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: Deutsche Welle
December 29, 2009
The resignation was not a surprise as Rasim Ljajic had vowed to step down if he failed to bring Serbia's most high profile war crimes suspect to justice this year.
"This is to inform you that for reasons well known to everybody ... I resign from my post" (as head of the unit), Ljajic said in the letter submitted to Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic.
But this does not mean Ljajic is giving up completely. He will remain head of the National Council for Coo
Source: Guardian (UK)
December 30, 2009
It sounds like the plot of a Steig Larsson thriller: a band of eastern European criminals is contracted to steal an iconic piece of Nazi memorabilia, which is then sold to a mysterious collector to finance a neofascist bomb attack on the Swedish parliament.
But today it emerged that Swedish investigators are helping Polish detectives investigate the theft of the sign from Auschwitz, amid reports that the robbery was linked to a rightwing terror plot.
The wrought iron pl
Source: NPR
December 30, 2009
President Obama signed an executive order on Tuesday that sets new rules for when government agencies can keep documents classified. The order is full of provisions that should make government transparency activists swoon. For example, within the next four years, the government will strive to declassify 400 million pages of historical documents.
Source: BBC
December 29, 2009
The city of Bath is playing a key role in a new website which features the south west's four unique UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The World Heritage South West website aims to make travel between them easier and more environmentally friendly.
The four sites are the City of Bath, the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, the Jurassic Coast and Stonehenge and Avebury.
A key feature of the website is an interactive sustainable transport map.
Source: BBC
December 30, 2009
A senior Irish civil servant who was involved in the talks leading to the 1985 Anglo Irish Agreement has died.
Dermot Nally, 82, who served under five taoiseachs, died suddenly in St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin.
As well as leading Irish officials in the Anglo Irish deal talks he was also involved in the negotiations preceding the 1993 Downing Street Declaration.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen said his death will be "noted with regret" by all those he wo
Source: BBC
December 30, 2009
Italian police have found a toy guitar sculpture created by Pablo Picasso for his daughter Paloma, which had been kept in a shoe box by a businessman.
Rome police tracked the sculpture down to the businessman's apartment in Pomezia, a town south of the capital.
The businessman, who was not named, was charged with fraud and is now on bail.
Picasso gave the piece to an Italian artist, Giuseppe Vittorio Parisi. He then lent it to the businessman, who was to
Source: BBC
December 30, 2009
Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has died aged 69, according to party officials.
Wahid, who was often referred to by his nickname Gus Dur, ruled the country between 1999 and 2001.
He was the first elected president after the fall of the 32-year Suharto regime in 1998.
Wahid had been suffering from a number of medical problems in recent years. He was a diabetic and was known to have had a series of strokes.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 30, 2009
After being neglected and forgotten for decades, the birthplace of George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm and 1984, is finally set for a makeover.
Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25 1903 in Motihari, a tiny town in the impoverished eastern Indian state of Bihar, near the border with Nepal.
For years, the family's simple white colonial bungalow has been left to decay; damaged in an earthquake it was an occasional home to stray animals and, more recently, a s
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 30, 2009
Poland will formally seek Sweden's help in investigating the theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Sets You Free") sign from the Auschwitz memorial, confirming that Polish authorities suspect a Swedish link in the crime.
Polish media have been reporting that the theft was commissioned by a collector living in Sweden, but investigators have not confirmed that.
Earlier this week allegations concerning who ordered the theft, and why, surfaced in Swed
Source: CNN
December 30, 2009
In blistering comments Wednesday, former Vice President Dick Cheney said President Obama's reaction to the botched terrorist attack on Christmas Day is proof that the president "is trying to pretend we are not at war."
In his first statement since the December 25 terror attempt on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan, Cheney hit Obama for what he described as the president's "low-key" response to the events last week and c
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 30, 2009
Plans to officially admit to the existence of MI6 were opposed by Lady Thatcher before she came to power.
