The Internet Archive organization plans next week to announce the opening of a new data center to house two petabytes of information for its Wayback Machine, the digital time capsule that stores archived versions of Web pages dating back to 1996.

For example, this is what Computerworld's Web site looked like in 1997, what Google looked like in 1998 and what CNN looked like in 2000.

The Wayback Machine houses 85 billion Web pages archived for more than a dozen years, which amounts to three petabytes of data, or about 150 times the content of the Library of Congress. Only five years ago, the Wayback Machine contained about 30 billion Web pages. It is expected to continue to grow by 100TB of data per month now that it's live.

SKOPJE, MACEDONIA - As part of a stunning new homegrown ideology of history and identity based on Alexander the Great, this capital city's main square may soon boast a huge new statue of the ancient conqueror.

Two years ago, the national airport was renamed after Alexander, infuriating Greece.

In January, despite a recent Greek nixing of Macedonia's NATO bid over the airport name, the ruling nationalists here changed the name of its main roadway to Alexander of Macedon Highway.

In Macedonia, it is becoming all Alexander the Great, all the time. Ahead of Sunday's presidential elections, the ruling party's Alexander ideology is seen as fantastic, even by Balkan standards.

Eyes bleared from gunsmoke and salt spray, the face of the man who may have sunk the Mary Rose has been revealed, more than 400 years after he went to the bottom of the Solent in the wreck of Henry VIII's flagship.

The head has been modelled by the internationally renowned forensic artist Richard Neave from a skull recovered from the wreck. Only a handful of the more than 400 crew and soldiers survived when the ship sank so fast and so close to shore that helpless watchers on the cliffs heard the screams of the drowning men. For the first time, the face of one of the victims can be seen.

The remains of more than 170 individuals have been recovered, but few can be identified as specific members of the crew. This man was found with the emblem of his comparatively senior status, his bosun's call - a whistle - proving he was the man who may have been at least partly responsible for the disaster. The public will see him next month, in an exhibition at the Whitgift centre in Croydon, the first time objects from the wreck, normally stored at the Mary Rose museum in Portsmouth, have been displayed.

American flags were set on fire Friday to chants of "no, no for occupation" as followers of an anti-U.S. Shiite cleric marked the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war.

In Baghdad and five other Iraqi cities, supporters of Moktada al-Sadr either marched or stood in protest after prayers to demand the release of their allies detained at Iraqi and U.S.-run prisons.

The protests came as a suicide bomber in Fallujah killed an Iraqi police officer and five other people, including civilians, in an attempted attack on the home of the local leader of Sunni security volunteers who turned against Al Qaeda.

Also, a pair of roadside bombs exploded within 10 minutes of one another after sundown Friday, wounding four policemen and three civilians in Baghdad's Karradah district, police said. A police colonel and his aide were wounded in a bombing Friday in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, police said.

In the capital, an aide to Sadr, Sheik Haidar al-Jabiri urged supporters to join an April 9 march to protest the six-year anniversary of Americans taking over the city.

They are the nameless heroes buried in anonymous graves after the carnage of the Great War.

For nine decades their last resting place has been marked simply with the words 'Unknown Soldier' or 'Known Only Unto God'.

But thousands may soon be identified after the discovery of a vast forgotten archive.

For British families who know they have a relative who died in the 'war to end all wars', but have never been able to pinpoint their remains, the discovery could at last provide some comfort.
British historian Peter Barton unearthed the archive, virtually untouched since 1918, in the basement of the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva. The organisation knew it had a vast amount of information there, but Mr Barton is the first to study it in detail. It documents information about the death, burial or capture of more than 20million soldiers from 30 countries who took part in the Great War.

Carefully entered on card indexes or written into ledgers, the details include name, rank, unit, time of death, exact burial location, home addresses and next of kin.

The information has the potential to pinpoint unmarked graves along the Western Front and other battlefields, and could mean headstones which currently mark the grave of an unknown soldier will finally bear a name.

They give detailed directions about where they were dug - many have since been overgrown or built on - and include details which could lead to the identification of soldiers buried in them. 'The emergence of this archive is hugely important,' said Mr Barton. 'It will change the way we look at World War One.

As we delve into the back-story behind the collapse of AIG, we thought it might be useful to lay out some key factual information about the firm's Financial Products unit, known as AIGFP, whose disastrous credit default swaps brought the company to its knees. How and when did AIG Financial Products get started? Who ran it, and from where? How did it get into credit default swaps, and what exactly are they, anyway? And how did this group of derivatives traders eventually wind up bringing down one of the most admired financial firms in the world?

So here's a rundown of some of the key developments in AIGFP's tumultuous history -- many gleaned from a superb three-part December 2008 Washington Post series on the unit (parts 1, 2, and 3):

From a Humble Start, A Swift Rise

- AIGFP was founded on January 27, 1987, when three Drexel Burnham Lambert traders, led by finance scholar Howard Sosin, convinced AIG CEO Hank Greenberg to branch out from his core insurance business by creating a division focused on complex derivatives trades that took advantage of AIG's AAA credit rating.

