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: Politico
October 27, 2009
As a Marine lieutenant in Iraq in 2004, Duncan Hunter was poised for an assault on Fallujah when the order came down from Washington to pull out instead. It was the kind of top-down military decision — which in this case had to be reversed when security in Fallujah later deteriorated — that Hunter hopes will not be repeated in Afghanistan.
Now, five years later and a freshman congressman from California, Hunter is in a much better position to have his voice heard. As an Iraq war vet
Source: CNN
October 27, 2009
Former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavsic was released from prison in Sweden Tuesday, after serving two thirds of an 11-year sentence for crimes against humanity.
Plavsic, 79, who was once dubbed the "Iron Lady" of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, left the country after her release, Sweden's prison service said.
Plavsic's early release last week prompted angry protests in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which spent nearly four years besieged by Bosnian
Source: AP
October 27, 2009
An ultraconservative British bishop was fined $16,822 in Germany for denying the Holocaust in an interview with Swedish television, his lawyer said Tuesday.
A court in the Bavarian city of Regensburg issued the fine against Richard Williamson for incitement in connection with his Holocaust denial, Williamson's lawyer Matthias Lossmann said.
An order of punishment is a German legal tool that involves no trial but is equivalent to a conviction if accepted by the defendant
Source: Yahoo News
October 27, 2009
MOSCOW – A Moscow subway station is the newest focus of Russia's bitter dispute over the legacy of Josef Stalin, whose outsize shadow still haunts the nation more than 50 years after his death.
Critics of the Communist era were outraged when old Soviet national anthem lyrics praising Stalin were restored to a rotunda in the Kurskaya station this summer. Now there is talk of putting a statue of the dictator back where one used to stand, facing commuters entering the station.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 27, 2009
Official figures show that in 131 state schools, not a single pupil sat GCSE history last year.
That is 4.1 percent of all 3,159 maintained mainstream secondary schools whose results are published by the Department of Children, Schools and Families.
Separate figure suggest that the move away from history has been greatest among poorer children.
Around 75,000 children in each year group are eligible for free school meals. Another parliamentary answer reveal
Source: En Perú Blog
October 19, 2009
After three years of work in the town of Pacopampa, a team of archaeologists led by Yuji Seki have found the outlines of an ancient temple that would have formed part of a larger complex located 20 minutes from the modern town of the same name. But far more impressive is what they’ve found buried inside the temple. The team discovered the tomb of a woman, whose social position quickly became evident.
On the highest terrace of the San Pedro mountain in what is today Chota in Cajamarc
Source: Deutsche Welle
October 19, 2009
Scientists in the state of Saxony-Anhalt made the remarkable find at an ICE railroad construction site. Researchers believe that some of the skeletons could date as far back as the Bronze Age.
The graves are located just outside the city of Oechlitz, on the railroad track connecting the major eastern city of Leipzig with its neighbor to the southwest, Erfurt.
They were first discovered after construction had begun on an ICE express train line. Scientists have ascertaine
Source: Science Daily
October 22, 2009
A new study coauthored by Ian Kuijt, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, describes recent excavations in Jordan that reveal evidence of the world's oldest know granaries. The appearance of the granaries represents a critical evolutionary shift in the relationship between people and plant foods.
Anthropologists consider food storage to be a vital component in the economic and social package that comprises the Neolithic period, contributing to plant do
Source: National Geographic News
October 23, 2009
A comet impact didn't set off a 1,300-year cold snap that wiped out most life in North America about 12,900 years ago, scientists say.
Though no one disputes the occurrence of the frigid period, known as the Younger Dryas, more and more researchers have been unable to confirm a 2007 finding that says a collision triggered the change.
The earlier study says the drop in temperature, plus fires from the purported impact, wiped out sabertooths, mastodons, and other giant an
Source: China View
October 24, 2009
PYONGYANG--The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has unearthed more than 14,000 historical relics and remains dated back to the Old Stone Age, the official KCNA news agency said Saturday.
Two layers of culture were found in the natural limestone Chongphadae Cavern, Huangju County, North Hwanghae Province.
More than 30 pieces of stone tools, including a cutter, a hand-taking axe, a thrusting tool, and a scraper from the middle of the Old Stone Age
Source: Trinidad News
October 25, 2009
AN archaeological team has found more evidence on a site at St John's Road, South Oropouche, that people lived there 7,000 years ago.
