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
September 8, 2009
An ancient monument in Guernsey could be fenced off because of repeated anti-social behaviour.
The Culture and Leisure Department has applied for planning permission to put up a fence around the Cists in Circle at Sandy Hook in St Sampson.
It said fly-tipping, littering, fires and moving the stones had all been problems at the site for years, and were the reason for the application.
The site, which was excavated in 1912, dates from about 2,500 to 1,800 BC.
Source: Yahoo News
September 10, 2009
LIMA (AFP) – A joint Japanese-Peruvian archeological mission has uncovered the remains of a pre-Incan woman sacrificed more than 2,000 years ago in the Andean nation, experts told local media Wednesday.
"The bones were discovered in a fetal position, with the legs bound by a cord that has been preserved despite the passage of the centuries," Japanese researcher Yuji Seki told the El Comercio daily.
The remains were uncovered at an archeological complex in nort
Source: About.com
September 11, 2009
In the mid-1850s, the United States was being torn apart over the issue of slavery. The abolitionist movement was becoming increasingly vocal, and enormous controversy focused on whether new states admitted to the Union would allow slavery.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 established the idea that residents of states could decide for themselves the issue of slavery, and that led to violent encounters in Kansas beginning in 1855.
While blood was being spilled in Kansas,
Source: The Art Newspaper
September 9, 2009
Irreversible damage to a number of important archaeological sites in Chile and Argentina has been caused by the Dakar Rally, an annual off-road automobile race held in South America for the first time in January, in spite of persistent warnings from archaeologists and environmentalists both before and during the event. The extent of the damage emerged from a report submitted to the Chilean government by the National Monuments Council in early July. Expanding on preliminary findings published af
Source: Press and Information Office (Republic of Cyrprus)
September 9, 2009
The Department of Antiquities announces the completion of the 2009 Prastion-Mesorotsos project that took place from 22 June to 30 July, and involved investigation of the stratified remains of Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Late Antique and Medieval archaeology. Excavations were carried out in eight areas across the circa 10 hectare site in the Pafos district. In total, over 100m2 were exposed and architecture and features from multiple periods were revealed.
Source: Physorg.com
September 10, 2009
A giant African lake basin is providing information about possible migration routes and hunting practices of early humans in the Middle and Late Stone Age periods, between 150,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Oxford University researchers have unearthed new evidence from the lake basin in Botswana that suggests that the region was once much drier and wetter than it is today.
They have documented thousands of stone tools on the lake bed, which sheds new light on how huma
Source: Eureka Alert (Harvard University)
September 10, 2009
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A team of archaeologists and paleobiologists has discovered flax fibers that are more than 34,000 years old, making them the oldest fibers known to have been used by humans. The fibers, discovered during systematic excavations in a cave in the Republic of Georgia, are described in this week's issue of Science.
The flax, which would have been collected from the wild and not farmed, could have been used to make linen and thread, the researchers say. The cloth and th
Source: Times Online
September 11, 2009
Cave art seems always to have been thought of, for no especially good reason, as the work of men. Perhaps it is because much of the art lies in deep, dark caverns, or because many of the paintings and engravings are of large food animals such as mammoth and bison, which men might be supposed to have hunted.
Cartoons have often suggested that women played a part, however, with the animals shown as a shopping list, or as home décor.
An American archaeologist has now propo
Source: The Press and Journal
September 12, 2009
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered the floor and timber beams of a 2,000-year-old roundhouse in the heart of a Moray farm, it emerged yesterday.
Experts believe the structure unearthed at Dykeside Farm, Birnie, was once the multistorey-power centre of an Iron Age settlement.
Last night, the archaeologist leading the excavation said it was the best-preserved roundhouse discovered on the site.
National Museums of Scotland curator Fraser Hunter said the “huge, impr
Source: The Daily Beast
September 12, 2009
Seven years after he terrorized a city and a nation already reeling from the 9/11 and anthrax attacks, D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad may die for his crimes. Virginia prosecutors are asking a state court to set an execution date of November 9. Muhammad, 48, embarked on a seemingly random spree of violence over a three-week span in October 2002 with his partner, Lee Boyd Malvo, using a high-powered rifle to shoot 13 people, 10 of whom died, in the Washington, D.C. area. Malvo, meanwhile, remains
Source: Time
September 11, 2009
Like any pair of good TV news hosts, Neth Pheaktra and Ung Chan Sophea deftly play off each other, finishing each other's thoughts and building on each other's ideas. But unlike the playful banter of most local news shows, neither host ever cracks a joke, or even smiles. Instead, the two veteran Cambodian journalists look directly into the camera and talk to viewers every Monday at 1 p.m. about torture, murder and the law.