- In addition to his two partners, Randy Rackson and Barry Goldman, Sosin brought 10 other staffers from DBL with him -- including future AIGFP CEO Joseph Cassano. The team of 13 set to work in a windowless makeshift room, at first without full-size desks and chairs, in an accounting office on Third Avenue. AIGFP's first significant deal, made in July 1987, was a $1 billion interest-rate swap with the Italian government.

- In its first 6 month of existence, the unit earned more than $60 million. Under the agreement that Greenberg and Sosin had signed, 38 percent of that went immediately to AIGFP, with the remaining 62 percent going to AIG proper. Crucially, the agreement also called for AIGFP received its profits up front, even though its deals generally took years to play out. AIG itself, not AIGFP, would be on the hook down the road if things went wrong. This arrangement would be modified, but only partially, after Sosin left in 1993. - AIGFP soon moved to a swanky Madison Avenue office. A few years later, it would relocate again to Wilton, Conn, which remains the unit's headquarters today.

- By 1990, AIGFP had expanded, opening offices in London, Paris and Tokyo.

- In 1993, Sosin left AIGFP, in part thanks to a strained relationship with Greenberg. (He got a reported $150 million payout). Tom Savage -- a Midwestern math whiz who had joined AIGFP in 1988, after beginning his career at First Boston writing computer models for collateralized mortgage obligations, the very instruments that would later help cause the current crisis -- soon took over as CEO.

- By that year, AIGFP employed 125 people, and was consistently raking in more than $100 million each year.

- By 1998, the unit had a revenue of $500 million. But it still had never made a single credit default swap.

The Seed Of Ruin Is Planted

- That year, JP Morgan approached AIG, proposing that, for a fee, AIG insure JP Morgan's complex corporate debt, in case of default. According to computer models devised by Gary Gorton, a Yale Business Professor and consultant to the unit, there was a 99.85 percent chance that AIGFP would never have to pay out on these deals. Essentially, this would happen only if the economy went into a full-blown depression, in which case, the AIGers believed, the counter-parties would be wiped out, and therefore would hardly be in a position to demand payment anyway. With the backing of Cassano, then the COO, Savage greenlighted the deals. Credit default swaps were born....

Could this be Obama’s “Reagan” moment? Already comparisons are being drawn to that President’s exhortation to President Gorbachev to “tear down that wall” as he stood before the Brandenberg Gate.

President Obama’s plea is more abstract and more nuanced; less of a call to revolution than food to fuel the growing doubts of the Iranian people about their proud isolation.

Contrast his words with President Bush’s bluster about an “axis of evil”. That phrase did nothing to help Mohammed Khatami, then Iranian President, to sell his moderate agenda and hesitant attempts for rapprochement with the West.

Nor did it blunt Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which have taken on new momentum since the election of the firebrand demagogue, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reaching breakout point this year with the accumulation of enough low-enriched uranium to develop into a bomb.

This is the reality that Mr Obama faces: the prospect of a nuclear Iran. Even on a purely tactical level, the military option offers no guarantees of success. Of the different scenarios being game-tested in Washington, only the second least palatable is containment of a nuclear-armed Iran. Mr Obama’s advisers have told him, with some authority, that there is no other option than a diplomatic one.

Consider this as the second move in a game of chess – an ancient Persian pastime. Or, to Persian speakers, ta’araf, the elegant conversational process of engaging and an interlocutor, absorbing their language in a lengthy process of polite deference before getting down to business.

In his inauguration speech Mr Obama offered to extend a hand of friendship to those who first unclenched their fist. Mr Ahmadinejad responded with surprising positivity – salted by a healthy dose of Persian chauvinism – agreeing to talks but only in “an atmosphere of mutual respect”.

Then today, after acknowledgements of Iran’s cultural heritage and warm wishes on its national holiday, Mr Obama echoes Mr Ahmadinejad’s own phrase back to him, telling him America seeks “engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect”.

Mr Ahmadinejad asked for mutual respect. Mr Obama has offered it. The ball is in his court. It would be hard to explain to Iranians why he should now balk. Presidential elections are coming in June and Mr Ahmadinejad faces a tough challenge from a newly united Opposition. In 2005 the reformists and moderates ran against each other, splitting the anti-Ahmadinejad vote. In 2009 the drive to remove Mr Ahmadinejad is strong enough to have made them join forces.

An 85-year-old World War II veteran, who dropped out of high school decades ago to enlist in the Naval Reserve, was awarded an honorary diploma in a surprise ceremony, the Star Tribune reported.

Richard Thill finally got his diploma from Humboldt Senior High School in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday, 69 years after leaving school without graduating.

