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: AP
Dec 6, 2006
World War II internment camps for Japanese-Americans will be preserved as reminders of how the United States treated some citizens in wartime.
The Republican-led Congress sent President Bush on Tuesday a bill for $38 million in National Park Service grants to restore and pay for research at 10 camps. The lawmakers returned on Tuesday for four days of work, and the House passed the bill on a voice vote.
The park service operates centers at two camps, the Manzanar Nati
Source: WaPo
Dec 6, 2006
Maps in future Israeli public school textbooks will show the boundary that existed between Israel and the West Bank before the 1967 Middle East war, Israel's education minister announced Tuesday. The move drew sharp protest from lawmakers, settler groups and religious leaders who claim the West Bank as part of the Jewish state.
The minister, Yuli Tamir, is a member of the Labor Party and a founder of the advocacy group Peace Now, which opposes Jewish settlement in the occupied terri
Source: CNN
Dec 6, 2006
A rare 1939 German race car commissioned by Adolf Hitler is expected to command the highest price ever paid for any automobile at auction, according to Christie's, which will conduct the auction in Paris in February 2007.
The car, one of five remaining "Auto Union D-Types," is expected to sell for as much as $12 million, said Rupert Banner, head of Christie's motor cars department.
In 1933, after becoming chancellor of Germany, Hitler offered 500,000 reichmark
Source: Times Online (UK)
Dec 6, 2006
The richest 2 per cent of adults own more than half the world’s wealth, according to the most comprehensive study of personal assets.
Among the largest economies, Britain boasted the third-highest average wealth of $126,832 (£64,172) per adult, after the United States and Japan, a United Nations development research institute found.
Those with assets of $500,000 could consider themselves to be among the richest 1 per cent in the world. Those with net assets of $2,200
Source: AP
Dec 6, 2006
Archeologists discovered the mummified
remains of a doctor they believe lived more than 4,000 years ago and who
was buried along with metal surgical tools.
Egypt's official Middle East News Agency quoted Zap Haws, chief of the
Supreme Council of Antiquities, as saying Tuesday that archaeologists
discovered the mummy in Saqqara, 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Cairo
as they were cleaning a nearby archaeological site.
Hawass said the doctor, named Qar, lived under the sixth dyna
Source: Reuters
Dec 6, 2006
As Christmas nears, Austrian children hoping
for gifts from Santa Claus will also be watching warily for"Krampus", his
horned and hairy sidekick.
In folklore, Krampus was a devil-like figure who drove away evil spirits
during the Christian holiday season.
Traditionally, he appeared alongside Santa around December 6, the feast of
St. Nicholas, and the two are still part of festivities in many parts of
central Europe.
But these traditions came under the spotlight in Austria
Source: Reuters
Dec 6, 2006
A box containing 23 light bulbs used at the 1890 court
case where Thomas Edison defended his patent for the invention is to be
auctioned later this month and is expected to fetch up to 300,000 pounds
($600,000).
Christie's auctioneers said the bulbs disappeared after the tussle over
U.S. patent number 223,898, but were discovered by chance in 2002 in the
attic of a house in the United States in their original wooden case
complete with the original key.
According to Web sites de
Source: Reuters
Dec 6, 2006
Fighting serious illnesses in their old age,
Cold War icons Fidel Castro of Cuba and Augusto Pinochet of Chile are
united in stubborn adherence to their opposing and now largely
unfashionable ideologies.
In Havana 80-year-old Castro, leader of Cuba for more than four decades,
handed power to his brother on July 31 after an operation and has not
reappeared in public. Despite official denials, many Cubans believe he is
terminally ill.
Pinochet, 91, military leader of Chile from 1
Source: NY Times
Dec 6, 2006
As in many of the other former concentration camps dotted across Europe, there is little left to indicate the horror that took place here. Green fields and avenues of trees have grown up where barracks and workshops used to stand; poplars sway gracefully next to the languid Sava River, which skirts the camp.But Jasenovac has a doubly haunted history. Not only were thousands of people savagely killed here, but for decades their deaths were exploited for political purposes.
Source: LA Times
Dec 6, 2006
In 1908, a former slave and retired Army chaplain named Lt. Col. Allen Allensworth realized his life's dream: a town started and run entirely by African Americans.
