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: National Geographic
July 14, 2009
Many of the 33 mummies uncovered near Chiclayo, Peru, were those of girls—a rarity, experts say. Their throats slit, the girls were probably killed in a bid for agricultural fertility.
Research into 33 mummies discovered in Peru has revealed most of the bodies were girls, most likely sacrificed in the belief their deaths would bring fertility to the peoples farmlands.
Source: KOB.com
July 14, 2009
New Mexico officials held a ceremonial groundbreaking on Tuesday for a new state archaeology center. Fittingly, they used replicas of ancient digging sticks - used to plant seeds or dig holes - rather than shovels.
The $6.4 million center on the southwest edge of Santa Fe will provide a permanent home for an estimated 10 million artifacts in the state's collection. Currently, those items are scattered among storage sites in government buildings around town.
Source: Globe and Mail
July 15, 2009
A marine archeologist from landlocked Alberta has set his sights on finding two of the world's most coveted shipwrecks: the long-lost Royal Navy vessels from the doomed 19th-century Franklin expedition.
Rob Rondeau and his small team plan to travel to the central Arctic archipelago later this summer to launch a privately funded underwater search.
The race to find the fabled shipwrecks has been continuing for more than 160 years, but Mr. Rondeau is confident his group's
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 15, 2009
Sixty-four years after he survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake has broken his silence on his memories of that day to invite President Barack Obama to attend this year's memorial event.
In an opinion article in The New York Times entitled A Flash of Memory, 71-year-old Miyake said he had not previously discussed his experiences on August 6, 1945, because he did not "want to be labelled 'the designer who survived the bomb'".
Source: http://www.balkantravellers.com
July 15, 2009
Albanian police are on the hunt for a group of tomb raiders who attempted to open a series of graves in the ancient city of Apollonia on Sunday.
The raiders, who remained unidentified and are suspected of being part of regional ring that smuggles artifacts, aimed to plunder a group of 2000-year-old graves, local broadcaster Top-Channel TV reported.
The archaeological park of the ancient city of Apollonia is located only eight kilometres outside the city of Fier, and has
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 15, 2009
Sixty-four years after he survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake has broken his silence on his memories of that day to invite President Barack Obama to attend this year's memorial event.
In an opinion article in The New York Times entitled A Flash of Memory, 71-year-old Miyake said he had not previously discussed his experiences on August 6, 1945, because he did not "want to be labelled 'the designer who survived the bomb'".
Source: AP
July 15, 2009
Several officials say ex-CIA Director George Tenet ended the program in 2004 because the agency could not work out the practical details to put it into use during its first three-year incarnation.
Former intelligence officials say ex-CIA Director George Tenet terminated a secret program to develop special hit teams to take out al-Qaida leaders in 2004 but the plan was later resurrected by Tenet's successor, Porter Goss.
Current CIA chief Leon Panetta told the congressio
Source: http://www.wildernesswalmart.com/
July 15, 2009
In a bipartisan letter to the Orange County Board of Supervisors, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (D) and House of Delegates Speaker William Howell (R) jointly urged the county to reconsider plans to locate a Walmart supercenter on the Wilderness Battlefield.
The letter, addressed to Orange County Board Chairman Lee Frame and dated July 13, 2009, emphasizes the Commonwealth’s commitment to historic preservation and the need to bring all interests together to resolve the controversy.
Source: Guardian (UK)
July 15, 2009
The world's most famous moonwalker - no, not that one - is to skip a major Nasa event next week commemorating the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. The notoriously shy Neil Armstrong, the first of only a dozen men ever to set foot on the earth's nearest neighbour, is counting on his garrulous Apollo 11 shipmate Buzz Aldrin to relive his "one small step" for a worldwide audience of journalists and space enthusiasts Monday.
Armstrong is said to be deeply suspicious of fa
Source: Times (UK)
July 15, 2009
A lack of trained interrogators caused concern at the Ministry of Defence ahead of the Iraq war because of fears that it would increase the risk of detainee abuse, an inquiry into the death of an Iraqi man in military custody heard today.
