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 2, 2006
Public access to millions of Nazi war documents, kept in closed archives for 60 years, could help Holocaust survivors win larger claims for restitution, survivors groups say.
Plans to open the Red Cross-administered archives at Bad Arolsen, Germany, should persuade committees handling compensation for survivors "to halt the rush to judgment" in settling claims, said the Holocaust Survivors' Foundation-USA, a national coalition of American survivors' organizations.
Source: AP
Dec 2, 2006
After six decades of wrangling, Egyptians living in the hills near Luxor have agreed to move out and give tourists and archaeologists access to nearly 1,000 Pharaonic tombs that lie beneath their homes, the government said Saturday.
Officials said most of 3,200 families in the brightly painted, mud-brick houses have agreed to pack up and move to a $32 million residential complex being built three miles away. No deadline for moving has been set and there is no target date for finishi
Source: http://www.int.iol.co.za
Dec 2, 2006
Watermill, New York - Archaeologists surveying a property earmarked for a suburban housing development discovered an ancient American Indian skull.
The Suffolk County medical examiner's office determined on Thursday that the skull dated back 1 000 to 3 000 years.
The skull, unearthed on Wednesday, was given to the Shinnecock Indian Nation in nearby Southampton for reburial, the Town of Southampton police said.
Source: Times Online (UK)
Dec 2, 2006
Pythons were probably the first idols to be worshipped by man, archaeologists said after unearthing evidence of a ritual dating back 70,000 years.
A rock shaped like an enormous python’s head, discovered in a cave in the Tsodilo hills of Botswana, puts back the date of the first known human ritual by 30,000 years, they say.
Behind the rock, which was covered in man-made indentations, was a chamber that the archaeologists believed was used by a shaman who could have sp
Source: BBC
Dec 2, 2006
The 79-year-old Pope scored a considerable diplomatic success.
Popes usually go down in history more for what they do than for what they say.
The reign of the 16th-Century Pope Sixtus V is still remembered for his architectural transformations of the city of Rome.
Pope John XXIII is remembered for having called the Second Vatican Council. And Pope John Paul II is remembered as the most travelled Pope in history.
In Istanbul, we have, I beli
Source: AP
Dec 2, 2006
Japan will compensate former leprosy sufferers in South Korea who were forced into isolation during Tokyo's colonial rule, South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Friday.
The Japanese government will pay $69,000 each to 64 people forced to live in a sanatorium on a small island, bringing to 155 the number of South Korean beneficiaries of such compensation, the ministry said.
Japan's Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry confirmed the number, adding that 282 South Korean vict
Source: Independent (UK)
Dec 2, 2006
North-east India's equivalent of King Arthur has ridden to the rescue of thousands of people opposing a massive dam project that will flood their homes.
The Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, cancelled plans to lay the foundation stone for the dam this weekend in the face of massive protests by tribal groups who say it will inundate the sacred lake still believed to hold the region's answer to Excalibur.
Manipur, the state where the dam is supposed to be built, lie
Source: Salon
Dec 2, 2006
December 01,2006 | KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- World War I ended nearly 90 years
ago, only a few of its U.S. veterans are still alive, and about a decade
ago, its national monument was closed after years of neglect and
deterioration.
But this weekend, the"war to end all wars" takes center stage when the
National World War I Museum opens, giving the public a chance to learn
about -- and from -- the conflict that catapulted the United States toward
superpower status.
"Unfulfilled needs,
Source: Salon
Dec 2, 2006
A court Friday ordered the government to pay
millions of dollars in compensation to dozens of Japanese who, as
children, were stranded in China at the close of World War II.
The 65 plaintiffs claimed the government was responsible for their delayed
return to Japan and upon their return, had failed to provide adequate
support to help them reintegrate into Japanese society. They were each
seeking $285,000 in compensation.
