and Russian soldiers who lost their lives on Czechoslovak territory during the Second World War.
However, this burial ground is often the target of vandals and
Source: AP
Mar 6, 2007
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Albright-Knox Art Gallery's planned sale of 200 mostly older works to strengthen its buying power for newer pieces will be either one of the most important steps the gallery ever undertakes, or a giant misstep, depending on whom you ask.
Headed for the Sotheby's auction block beginning later this month are Chinese ceramics dating to the 13th century B.C., Indian and Southeast Asian works from the second to 11th century, American Indian earthenware, and old maste
Source: Reuters
Mar 6, 2007
GENEVA -- A Turkish politician went on trial Tuesday in Switzerland for denying that the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I amounted to genocide.
Dogu Perincek, head of the Turkish Workers' Party, called the Armenian genocide"an international lie" during a speech in the Swiss city of Lausanne in July 2005.
The state prosecutor has called for a six month prison term for violating a 1995 Swiss law that bans denying, belittling or justifying any genocide. The maxim
Source: International Herald Tribune
Mar 6, 2007
Six of the Seven Wonders of the World have long since gone with the wind. The Giza pyramids of Egypt are the sole survivor — and now they are threatened by modern Cairo's rapidly spreading urban sprawl.
But the reliability of the original Seven Wonders list, drawn up by the architect Philon of Byzantium in about 200 B.C., was suspect anyway. Did the hanging gardens of Babylon ever exist? The Tower of Babel? The Colossus of Rhodes? No traces remain.
Philon kept within hi
Source: Reuters
Mar 6, 2007
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Black Cherokee Indians said on Tuesday they will challenge a weekend vote to kick them out of the tribe that once owned their ancestors as slaves.
They threatened legal action to overturn the vote on Saturday in which 77 percent of those who cast ballots said they should no longer be Cherokees...
The vote would remove from tribal rolls 2,800 people who were mostly "freedmen," or descendants of slaves owned by the tribe before the U.S. Civil Wa
Source: Radar Online
Mar 6, 2007
Just weeks before the April opening of a new Greek and Roman antiquities exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum, the author of a new tell-all has discovered that some of the prize pieces set for display in the new Leon Levy and Shelby White Court may have been pillaged from Greece and Italy and smuggled over borders.
The potential scandal, unearthed by Michael Gross during research for his forthcoming book about New York's storied art mecca, is already raising hackles among museu
Source: Kane County Chronicle (Geneva, Ill.)
Mar 6, 2007
Evidence suggests life was less stressful in the Stone Age than it is today.
Sure, there were the challenges of surviving climatic change, scrounging for shelter and putting food on -– er, over -– the fire.
However, the modern businessman could learn a lot from the life of an early hunter-gatherer, archeological anthropologist Jonathan Haas said.
“[Back then], once you gathered the food you needed for the day, you were done for the rest of the day,” Haas sa
Source: AP
Mar 6, 2007
BAD AROLSEN, Germany -- World War II is near its end. The Nazi empire is crumbling from its edges inward as Soviet and Allied forces advance. Millions of Jews, Gypsies and political enemies of the Third Reich have already been exterminated. Hundreds of thousands are still in death camps praying for rescue.
Then, in one final sadistic spasm, the Germans set out to empty camps and move their inmates to the German heartland on what the prisoners, and later historians, call the death ma
Source: CNN
Mar 6, 2007
Japan must confront its past of coercing women into prostitution with Japanese troops in World War Two, China's foreign minister said on Tuesday, nonetheless stressing hopes of improved ties between the two Asian powers."The forced use of so-called 'comfort women' was one of the most serious crimes committed by the Japanese imperialists in World War Two," Li Zhaoxing told a news conference on the sidelines of China's annual meeting of parliament.
"
Source: Reuters
Mar 6, 2007
Egypt called on Israel on Tuesday to investigate charges that Israeli troops led by Israel's current infrastructure minister may have killed Egyptian prisoners of war in 1967.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni promised to watch an Israeli documentary which Egyptian and Israeli media reports have said contained the charges, but said she understood that those killed had died in battle, and called on the two countries to put the past behind them.
Egyptians were o
Source: AP
Mar 6, 2007
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- The state House approved a resolution declaring "Arkansas's" the possessive form of the state's name -- a bill so weird it prompted the sponsor to offer an apology.