Long ago shuttered, the original Allensworth now is a state historic park, cherished by families and church groups who see it as a hardscrabble monument to California's black history.But they fear that despite the state's protection, the settlement named after the charismatic military man is in peril.
Source: http://www.stltoday.com/
Dec 5, 2006
Over the last 50 years, civil rights litigation has spurred dramatic changes in American life, affecting hiring, housing, voting, education, law enforcement and the justice system itself.
The litigation has produced countless reams of important documents, which are difficult and time-consuming to find and search through. To remedy the problem — and preserve a critical part of our nation's history — a team of professors and students at the Washington University School of Law has cre
Source: AP
Dec 5, 2006
WARSAW, Poland -- The International Auschwitz Council agreed Tuesday to modernize a 51-year-old exhibition at the site of the Nazi death camp and build walls to prevent the ruins of gas chambers from sinking into the ground.
The decision to renovate and preserve remains of the vast Nazi death camp in southern Poland marks a change in the long-standing approach to maintaining the site, which has been left as the Allies found it when they liberated the camp at the end of World War II
Source: AP
Dec 5, 2006
Iran, whose president has described the Holocaust as a "myth," said Tuesday they will hold a conference to discuss the evidence that the Nazis committed genocide against the Jews in World War II.
The two-day conference scheduled for next week was initiated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the systematic killing of some six million Jews, which has been extensively researched and documented, a "myth" and "exaggerated."
"
Source: AP
Dec 5, 2006
A family is suing the U.S. Mint, saying it illegally seized 10 gold coins that are among the rarest and most valuable in the world that the family found among a dead relative's possessions.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, accuses the Mint of violating the Constitution and breaking federal forfeiture laws by refusing to return the 1933 "double eagle" coins to the family after it handed the coins over to have their authenticity confirmed.
Source: NYT
Dec 5, 2006
A new explanation for the demise of the Neanderthals, the stockily built human species that occupied Europe until the arrival of modern humans 45,000 years ago, has been proposed by two anthropologists at the University of Arizona.
Unlike modern humans, who had developed a versatile division of labor between men and women, the entire Neanderthal population seems to have been engaged in a single main occupation, the hunting of large game, the scientists, Steven L. Kuhn and Mary C. St
Source: BBC
Dec 5, 2006
The man who later became Pope John XXIII tried in vain to challenge the Vatican's perceived indifference to the Nazi Holocaust, a new study has found.
Papers and diaries show then Archbishop Giuseppe Roncalli posted an urgent telegram in 1944 to Pope Pius XII on the atrocities at Auschwitz.
The telegram's date contradicts the Vatican's official version of when it received a report.
The new insight comes from the papers of a Jewish emissary, Haim Barlas.
Source: WaPo
Dec 5, 2006
MONTREAL -- "Oh, tabernacle!" The man swore in French as a car splashed through a puddle, sending water onto his pants. He could never be quoted in the papers here. It is too profane.
So are other angry oaths that sound innocuous in English: chalice, host, baptism. In French-speaking Quebec, swearing sounds like an inventory being taken at a church.
English-speaking Canadians use profanities that would be well understood in the United States, many of them scat
Source: BBC
Dec 5, 2006
A witness says his testimony was distorted by a French inquiry which accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame of killing his predecessor.
Former Rwandan soldier Emmanuel Ruzigana denies admitting to being part of a group that assassinated the president, reports a French newspaper.
Earlier, Mr Kagame accused France of "bullying" his country after a judge issued arrest warrants for his aides.
Rwanda has cut off diplomatic relations with France ov
Source: AP
Dec 5, 2006
The Pulitzer Prize board will consider changing its records to recognize a photographer who is now credited with taking a Pulitzer-winning picture of a 1979 Iranian execution, the administrator said Monday.
Sig Gissler said the board had the matter under review, following a Wall Street Journal story on Saturday that identified the photographer as Jahangir Razmi.
The "evidence in the story appears clear and convincing," Gissler said.
The photo
Source: Reuters
Dec 5, 2006
A Chinese company that had sought to build a highway
through the Great Wall paid a fine for damaging the structure Sunday, days
after new penalties were enacted to protect China's most famous tourist
attraction, state media reported.
Hongji Landbridge Investment Development Inc. paid 500,000 yuan ($63,800)
in penalties for deliberately damaging a section of the Great Wall in
Inner Mongolia as part of an unauthorized road project, the official
Xinhua news agency reported.
The co