The Kobe District Court ordered the state to pay between $5
Source: History Today (subscription only)
Dec 1, 2006
Google Earth (http://earth.google.com) is a fantastic free tool which allows you to explore the globe from your home computer. Download the software onto your computer and within seconds you can find yourself touring the planet at high altitude, zooming in and out of countries, towns and even streets; examining the terrain, adding your own overlay maps and constructing virtual ‘flyover’ tours of selected locations. This software has obvious applications in
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Dec 1, 2006
Britain’s Victoria and Albert Museum will make digital images of objects in its collections freely available to scholars beginning in early 2007, a move that The Art Newspaper said “could transform art publishing.” The move comes at a time when art-history scholars are facing a host of problems in getting their research published, including rising permissions costs.
The new policy will allow visitors to the Collections Online Web site to download high-resolution files free of charge
Source: Yahoo
Dec 1, 2006
A volcano avalanche in Sicily 8,000 years ago triggered a devastating tsunami taller than a 10-story building that spread across the entire Mediterranean Sea, slamming into the shores of three continents in only a few hours [image].
A new computer simulation of the ancient event reveals for the first time the enormity of the catastrophe and its far-reaching effects [video].
The Mt. Etna avalanche sent 6 cubic miles of rock and sediment tumbling into the water—enough ma
Source: Reuters
Dec 1, 2006
Raffaela La Pasta is not sure but thinks that the still half-buried skeleton she is unearthing in downtown Rome is female, and at least 1,600-years-old.
A leg-bone is sticking up through the dirt and the outline of the skull is just visible, even in this pit 8 meters (26 feet) below the surface of the city.
"She's not the only one. There are others we found too," La Pasta said, coolly.
This archaeological site, which has also yielded a trove of Ro
Source: Guardian
Dec 1, 2006
As lumps of rock go it looks much like any other, unexceptional despite the deep red of its cool, smooth surface. The pieces range in size from pea-sized lumps to larger fist-sized chunks. But today, scientists will announce this is no ordinary stone. Prised from a frozen lake in northern Canada, it has become a prime candidate for the oldest known object on Earth.
The chunk came from a meteorite that scored an arc of fire across the skies before slamming into Lake Tagish in Britis
Source: AP
Dec 1, 2006
Germany's national railway, Deutsche Bahn, said Friday it had reached an agreement with the Transport Ministry to open an exhibition documenting its predecessor's role in the Holocaust.
The decision follows a clash between Deutsche Bahn chief Hartmut Mehdorn and Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee over Mehdorn's refusal to host a French exhibit on the former Reichsbahn's role in deporting 11,000 Jewish children to concentration camps.
Mehdorn had argued that the foc
Source: AP
Dec 1, 2006
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- A court on Friday declared former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight others fugitives from justice in Argentina, where they are wanted in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center.
Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral said the nine must be considered fugitives for failing to respond to arrest warrants he issued earlier this month, when he said he had "serious" evidence of the suspects' involvement in the attack.
Source: Slate
Dec 1, 2006
The Department of Homeland Security released sample questions from a new
version of the naturalization test on Thursday. In the current system,
immigration officers quiz would-be citizens on a set of 10 civics
questions, chosen from a list of about 100. How often does the test change?
Every few decades. The list of questions used today dates back to the last
large-scale amnesty for illegal immigrants in 1986. Before then, the
process wasn't nearly as standardized as it is today. Each
Source: WaPo
Dec 1, 2006
The Army said yesterday that it will build a national museum at Fort Belvoir instead of on a nearby site that local officials warned would worsen the congestion expected with the military's planned relocation of thousands of employees to the area.
The reversal came under pressure from Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) and Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), who share local officials' concerns that Belvoir's expansion could create a traffic disaster.
"We've got transportatio
Source: Independent Institute
Dec 1, 2006
Archaeologists excavating near the edge of Trafalgar Square in London have found evidence of early Christianity in England, suggesting the area has a much older religious significance than was originally believed.
A team from the Museum of London has discovered a hoard of what is almost certainly royal treasure, buried in a mysterious, empty human grave laid out in the traditional Christian manner - east to west.
"Our excavations demonstrate the position as a sig
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 1, 2006
The battlefield of a long-forgotten, far-off imperial war that once gripped the imagination of the British public is to be opened up for the first time to tourism.
Much of the Malakand battlefield, in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, has been under tight military control since Sir Winston Churchill's eyewitness accounts of the campaign were published in The Daily Telegraph in 1897.
The government has now decided to grant access to historic sites such as Malakand