"I know a lot of the attention that has been given to this resolution has reflected poorly on us as a Legislature, and for that I apologize," Rep. Steve Harrelson told House members before they unanimously passed his proposal Monday by voice vote. The measure now goes to the Senat
Source: BBC News
Mar 6, 2007
People across Ghana are celebrating the 50th anniversary of its independence from Britain.
Ghana was the first sub-Saharan country to break with its colonial power, prompting many others to seek independence in the following years...
Thousands gathered in Independence Square in the capital, Accra, for a re-enactment of the declaration and fireworks were planned to mark the precise anniversary...
On 5 March 1957, Britain formally transferred power to indepen
Source: Times (of London)
Mar 6, 2007
LONDON -- A collection of 5,000-year-old grave relics, allegedly looted from recently discovered desert sites, was at the centre of a High Court lawsuit brought by the Iranian Government yesterday against a London gallery.
Iran is suing the Barakat Galleries, seeking to recover carved objects said to have been taken from the ancient city of Jiroft in the Halil River Valley in southeastern Iran.
The grave goods were “almost unheard-of” until 2001, said Hodge Malek, Iran’
Source: Guardian
Mar 6, 2007
COPENHAGEN -- Hundreds of tearful and angry protesters gathered outside a youth community centre in Copenhagen yesterday to watch as a hydraulic excavator tore into the building, bringing to an end more than 100 years of political history.
The "Ungdomshuset" or Youth House which once hosted Vladimir Lenin, has been the focus of street riots in recent days following the eviction of squatters from the building which has been sold to a rightwing Christian sect...
Source: Elisabeth Grant in the AHA blog
Mar 5, 2007
March is Women’s History Month, and for the occasion the Library of Congress is honoring a variety of women from U.S. history on their Women’s History Month site. The site contains an abundance of resources on influential women as well as links to related web sites, like the American Memory site on women, the
Source: NYT
Mar 5, 2007
The Kern River oil field, discovered in 1899, was revived when Chevron engineers here started injecting high-pressured steam to pump out more oil. The field, whose production had slumped to 10,000 barrels a day in the 1960s, now has a daily output of 85,000 barrels....
In a wide-ranging study published in 2000, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that ultimately recoverable resources of conventional oil totaled about 3.3 trillion barrels, of which a third has already been produced.
Source: Times (UK)
Mar 5, 2007
What they didn't want you to know: A list of intriguing facts disinterred by the [UK] Freedom of Information Act.
*Ministers and MPs were claiming thousands of pounds on taxis as part of £5.9m in expenses for travel
*The Thatcher Government concocted a plan to search for the Loch Ness monster using a team of dolphins
*Foreign diplomats – who have diplomatic immunity – were accused of rapes, sexual assaults, child abuse and murders while working in Brita
Source: Times (of London)
Mar 5, 2007
The statistics made headlines all over the world when they were published in The Lancet in October last year. More than 650,000 Iraqis –- one in 40 of the population – had died as a result of the American-led invasion in 2003. The vast majority of these “excess” deaths (deaths over and above what would have been expected in the absence of the occupation) were violent. The victims, both civilians and combatants, had fallen prey to airstrikes, car bombs and gunfire.
Body counts in con
Source: Cibola County (N.M.) Beacon
Mar 5, 2007
ACOMA PUEBLO, N.M. -- “The Pueblo of Acoma tribal community is honored to enter into this important partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation,” said pueblo Governor Jason Johnson on the naming of Sky City as the 28th National Trust Historic site.
The trust describes the site, “Overlooking a vast desert and mountain sweep of northern New Mexico and dating back to 1150 A.D., Acoma Sky City is a vibrant community characterized by its adobe houses, plazas, walkways a
Source: South Africa Press Agency & DPA (German Press Agency)
Mar 5, 2007
ACCRA, Ghana -- Fifty years of independence, four republics, three successful military coups, several failed attempts, five civilian governments, three military governments and nine leaders -- that is the chequered history of Ghana, which celebrates its golden jubilee on Tuesday, March 6.
Now, however, the country believes it is on autopilot on a smooth super highway towards democracy.
When Ghana achieved independence from Britain in 1957, there were high hopes for the