In a July 1978 letter to Jim Callaghan, then prime minister, she said one should “never admit to anything unless you have to”.
Lady Thatcher was responding to plans to allow post-war documents mentioning the secret intelligence service to be published.
Before then, papers referring to the continued existence of MI6 or the Joint Intelligence Committee we
Source: BBC News
December 30, 2009
Newly-released documents have revealed the UK's "special relationship" with the US was under strain at the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles.
The National Archives files show the murder of Lord Mountbatten by the IRA in 1979 did not prompt the response from the US that the UK had hoped for.
While president Jimmy Carter expressed his "profound sadness" at the death, he made no reference to terrorism.
Downing St privately said his
Source: BBC News
December 30, 2009
A former British prisoner of war who helped a Jewish inmate survive Auschwitz is being considered for a major honour, the BBC has learned.
Denis Avey, 91, who lives in Derbyshire, helped save Ernst Lobethall, a German Jew from Breslau.
He is being considered for the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.
The story emerged following a recent BBC investigation.
Mr Avey said it would b
Source: Stuff (New Zealand)
December 28, 2009
Sven Hedin was one of Sweden's most famous scientists. Back in the early 1900s he explored Central Asia and Mongolia, and became an international cartographer, hydrographer, photographer and author of popular travel books such as A Conquest of Tibet and Across the Gobi Desert.
Among the 150-odd books he wrote were multi-volume atlases of Central Asia.
In 1905 Hedin was appointed one of 18 judges on the Nobel Prize Committee. He continued voting on nominees until 1949.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 29, 2009
Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab defended the 9/11 terror attacks on New York, saying they were justified by American military activity.
The 23-year-old suspect in the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253 is reported to have shocked friends with his hardline views as far back as 2001.
He is said to have justified the plane attacks by saying that US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia since the 1991 Gulf War had "humiliated" Muslims.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 29, 2009
The Chinese embassy referred to the controversial role Britain played in supplying opium to China following the execution of British citizen Akmal Shaikh, according to a leading historian.
The official statement from the Chinese embassy said the "strong resentment" felt by the Chinese public to drug traffickers was in part based on "the bitter memory of history".
Jonathan Fenby, the author of The Penguin History of Modern China, said it was a refer
Source: BBC
December 29, 2009
In 2009 the US not only inaugurated its first black president - it also honoured the president who paved Barack Obama's way to the country's highest post.
Events across the nation marked the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth, celebrating a man widely seen as the greatest US president - the secular saint who redeemed America's original sin of slavery.
Mr Obama has been compared to Lincoln - the lanky junior politician from Illinois who captured the presidency on t
Source: Medieval News
December 29, 2009
A new article is examining the theory that Greenland's medieval Norse settlements were ruined by the collapse of the trade in walrus tusks, after ivory from elephants became more easily accessible for artisans in Europe.
In her article, "Desirable teeth: the medieval trade in Arctic and African ivory," Kirsten Seaver criticizes that idea, and puts forward her own theory about why the Norse settlers mysteriously vanished from Greenland sometime during the 15th century.
Source: AP
December 25, 2009
Ruins that archeologists call one of the last links to the original ranches and cowboys that shaped Texas have been kept behind a gate, literally buried, for more than two decades - awaiting the funding that would allow people to see them.
The 18th-century Rancho de las Cabras complex, with its stone building remains, was a birthplace of the large commercial ranching operations that would help define the state. Preservationists have long hoped it could be fully excavated and opened
Source: AP
December 29, 2009
Poland will formally seek Sweden's help in investigating the theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign from the Auschwitz memorial, confirming that Polish authorities suspect a Swedish link in the crime.
Boguslawa Marcinkowska, a spokeswoman for Krakow prosecutors, says her office will send a formal request for help Wednesday to the Swedish Justice Ministry in Stockholm.
Polish media have been reporting that the theft was commissioned by a collector living in Swed
