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: http://www.taipeitimes.com
Feb 7, 2007
The good news for Chiang Kai-shek is that he may get to come inside after braving the elements for more than half a century. The bad news for him is that "inside" may be some dark and obscure corner of a warehouse.
The statues of Chiang that had been a ubiquitous feature of the nation's streets, parks and military bases have been subjected to increasingly diffident treatment since power transferred from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to the Democratic Progressive P
Source: International Herald Tribune
Feb 7, 2007
[Detlev Karsten ] Rohwedder was one of the last victims of a German terrorist movement that had horrified a wealthy and fairly complacent society while killing 34 people. Called the Baader-Meinhof gang after its founding members, Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader, the Red Army Faction had its roots in the 1968 student protest movement.
It moved quickly to waging an armed struggle against the capitalist system. This involved bank robberies, bomb attacks on government buildings and U.
Source: AP
Feb 7, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced a project Wednesday that hopes to record at least 1,500 oral histories from black families over the next year.
The recordings are to be placed at the Library of Congress and in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution's future National Museum of African American History and Culture...
The CPB is funding the $1.4 million StoryCorps Griot project. Part of the project's name, "griot," is derived f
Source: Haaretz (Tel Aviv)
Feb 7, 2007
In S.Y. Agnon's story "As a Musician Playing," a character, Avigdor, stands on the roof of his house and looks out over the Old City of Jerusalem. "House touches house and roof touches roof. A person can pass from one end of Jerusalem to another by the roofs, as a city built connected together, Avigdor said, alluding to the Psalms, sighing deeply. Jerusalem is connected by its houses and divided by its inhabitants."
It is hard to know whether the the Jewish Quart
Source: AP
Feb 7, 2007
DALLAS -- Southern Methodist University professors on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected a plan to hold a faculty-wide vote on whether the campus should host a partisan think-tank as part of George W. Bush's presidential library.
Faculty Senate President Rhonda Blair said it was defeated because the measure was too narrow, asking professors if they approved or disapproved of the partisan institute, which would report to the Bush Foundation, not SMU. The issue may be discussed again n
Source: National Security Archive
Feb 7, 2007
Washington, DC, February 7, 2007 - The CIA's proposed new rule on Freedom of Information Act processing fees is likely to discourage FOIA requesters while imposing new administrative burdens both on the Agency and the public, according to formal comments filed with the CIA today by the National Security Archive of George Washington University.
The Archive's general counsel, Meredith Fuchs, commented that, "Significant time, money, and other resources were spent by the CIA on fe
Source: NYT
Feb 7, 2007
Saad Eskander, the director of Iraq’s National Library and Archive in Baghdad, finally had some time to catch up on his diary after a couple of very busy weeks. As he wrote in his latest entry, he was having trouble repairing the Internet system; the Restoration Laboratory “was hit by 5 bullets”; and “another librarian, who works at the Periodical Department, received a death threat. He has to leave his house and look for another one, as soon as he can; otherwise, he will be murdered.”
Source: McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
Feb 7, 2007
WASHINGTON —- The House of Representatives laid the groundwork Tuesday for an ambitious new museum honoring Latinos.
Supporters of the proposed National Museum of the American Latinos still face a long road ahead, but moved a crucial step forward when the House agreed to spend $3.1 million on a commission to study the idea.
"Walk through the National Mall in Washington, D.C., visit our outstanding national museums and you can learn a lot about who Americans are and
Source: Washington Post
Feb 7, 2007
Sixty years ago this summer, the Exodus 1947 sailed from Marseilles, France, with 4,500 passengers, most survivors of the Holocaust, and began another horrific chapter in Holocaust-era history.
The refugees were bound for Palestine, then a British territory, and, a few miles from shore, the British Royal Navy boarded the ship and eventually deported the passengers to France. When they arrived back in Marseilles, the refugees refused to disembark. They went on a hunger strike and end
Source: Reuters
Feb 7, 2007
WARSAW -- Holocaust survivors from around the world will gather in Warsaw this month to urge the Polish government to compensate them for property confiscated by the former communist regime, Jewish organizations said yesterday.
Poland, the biggest post-communist European Union member, is the only country from eastern Europe, besides Belarus, that has not enacted a program for the restitution of property seized after World War II. Attempts to solve the issue since the collapse of com
Source: Los Angeles Daily News
Feb 6, 2007
The UCLA Film & Television Archive makes its long-awaited move to the new, state-of-the-art Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum in Westwood on Friday...
