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: BBC
February 4, 2010
The last speaker of an ancient language in India's Andaman Islands has died at the age of about 85, a leading linguist has told the BBC.
Professor Anvita Abbi said that the death of Boa Sr was highly significant because one of the world's oldest languages - Bo - had come to an end.
She said that India had lost an irreplaceable part of its heritage.
Languages in the Andamans are thought to originate from Africa. Some may be 70,000 years old.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 4, 2010
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, for years the world's most wanted terrorist, is suing a Parisian production company over a three-part television drama he claims could violate his "biographical image".
With the help of his wife, a French lawyer whom he married in prison, Sánchez has demanded that the producers hand over the master copy of the footage for her to check for errors and potentially make changes before it is broadcast on the French Canal+ channel, the Guardian reports.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 4, 2010
A Russian survivor of the Nazi death camp Sobibor has said that a man on trial for working at the death camp, John Demjanjuk, was definitely one of the guards.
John Demjanjuk is accused of being a guard at Sobibor camp in occupied Poland and aiding the murder of 27,900 Dutch Jews who were gassed during his alleged time there.
Mr Vaitsen, a Jewish veteran paratrooper who is seriously ill after several heart attacks, was shown a photograph of John Demjanjuk by a reporte
Source: AP
February 4, 2010
Prosecutors have asked a court to officially close the case of a man accused of fatally shooting a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Museum.
James Wenneker Von Brunn, a white supremacist, died in January; a court filing Wednesday asks that the federal case against him be closed.
The filing says that a medical examiner provided Von Brunn's certificate of death and that he died naturally but as a result of a variety of medical conditions.
Source: FOX News
February 3, 2010
He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877....
Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S.
Source: BBC News
February 4, 2010
Russian PM Vladimir Putin has invited his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, to a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre.
It is the first Russian ceremony to mark the murdering by Soviet secret police of more than 20,000 Polish prisoners of war in April 1940.
The invitation is being hailed in Poland as a breakthrough that could lead to improved bilateral ties.
Mr Putin said he understood the significance of the massacre to Poles.
H
Source: Voice of America
February 4, 2010
February is Black History Month in the United States and Canada, a national observance that pays tribute to people and events that shaped the history of African-Americans and Canadians. It's also a time to educate people about the accomplishments of black people and their contributions to society. Last November, two African American astronauts soared into space while reaching new heights in the U.S. Space program.
Six astronauts rocketed toward orbit and the international space stat
Source: Missoulian
February 2, 2010
After nearly 40 years serving as silent sentinel at the Montana National Guard Armory on Reserve Street in Missoula, the World War II vintage M7 howitzer is finally able to stand down.
But moving the 26-ton artillery piece to its new home at Fort Missoula was no easy task.
Scott Wolff, owner of Iron Horse Towing and Repair in Missoula, tried to move the tank with a 50-ton tow truck, but couldn't muster the needed traction to budge the monster. Plan B was to bring in ano
Source: BBC News
February 4, 2010
At least $4.6m (£2.9m) in Swiss bank accounts must be returned to the family of Haiti's former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, a Swiss court has ruled.
A lower court had previously awarded charities the money - but that decision was overturned on 12 January and the ruling released on 3 February.
However, the Swiss government has blocked the release of the money until a law is passed to return it to Haiti.
The exile, known as Baby Doc, allegedly looted millio
Source: BBC News
February 4, 2010
It soon becomes clear that the giant salamander has hit Claude Gascon's enthusiasm button smack on the nose.
"This is a dinosaur, this is amazing," he enthuses.
"We're talking about salamanders that usually fit in the palm of your hand. This one will chop your hand off."