There were no soldiers qualified in tactical questioning in the regiment at the centre of allegations of mistreatment of ten detainees, including Baha Mousa, who died after suffering 93 separate injuries, the public inquiry was told.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
July 15, 2009
A group of Israeli soldiers who took part in the January invasion of the Gaza Strip have claimed widespread abuses against civilians were committed under 'permissive' rules of engagement.
Breaking the Silence, a campaign group made up of Israeli soldiers, gathered testimonies from 26 unidentified troops, who said they were urged by commanders to shoot first - and worry about civilians later.
"If you're not sure, kill. Fire power was insane. We went in and the boo
Source: BBC
July 15, 2009
He told judges in The Hague he joined the government in 1980, but his anti-corruption stance made him unpopular.
He overthrew Samuel Doe's government in a bloody conflict in the late 1980s and is accused of directing rebels in the civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s.
He denies 11 charges including murder, terrorism, rape and torture.
Source: BBC
July 15, 2009
In January, US President Barack Obama signed an order halting the controversial military trials process for terrorist suspects.
But he now says he will press ahead with the military commissions after introducing a number of safeguards.
The five men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are among detainees due to appear in court this week.
Many thought President Obama had sounded the death knell for military commissions at Guantanamo Bay.
Source: NYT
July 14, 2009
As personal stories of terror and brutality fill the courtroom for the first time, even the defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, has at times dropped his hard mask and broken down in tears.
“I send my respects to the soul of your wife,” he told one witness, Bou Meng, whose wife died in the prison and whom Duch (pronounced DOIK) had come to know when he pulled him from a row of shackled prisoners and put him to work as a painter.
Bou Meng put his face in his hands. Duch,
Source: The Daily Beast
July 15, 2009
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh raised eyebrows back in March when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that Dick Cheney ran a secret hit squad that he kept hidden from Congressional oversight.
"Congress has no oversight of it. It's an executive assassination ring essentially, and it's been going on and on and on," Hersh said at the time. He added: "Under President Bush's authority, they've been going into countries, not talking to the ambas
Source: Telegraph
July 15, 2009
Neil Armstrong's historic moon landing will be shown in new light on Thursday when Nasa releases a previously unseen film of the first manned lunar excursion.
The recently discovered footage shows US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first men to land on the moon on board the Apollo 11 space shuttle.
The new film has been restored and digitally enhanced using state-of-the-art technology and will be much clearer and less grainy than previously released
Source: Fox News
July 14, 2009
Who knew?
A billboard proclaiming that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican has stirred a religious and political hornets' nest in Houston, where a church leader is trying to draw black voters into the Republican Party.
The jumbo-sized roadside ad made its contentious claim for about a week -- until a local black activist charged that the sign unjustly politicized King's legacy and was hurting his community by telling a "blatant lie."
Source: Politico.com
July 15, 2009
Was it the greatest speech of his presidency or political suicide?
Three decades on, the answer may well be both.
Thirty years ago Wednesday, President Jimmy Carter delivered a speech — “The Crisis of Confidence” — that became one of the most pilloried in modern American history.
It was an address in which he looked critically at himself and his own failures but also warned Americans in dire, near-apocalyptic terms about the potential consequences of the
Source: CNN
July 14, 2009
Sonia Sotomayor spent her first week at Princeton University obsessing over the sound of a cricket. Growing up in New York City, her only notion of this insect was Jiminy from "Pinocchio." She tore her dorm room apart looking for the critter every night.
Finally, her then-boyfriend and future husband visited and explained that the cricket was outside the room, where she had been holed up most of that week in 1972.
"This was all new to me: we didn't have t
Source: WSJ
July 15, 2009
The fight over school curriculum in Texas, recently focused on biology, has entered a new arena, with a brewing debate over how much faith belongs in American history classrooms.
The Texas Board of Education, which recently approved new science standards that made room for creationist critiques of evolution, is revising the state's social studies curriculum. In early recommendations from outside experts appointed by the board, a divide has opened over how central religious theology