On Wednesday, Thill had been invited to the school ostensibly to speak about his experience in the war. Instead, the school revealed its true intention — to present him with the diploma, dated June 8, 1942, the Star Tribune reported.

Thill deployed to Hawaii in January 1941. He was stationed on the destroyer USS Ward and was part of the crew that fired the country's first shots in the war, sinking a Japanese submarine as it tried to enter Pearl Harbor in the early morning on Dec. 7, 1941, the Star Tribune reported.

In his latest mug shot, Charles Manson's wild-eyed stare is gone, as is most of his hair. Except for the swastika he carved into his brow during his murder trial, he could be any gray-bearded senior citizen.

If the photo authorities released early this week is any indication, the leader of a murderous band called "The Family," has mellowed some after almost 40 years in a California state prison.

He has had a lot of alone time.

Manson receives a lot of mail, and many requests from people who want to visit him, Johnson said. He still occasionally sees a few people.

"Over the years, he's taken some people off the visitor list and put them back on, " Johnson said. "He has the same rights as any other prisoner."

Manson has been disciplined in the past, losing privileges, but he's now in good standing and good health, Johnson added.

All members of the "Manson family" have been up for parole multiple times over the past four decades, but it has never been granted.

Manson's next parole hearing is in 2010. He did not show up for the last one in 2007.

“Roman engineers built an aqueduct through more than 100 kilometers of stone to connect water to cities in the ancient province of Syria [modern Jordan]. The monumental effort took more than a century, says the German researcher who discovered it.”

So reported Spiegel Online last week.

“When the Romans weren’t busy conquering their enemies, they loved to waste massive quantities of water, which gurgled and bubbled throughout their cities. The engineers of the empire invented standardized lead pipes, aqueducts as high as fortresses, and water mains with 15 bars (217 pounds per square inch) of pressure."

The two Koreas differ in more than just political ideology. Since the Korean Peninsula was divided more than 60 years ago, the way North and South Koreans speak has gone separate ways. And, for thousands of North Korean refugees, the language divide is one of their biggest challenges to adjusting to life in South Korea.

When you listen to South Korean and North Korean newscast you might not hear much of a difference, but for many of the 15,000 North Koreans who have defected to South Korea, the difference is loud and clear.

For them, language is one of the hardest parts of adjusting to life in their new home.

That is according to Ko Gyoung Bin, director of Hanawon, a South Korean government-run facility that gives newly arrived defectors a crash-course on living in the capitalist world.

Ko says Hanawon tries to teach them the new terminology through textbooks. He says the organization also uses movies to teach how to speak.

He says Hanawon even hires defectors who have lived in South Korea for a while.

The North Korean language is a relic. It has not changed that much since the 1940's, whereas South Korean has added a wealth of new vocabulary.

Chae Su Jeong, who defected in 2001, says she found that out the hard way.

Chae says she did not realize how different North and South Korean languages were until she started working for a recycling company. For example, she says, North Korea has only one word to describe all types of paper, but, in the South, there are many.

Political manipulation might be a reason for the North-South language divide.

As in many aspects of life in North Korea, language has been altered to serve the nation's rulers.

So says Kim Seok Hyang, who lectures at the Ewha Institute for Unification Studies in Seoul and who has written a book on how North Koreans use their language, gives an example of one word that has had its meaning changed since the Koreas were divided.

"Sun-mul, in Korean language, sun-mul, which means present to your friend," says Kim. "But now, North Korean way of speaking this sun-mul, sun-mul is the reserved word by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong il. So, only Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong il are the only two who can give sun-mul to another person."

Kim adds, unlike in South Korea, where many English words are intermixed with Korean, the Pyongyang government has prevented foreign words from entering the vernacular....

Forrest Park has quietly been added to the National Register of Historic Places, and efforts to rename the park or disinter the bodies buried there have, for now, been laid to rest.

The park at Union and Manassas where Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife are buried received the honorary designation this month from the National Park Service.

The park has long been a point of racial controversy in Memphis, with local officials and other groups periodically rallying to rename the park and remove the statue of Forrest, a revered cavalry leader in the Civil War who also was a slave trader and a leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

Former President George W. Bush has already written about 30,000 words of a memoir tentatively called “Decision Points” that will cover everything from how he found faith to how he quit drinking to how he chose Karl Rove and Dick Cheney for their jobs.

A contract with Crown, an imprint of Random House, is to be announced Thursday. The same publisher issued both of President Obama’s books.

The first chapter will be about the former president’s early life leading up to his decision to run for president, and the final chapter will be about the financial crisis.

Aides say Bush is taking a disciplined approach, working two to three hours each morning, writing 1,000 to 1,500 words a day. He has been typing on computers at his ranch in Crawford, his home in Dallas and his office in Dallas, and on a laptop he carries on planes and the ride between the ranch and the city. On a trip this week to Calgary, Canada, for his first public speech since leaving office, he edited printouts.

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