As a leader of Conservation International's (CI) scientific programmes, and co-chair of the Amphibian Specialist Group with the International Union for the Conservation
Source: NYT
February 3, 2010
Some four decades after the Cultural Revolution, when many of the country’s centuries-old treasures were defaced or destroyed as a result of Mao’s command to eradicate “the four olds” — old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits — China has reversed its attitude toward antiques. Ming dynasty porcelain vases, 19th-century hardwood furniture and even early 20th-century calligraphy ink pots have become popular status symbols for an emerging middle class eager to display its new wealth and c
Source: Irish Central
January 28, 2010
Newly released historical photographs reveal that famous Irish musician Sean Dempsey played for Adolf Hitler in 1936, and the Nazi dictator loved his music.
Dempsey, an uileann piper, was invited to play for Hitler and propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels during a visit to Berlin in 1936 after being told that Hitler was an Irish folk music fan....
The bizarre scene was revealed for the first time in a new exhibition of Irish photographs from that era called 'Ceol na Cathra.
Source: The Washington Post
March 2, 2010
When CIA employees are slain in action, as happened in Afghanistan in December, when a suicide bomber killed seven officers and contractors, relatives who live in the dark about their loved one's work often fall into confusion and a passion to know more. Now, as the agency's earliest generation of Cold Warriors fades away from old age or disease, grown children who might have known only that their parents were in the CIA are stumbling upon letters and other records that fill holes in their famil
Source: Indepedent (UK)
March 2, 2010
Egypt’s Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, and Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), along with the governor of Luxor, Samir Farag, will embark today on an inspection tour along the Avenue of Sphinxes that connects the Luxor and Karnak temples.
Built by the 30th Dynasty king Nectanebo I (380-362 BC), the avenue is 2,700 meters long and 76 meters wide, and lined with a number of statues in the shape of sphinxes. Queen Hatshepsut recorded on her
Source: BBC
February 3, 2010
Two aviation archaeologists are to come to Northern Ireland to search for a lost WWII Spitfire.
Gareth Jones and Steve Vizard have been keen to unravel the mystery of the missing aircraft.
They believe it's buried underground on the site of City of Derry Airport, the former RAF Eglinton air base.
In 1941 the air base was established to defend Londonderry from German attack.
Source: BBC
February 3, 2010
New documents detailing Edward Wilson's doomed march to the South Pole with Scott of the Antarctic have gone on show in his home town of Cheltenham.
Ninety-eight years ago, three men lay dying inside a lonely tent battered by howling winds on the frozen wastes of Antarctica.
Robert Falcon Scott, "Birdie" Bowers and Dr Edward Wilson were the last remaining members of the five-man party that lost the race to the South Pole. They arrived five weeks after their r
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 2, 2010
Ten Ugandans are suing the British government for £300 billion in damages for crimes committed by colonial officers in the late 1800s.
The group are seeking damages for crimes committed during the 1893-1899 war in the northwestern Bunyoro region.
Their lawyer Crispus Ayena Odongo said: "Before this war the population of Bunyoro was stated to be 2.5 million. But by the end of the war there were only 150,000 Bunyoro that could be accounted for.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 3, 2010
Europe's oldest man, Stanley Lucas, has celebrated his 110th birthday in his home town in Cornwall and attributed his long life to fresh air and good country food.
Mr Lucas, who is also believed to be the world’s third oldest man, said he had never smoked, enjoys only the odd glass of sherry, and had never travelled far.
He has received seven cards from the Queen, the first when he was aged 100, and one every year from 105 to 110.
Mr Lucas, who was born o
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 3, 2010
Sudan's president faces being charged with genocide over the seven-year conflict in Darfur after a war crimes court ruling.
An appeals chamber ordered that evidence which could support a genocide indictment must be looked at again after it was discarded during earlier hearings.
The International Criminal Court charged Mr Bashir with seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes in March last year.
But prosecutors' requests that three counts of g
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 3, 2010
The director of the National Portrait Gallery seemed preoccupied with the cleanliness of his parquet flooring after a gruesome murder-suicide there in 1909, according to archive papers being put online.
Returning from lunch, James Milner was told that an elderly man had "shot himself and a woman in the East Wing," he wrote in a typed report dated 26 February 1909.
The tale is from the gallery's archive, dating back to its founding in 1856, which have until n