Neth Pheaktra and Ung Chan Sophea's 24-minute weekly show s
Source: NYT (Digest)
September 12, 2009
NEW ORLEANS — The Orleans Parish district attorney said Friday that he was conducting an “evaluation” of the events surrounding patient deaths at Memorial Medical Center here in the days after Hurricane Katrina, though he said he had not formally reopened an investigation.
The evaluation was prompted by an Aug. 30 article in The New York Times Magazine, in a collaboration with ProPublica, an independent nonprofit investigative organization. The article raised questions about the dea
Source: The National Security Archive
September 11, 2009
1995 Contractor Study Finds that U.S. Analysts Exaggerated Soviet Aggressiveness and Understated Moscow's Fears of a U.S. First Strike
During a 1972 command post exercise, leaders of the Kremlin listened to a briefing on the results of a hypothetical war with the United States. A U.S. attack would kill 80 million Soviet citizens and destroy 85 percent of the country's industrial capacity. According to the recollections of a Soviet general who was present, General Secretary Le
Source: Yahoo News
September 10, 2009
It's a photo that many credit with helping to end the Vietnam War: A 9-year-old girl, naked and in obvious pain, runs through a street after suffering napalm burns over much of her body.
What the iconic photo -- snapped in 1972 by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut -- doesn't show is the girl's struggle to survive and thrive in the aftermath of that day.
Now 46 years old, Kim Phuc Phan Thai (Kim Phuc to most) spoke recently at a conference of burn survivors and burn
Source: Google News
September 9, 2009
NEW YORK — A day before the eighth anniversary of 9/11, officials are launching a Web site asking people worldwide to contribute new images of the terrorist attack.
The photographs, audio and video will appear online as part of the project, called "Make History."
One submitted video is from the evening of Sept. 11, showing the chaotic streets around the trade center. Another clip — of a plane piercing one of the towers — was shot from a Brooklyn street, throug
Source: NYT
September 10, 2009
The nation’s top copyright official made a blistering attack Thursday on a controversial legal settlement that would let Google create a huge online library and bookstore.
Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Marybeth Peters, the United States register of copyrights, said the settlement between Google and groups representing authors and publishers amounted to an end-run around copyright law that would wrest control of books from authors and other right holders.
Source: Times (UK)
September 12, 2009
Special forces have been training Libyan soldiers under a Government deal with Colonel Gaddafi, despite his regime having funded many of the IRA’s worst attacks.
SAS soldiers said there was a “weary rolling of the eyes” when they learnt that they would be passing on some of their skills to members of the Libyan infantry.
In the 1980s and 1990s Libya supplied the IRA with Semtex used in at least ten attacks, including the bombings of Harrods in 1983 and Warrington and
Source: BBC
September 11, 2009
Gordon Brown has said he is sorry for the "appalling" way World War II code-breaker Alan Turing was treated for being gay.
A petition on the No 10 website had called for a posthumous government apology to the computer pioneer.
In 1952 Turing was prosecuted for gross indecency after admitting a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself.
The campaign was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming.
Source: The Times (UK)
September 11, 2009
Former Chancellor’s memoirs offer an unsparing account of a Prime Minister revealing her prejudices about an old enemy.
“But can we trust them?” Margaret Thatcher’s doubts about a new, merged Germany surfaced again and again during the months that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The dramatic event, followed by a ten-point unification plan put forward by Helmut Kohl, the West German Chancellor, challenged her political instincts and stirred the buried prejudices ab
Source: Sacramento Business Journal
September 10, 2009
The California State Legislature on Thursday unanimously approved legislation to officially recognize the accomplishments of Filipino Americans. Senate Concurrent Resolution 48, authored by Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), declares October as Filipino American History Month.
The earliest documented proof of Filipino presence in the continental United States was the date of Oct. 18, 1587, when the first “Luzones Indios” set foot in Morro Bay...
