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: Daily Mail (UK)
June 11, 2009
A 2,000-year-old war grave crammed with up to 50 headless bodies has been uncovered by workers digging a new road for the Olympics.
The Iron Age victims found in the ancient burial site are thought to have been slaughtered by the invading Romans in about AD43.
All of them had been decapitated and some had their limbs hacked off. It has been discovered in the heart of Thomas Hardy country, on Ridgeway Hill near Weymouth, Dorset.
The site is being dug up to
Source: Deutsche Welle
June 12, 2009
The Encyclopaedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945 aims to catalogue most of Adolf Hitler's Nazi concentration camps, POW camps, prisons, and other persecution sites used during the Second World War. Project director Geoffrey Megargee of the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC told Deutsche Welle that the first surprise he encountered in this endeavor was realising how far the network stretched.
"When the project started we thought we were dealing with perhaps 5,000, perhaps 7,0
Source: Independent (UK)
June 11, 2009
In Russia it is not only the future that is unpredictable; often the past is equally in doubt. One minute Leon Trotsky was a hero of the Revolution, the father of the Red Army and a strong contender to succeed Lenin; the next minute he never existed. Until the late 1980s, the 1917 Revolution was the pinnacle of human achievement; suddenly in the 1990s it was seen as an utter failure.
And today again history in the region is turning into an ideological battlefield. When the Red Army
Source: Spiegel Online
June 11, 2009
It was a standoff that could easily have erupted into World War III. In late October, 1961, American tanks stood face to face with Soviet tanks at Checkpoint Charlie in the heart of Berlin, a single wrong move could have been enough to start yet another eruption of continent-wide violence -- or worse.
The Soviets, though, had an advantage. Among the West German police on hand at Friedrichstrasse that day was a man named Karl-Heinz Kurras. But in addition to being a highly respected
Source: History Today (UK)
June 11, 2009
Following the unveiling of a plaque just a month ago in the Fuencarral Cemetery, in the northern outskirts of Madrid, a further step was taken, yesterday, to honour the British members of the International Brigades who fought on the side of the republican government during the Spanish Civil War.
Seven surviving British veterans who joined the International Brigades were granted dual Spanish citizenship, yesterday, June 10th, at the Spanish embassy in London. The eldest veteran, Lou
Source: Deutsche Welle
June 12, 2009
The airing on Sarajevo-based FTV television, and on the Internet video-sharing website YouTube, may have seriously jeopardized Serbia's chances of joining the European Union.
A subsequent airing on Bosnian television coincided with an official visit by Serbia's foreign and defense ministers on Thursday. On Monday, EU foreign ministers are due to discuss Belgrade's progress in cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal.
Serbia's minister in charge of cooperation with th
Source: Deustche Welle
June 10, 2009
The cessation of bombing operations in the breakaway region of Kosovo on June 10, 1999, ended the last large-scale military confrontation between NATO and Serbia within ex-Yugoslavia.
In the decade since, Kosovo - which has been under United Nations administration and which declared independence in February of last year - has seen the return of a measure of stability. And NATO is expected to announce on Thursday that it is reducing the number of its troops in Kosovo by a third, fro
Source: Reuters
June 10, 2009
Secret documents from the days of Margaret Thatcher's government could emerge sooner than expected after Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced on Wednesday a cut in the time taken to release official papers.
He said the existing 30-year rule on the publication of state documents would be reduced to 20 years following a review chaired by Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail.
Historian Hugh Pemberton welcomed the decision, but warned that a rush of extra documents could
Source: BBC
June 10, 2009
In a small room inside Kabul museum, staff are slowly unwrapping hundreds of stolen pieces of Afghanistan's past.
Worth a fortune on the black market, the smugglers' hoard was spotted and seized by customs officers at Heathrow airport in London.
More than 1,500 artefacts were recovered in an 11-day operation. Many are priceless objects of Islamic art looted in illegal excavations.
There are prehistoric tools - up to 6,000 years old - and ancient coins, as
Source: BBC
June 9, 2009
Nearly 40 years after the first of its 210 nuclear tests, France is preparing to compensate people affected by the fallout. The move leaves the UK isolated in its policy of rejecting liability for illnesses suffered by test participants, reports Aidan Lewis.
