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: Stone Pages
Feb 27, 2007
Once again Stonehenge is the focus for protest - this time three men dressed as cartoon characters Fred Flintstone scaled the ancient stones, with the help of a ladder. The men draped a placard across a lintel and posed for camera shots atop the lintel, vowing to stay on the stones all night with their three days supply of food. Luckily this was not the case, and they came down the same day.
They represent the organisation "Fathers 4 Justice", an organisation which ha
Source: Reuters
Feb 27, 2007
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudis crowded to camel races and sword-dancing this week at a desert cultural festival that has come to reflect growing anxiety over national unity and the loss of tribal Arab identity to Western culture.
The Janadriyah began 22 years ago as a showcase for a Bedouin culture heritage of camels, tents, coffee pots and swords that seemed in danger of disappearing.
But as well as a jamboree of cultural affirmation, in recent years it has become an o
Source: Times (of London)
Feb 27, 2007
The seamanship of the Barbary pirates of North Africa was for two centuries as renowned as their cruelty as they plundered Mediterranean shipping lanes for slaves and treasure.
The key to their hit-and-run tactics was the fast getaway. They were able to sail far closer into the wind than the Europeans left trailing in their wake. The pirates ceased to be a problem after the French conquered their raiding base, Algiers, in 1830 —- and the secret of their crucial advantage was lost.
Source: Newark Star-Ledger
Feb 27, 2007
The historic Old Barracks Museum in Trenton, closed for the past two months for a lack of money, reopened to the public yesterday.
And now that it has, Richard Patterson, the director of the state-owned tourist attraction, is going to lay himself off for two months, effective April 1.
As director of the museum for the past 13 years, Patterson decided it should be shuttered for two months -- and its hourly employees laid off -- to cope with funding cuts. Now it's his tur
Source: Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch
Feb 27, 2007
The Sons of Confederate Veterans, outraged that the Museum of the Confederacy might move out of Richmond, is offering to take over the management of the museum.
"Conditions at the museum have declined steadily for the past few years," said Frank Earnest, state commander of the 4,000-member Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. "The current administration has brought the situation to near crisis."...
[Museum President Waite] Rawls rel
Source: Daily Times (Lahore, Pakistan)
Feb 27, 2007
LAHORE, Pakistan -- The Punjab Archaeology Department (PAD) will ask the government to stop “damaging historical sites” by arranging functions or cultural shows, PAD director general Oriya Maqbool Jan told Daily Times on Monday.
Jan said the PAD had objected to the holding of the recent fashion show at the Lahore Fort and several other activities held in the past...
The PAD DG said hammering on the walls of the monuments weakened them and affected their structural integ
Source: AP
Feb 27, 2007
NEW YORK -- To resolve the question of whether the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene may have rested in two limestone boxes discovered in a Jerusalem suburb, the filmmakers of a new documentary took novel approaches —- including turning to statisticians.
Some religious scholars and archaeologists, however, have not been convinced by the numbers.
Filmmakers showed the two boxes on Monday while promoting their documentary,"The Lost Tomb of Jesus," produced by Oscar-winn
Source: BBC News
Feb 27, 2007
A Yorkshire aristocrat who died nearly 90 years ago could help the global fight against bird flu, experts say.
A court has authorised the exhumation of the body of Sir Mark Sykes, the owner of the historic Sledmere House near Driffield.
Scientists hope the Spanish flu virus from which he died in 1919 may still be present in his body because it has been preserved in a lead-lined coffin.
If so, DNA samples could help experts develop drugs to fight the virus.
Source: APA (Azeri Press Agency)
Feb 27, 2007
Turkish Historical Society is going to raise claim on the Khojaly genocide against Armenians in international courts, APA reports. The head of the society Yusif Halacoglu publicized the decisions made in the meeting of Coordination Organization on Armenian Issue...
The investigation of Turkish and Azerbaijani history and Armenian problem was discussed at the meeting. Noting that large-scale investigation based on documents will be carried out, Yusif Halacoglu said they will raise cl
Source: The Examiner
Feb 27, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) will formally unveil plans Wednesday to construct the first National Law Enforcement Museum. At the event NLEOMF will also launch their fundraising campaign for the project, “A Matter of Honor: The Campaign to Support the National Law Enforcement Museum.”