"With this theater's level of technology, we can go from silent film to the most extraordinary and contemporary surround sound, and we can go from the nitrate era all the way up to digital in a contemporary setting," [UCLA Dean Robert] Rosen enthuses...
With its store of more than 220,000 movies and
Source: Footnote.com press release
Feb 6, 2007
WASHINGTON and LINDON, Utah -- Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein and Footnote, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Russell Wilding today announced the release of Footnote.com in all the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) locations nationwide [list at http://www.archives.gov/locations]. This new service at the research centers will provide patrons free access to NARA content that Footnote has digitized and indexed.
Source: International Herald Tribune
Feb 6, 2007
PARIS -- Two decades ago, France transformed an abandoned railway station into a glittering museum for Impressionist masterpieces. Now, the Orsay Museum is getting another overhaul — to resurrect forgotten architectural details of the original train depot.
The museum on the banks of the Seine River is shrouded in scaffolding and netting as experts paint it, rebuild corroded metal marquees and restore pollution-stained stonework.
The touchups on the facade are part of a
Source: Christian Broadcasting Network
Feb 6, 2007
JERUSALEM –- The Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City is probably the single most disputed piece of real estate in the world. A new archeological dig there is stirring tension in the already volatile region.
The dig is required by Israeli law before any major construction project can take place. The government plans on building a permanent replacement for a bridge near the site that collapsed a few years ago in a heavy snow storm.
The bridge is used by Christians and Je
Source: International Herald Tribune
Feb 6, 2007
FLORENCE -- A bright yellow crane has recently gone to work, the most solid sign yet that the reconstruction of the Uffizi Gallery here may really, finally, actually happen.
But even with the ground broken, 10 years after the project was first announced, few are betting on it. "In Florence, the disputes are never over," said Antonio Natali, the museum's director...
It is hard to blame him. Nearly 30 years have passed since the lower of the Uffizi's two grand f
Source: BBC News
Feb 6, 2007
DNA tests carried out on two British men have shed light on a mystery surrounding the ancestry of Thomas Jefferson, America's third president.
In the 1990s, DNA was taken from male relatives of Jefferson to see if he fathered a son with one of his slaves.
They found the president had a rare genetic signature found mainly in the Middle East and Africa, calling into question his claim of Welsh ancestry.
But this DNA type has now been found in two Britons with
Source: Archaeological News
Feb 6, 2007
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. ˜ Hold on to your bearskin hats and
your macramé snoods, readers: You are in for a wild
verbal ride through your deep, deep past.
The authors of a new book have fashioned a 16-chapter
prehistory theme park worthy of Disney, but in their
confection, lame, even egregious, past assumptions
about our past are hunted down and slain, and stars ˆ
in the form of womankind ˆ are born.
"The Invisible Sex: Uncovering t
Source: AP
Feb 6, 2007
NEW YORK — Huge street protests made millions of immigrants more visible and powerful last year, but they also seem to have revived a hateful counter force: white supremacists.
Groups linked to the Ku Klux Klan, skinheads and neo-Nazis grew significantly more active, holding more rallies, distributing leaflets and increasing their presence on the Internet — much of it focused on stirring anti-immigrant sentiment, a new report released by the Anti-Defamation League says.
Source: AP
Feb 6, 2007
National parks would get extra money next year to prepare for a big birthday bash — their own.
President Bush's 2008 budget, unveiled Monday, would give the National Park Service its largest-ever funding increase in preparation for the park system's 100th birthday in 2016.
In all, Bush allots $2.4 billion for the National Park Service for 2008, $230 million more than he requested last year. His plan would add $100 million each year leading up to the centennial, and pled
Source: Washington Post
Feb 6, 2007
ANGKOR, Cambodia -- Built by a mighty 9th-century Khmer king, the soaring temple of Phnom Bakheng stands atop the highest peak of ancient Angkor. With a sweeping view that takes in Angkor Wat -- the world's largest religious structure -- the monks stationed here were probably among the first to glimpse the approaching Siamese troops that snuffed out this city's centuries-long domination of much of Southeast Asia.
So perhaps it is not surprising that more than 500 years later, Phnom