Early in the morning of 13 February, 1960, several thousand French servicemen gathered in the Algerian Sahara to witness "Gerboise Bleue" or "Blue Desert Rat", an atmospheric nuclear explosion four times more
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 9, 2009
Their lungs still suffer the after-effects of Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons, but many veterans of Iran's devastating eight-year war with Iraq have thrown their influential voices behind the reformist contenders in Friday's presidential election.
As the men who saved the Islamic Republic from extinction, the "Basijis", or "volunteers", are hugely respected in Iranian society. Murals celebrate their deeds on countless street corners, while the hundreds of thou
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 10, 2009
The bells of Malvern Priory could fall silent for the first time in more than 650 years because English Heritage has refused to allow bellringers to replace ageing parts.
The historic bells, which include one that dates from 1350, desperately need new frames to be installed high inside the tower.
However, English Heritage objected because it believed the A-frames from 1887 needed to be preserved.There were no objections to updating the frame
Source: Foxnews
June 10, 2009
The offer comes 10 days after the FEMA housing program officially ended and amid growing worries that federal officials would start evicting tenants.
The federal government is offering 3,400 survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita who have not found permanent housing a chance to buy the temporary federal trailers they live in now for as little as one dollar.
A FEMA official told a House panel last month that the government would start sending eviction notices on June
Source: The Times (UK)
June 11, 2009
Leonardo López Luján’s new find lies only a few yards to the west, in what must have been one of the most important ritual arenas of the ancient capital.
The relief panel portraying the goddess Tlaltecuhtli dwarfs almost all other Aztec art that we know, and would be a fitting marker for a royal tomb. If one exists, what would it be like?
Two elaborately decorated burial urns — those of “outstanding military captains” and thus high in the Aztec hierarchy — were found
Source: AP
June 10, 2009
A red notebook of 33 pencil drawings by Pablo Picasso stolen from the Paris museum bearing his name will be hard for thieves to sell, France's culture minister said Wednesday.
The theft was discovered Tuesday morning by an employee of the Picasso Museum. The notebook had been kept in a second-floor glass display case that can only be opened with a special instrument.
Museum head Anne Baldassari said she didn't think it was a commissioned theft — one specifically ordered
Source: Foxnews
June 10, 2009
Iran's hard-line president accused his election rivals of using "Hitler" smear tactics to sway voters ahead of Friday's national vote — adding that they should face jail for insulting him.
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his main pro-reform opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, have accused each other using Hitler-like propaganda tactics in order to win on Friday. The president's harsh allegations against his rivals, including Mousavi, during Wednesday's rally ind
Source: Foxnews
June 10, 2009
Convicted terrorist Thedore 'Ted' Kaczynski, who launched a string of deadly bomb attacks across America, is fighting to stop his diaries being auctioned off.
Kaczynski is nearing the end of a five-year battle with U.S. authorities over the sale of his personal possessions, which also include tools, typewriters and clothing.
Proceeds from the auction would go to four surviving victims of the attacks who are owed $15m in restitution by Kaczynski.
Source: CNN
June 10, 2009
A lone gunman wounded a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday before being injured by return fire, according to police and a museum statement.
The suspect was identified as James von Brunn, an 88-year-old white supremacist from Maryland, two law enforcement officials told CNN.
Gunfire at the entrance of the museum wounded at least two people Wednesday, emergency officials said.
Source: Times (UK)
June 10, 2009
The Cold War spy and traitor George Blake whose betrayal of secret intelligence to the KGB led to the execution of 40 British agents, was at the heart of a confidential Government appeal to newspaper editors in 1961, according to an official history of the D-Notice system published today.
The D-Notice arrangement in which a senior retired military figure provides guidance to newspapers and broadcasters on stories that might damage national security - launched in 1912 and still in e
Source: Spiegel Online
June 10, 2009
When it comes to sea floors, that of the Baltic Sea counts among the most cluttered. Barrels of toxic waste, World War II munitions and a wide variety of other detritus has settled to the bottom of the northern European body of water over the years.
On Tuesday, a team of Swedish and Finnish divers announced the most recent find: a Soviet submarine sunk by Finnish mines in the Winter War of 1939-1940. Speaking to the press on Tuesday, the divers said that they found the S-2 sub near