Once the museum opens, NLEOMF Chairman and CEO Craig Floyd, says, “The highlight of the museum will be interactivity” [such as] “Shoot or Don't Shoot. “Actu
Source: theSun (Malaysia)
Feb 27, 2007
PETALING JAYA, Malaysia -- The communists' role in fighting for independence has been recognised by no less than first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, a historian said.
Two former deputy prime ministers -- Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman and Tun Ghafar Baba -- have also publicly acknowledged the contributions of the left wing movement towards nationhood, former Universiti Sains Malaysia history professor Dr Cheah Boon Kheng said today.
"Malay attitudes towards the co
Source: EUobserver
Feb 27, 2007
BRUSSELS –- The EU has welcomed the UN's top court ruling which sees Serbia cleared of direct responsibility for the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslims in the Bosnian village of Srebrenica, while urging Belgrade to distance itself from Milosevic-era crimes and hand over war criminals still at large.
"I appreciate very much that there [in the ruling] is no collective punishment", EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said, as it was the first time in the 60-year history of
Source: AP
Feb 27, 2007
PORTLAND, Me. -- Remembrances of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who would have turned 200 on Tuesday, are hard to escape in his native Portland, the place he described in ”My Lost Youth” as ”the beautiful town that is seated by the sea.”
In the heart of the downtown sits Wadsworth-Longfellow House, the three-story brick building where the poet lived as a youth. It’s a few blocks east of Longfellow Square and even closer to Longfellow Books. Some of the city’s elementary school pupils a
Source: AP
Feb 27, 2007
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The biracial daughter of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond defended the former segregationist on Tuesday and said the Rev. Al Sharpton "overreacted" when Sharpton learned he is a descendent of a slave owned by the senator's relatives.
"In spite of the fact he was a segregationist, he did many wonderful things for black people ... I'm not sure that Reverend Sharpton is aware of all the things he did," said Essie Mae Washington-Williams, who was in Sou
Source: AP
Feb 27, 2007
NEW YORK -- Some books sell because Oprah Winfrey wants you to buy them. Others get help from a major prize, a controversy, a movie tie-in, a famous author or an especially clever marketing campaign.
And some, such as Irene Nemirovsky's "Suite Francaise," sell because they're great books.
Born in 1903, Nemirovsky was a Ukrainian Jew who emigrated to Paris as a young woman. She was arrested in 1942 during the Nazi occupation of France and soon died at Auschwitz
Source: AP
Feb 27, 2007
JACKSON, Miss. -- All but closing the books on a crime that helped give rise to the civil rights movement, a grand jury has refused to bring any new charges in the 1955 slaying of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was beaten and shot after whistling at a white woman in the Mississippi Delta.
The district attorney in rural Leflore County had sought a manslaughter charge against the white woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, who was suspected of pointing out Till to her husband to punish the
Source: AP
Feb 27, 2007
NEW YORK -- A federal judge on Tuesday approved a settlement involving Holocaust victims, their relatives and an Italian insurance company that ends a lawsuit brought a decade ago.
U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels announced his approval after listening to lawyers on all sides, including an attorney for six objectors who insisted the deal with Assicurazioni Generali would deny justice for tens of thousands of victims.
"The settlement is not perfect, but it's ha
Source: AP
Feb 27, 2007
Frederick Douglass is known for fiercely opposing slavery after running away from his Maryland owner, for championing equal rights and women's rights, and for being a forceful speaker.
But he spent much of his adult life as a journalist, first publishing a newspaper in Rochester, N.Y., where he lived near the Canadian border to be able to flee if pursued, and then in the District.
Douglass was the first black reporter allowed into the Capitol press galleries, wher
Source: CNN
Feb 27, 2007
The FBI reopened investigations of about a dozen decades-old suspicious deaths, officials said Tuesday amid a Justice Department focus on cracking unsolved cases from the nation's civil rights era.
The high-priority cases, which FBI Director Robert S. Mueller described as numbering between 10 and 12, are among an estimated 100 that investigators nationwide are looking at as possible civil rights-related murders.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales acknowledged many of the
Source: Chosun.com
Feb 27, 2007
A Chinese newspaper has criticized as "imprudent" plans by Korea's Education Ministry to revise history textbooks to show that Korea's development began earlier than is currently stated.
The Ministry last week announced that it would change the high school textbooks to state as fact that the Old Chosun dynasty was founded by Dangun Wanggeom and that the Bronze Age on the peninsula was from 2000 BC to 1500 BC, a thousand years earlier than the textbooks now state.