The site is as old as that of the famed Banwari Man, whose remains were found in San Francique, Penal, 40 years ago.
The two sites are about five kilometres apart.
It means that the site, among the oldest in the Caribbean, may see a rewriting of secondary school history.
Proof of the antiquity of the St John's Ro
Source: Time
October 27, 2009
For Omar Bin Laden, the fourth eldest of Osama bin Laden's 20 known children, the awful realization that his own father was a terrorist mastermind plotting a global conspiracy that would destroy the lives of thousands of innocent people and even his own family came gradually. Of course, there were warning signs: Omar's childhood was marked by regular beatings and survivalist training; there was the growing army of ruffians and retainers who called his father "Prince"; and then there wa
Source: NYT
October 26, 2009
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — Forced to confront the rising insurgency in once peaceful northern Afghanistan, the German Army is engaged in sustained and bloody ground combat for the first time since World War II.
Soldiers near the northern city of Kunduz have had to strike back against an increasingly fierce campaign by Taliban insurgents, while carrying the burden of being among the first units to break the German taboo against military combat abroad that arose after the Nazi era.
Source: BBC
October 27, 2009
Twenty four years after the military left power in Brazil, the government is to create a Truth Commission to investigate crimes committed by the security forces between 1964 and 1985.
Brazil is the only country in Latin America which has not investigated deaths, disappearances and torture which took place during its dictatorship, or put alleged perpetrators on trial.
Although the number of victims is far smaller than those who died during military rule in neighbouring
Source: Lee P. Ruddin
October 27, 2009
One of Britain’s most respected political figures talked about the Grand Old Man of British politics on Tuesday evening.
Speaking before a sell-out St George’s Hall, the Independent Crossbench Peer, David Alton, provided an hour-long “tour de force” on the “son of Liverpool, Scourge of Tyrants.”
Guest of honour at the 87th Roscoe Lecture was Sir William Gladstone (great, great grandson), the present head of the family, who lives in his namesakes former home, Hawarden Ca
Source: BBC
October 27, 2009
A 13th Century Pembrokeshire castle has been completely wrapped in plastic as it undergoes a total refurbishment.
Roch Castle near Haverfordwest, once damaged in a Civil War siege, is being turned into a corporate retreat.
Contractors have wrapped the 100ft (30m) tall building in sheeting to protect the stonework as most of the internal floors and roof are replaced.
The castle has been bought by a company which will develop a six-bedroom facility, includi
Source: BBC
October 27, 2009
An autobiography claiming to be the memoirs of Jack the Ripper has been unearthed at a Somerset museum.
Experts said the book, written by a James Carnac, is almost certainly a fake but is in places "very accurate" and the earliest work of its kind.
It was discovered amongst the effects of a children's entertainer, handed to Montacute TV Radio and Toy Museum. The book, thought to have been written in the 1920s, is typewritten a
Source: BBC
October 27, 2009
When it comes to majestic grandeur, few monarchies in the world matched the opulence of India's royal courts in their heyday.
The Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum in London has brought some of that splendour to life in a new exhibition featuring more than 250 rarely seen objects, including thrones, gem-encrusted weapons and even a life-sized and bejewelled maharaja's model elephant.
Organisers say that Maharaja: The Splendour of India's Royal Courts is the first di
Source: BBC
October 27, 2009
The 1989 revolution has its unforgettable images, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, and its famous figures - Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and Mikhail Gorbachev.
But the man who made a crucial first breach in the Iron Curtain which divided Cold War Europe has received far less attention in the West.
He is Miklos Nemeth, an economist who became Hungarian prime minister in November 1988 and proceeded to tear up the rule book for leaders of communist bloc countries.
Source: AP
October 27, 2009
Heinrich Boere has admitted to gunning down three men as part of a Waffen SS death squad — civilians killed in retribution for partisan attacks in Holland as the tide of World War II turned against the Nazis.
But for more than six decades after the war, he managed to avoid punishment — first escaping from a prisoner of war camp in the Netherlands, then successfully eluding the courts in Germany.
On Wednesday, the 88-year-old goes on trial at the state court in Aachen, c
