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: Evening Standard (UK)
April 29, 2009
An internationally-renowned scholar who was jailed for cutting out and stealing pages from rare and ancient literary texts had his sentence halved today.
Wealthy book collector Farhad Hakimzadeh, 61, of Knightsbridge, took pages from 10 books worth £71,000 at the British Library and carried out four raids on Oxford University's Bodleian Library.
Hakimzadeh pleaded guilty to 14 counts of theft in May last year at Wood Green crown court and was jailed for two years in Jan
Source: AFP
April 29, 2009
Cambodian and Thai defence ministers on Wednesday concluded border talks but said they could not agree to pull back troops from a tense territorial dispute near an ancient temple.
At least seven Thai and Cambodian troops have been killed in recent months in sporadic clashes between the neighbouring countries on disputed land around the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple.
Ownership of the temple was awarded to Cambodia in 1962 but the two countries are in dispute over five
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 29, 2009
Herbertus Bikker, a wanted Dutch Nazi war criminal known as 'the hangman of Ommen', has died aged 93.
Although he died last year, German police have only now confirmed that he was buried in the Ruhr city of Hagen after dieing peacefully, aged 93, at home.
Bikker, a member of the Waffen SS, became infamous as De Beul van Ommen for his cruelty while serving as a prison guard at the Erika concentration camp, in the Dutch province of Overijssel.
Source: BBC
April 29, 2009
A new award is to be created to recognise the efforts of people who helped Jews and others escape the horrors of the holocaust.
The Prime Minister has approved calls from Dumfries and Galloway MP Russell Brown for a symbol of recognition.
UK ministers rejected the idea of reforming the honours system to allow posthumous awards but are open to discussions on setting up a new award.
A potential beneficiary is Jane Haining from Dunscore in southern Scotland
Source: BBC
April 28, 2009
An exhibition celebrating the life and times of Belfast's dockers has opened at the Dockers Club in the city.
Former dockers and their families collated their memorabilia to celebrate the centenary of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union.
The exhibition is part of the Shared Heritage Interpretive Project (SHIP).
SHIP launched in 2006 with aims to celebrate dockers' lives. Former dockers have worked wi
Source: BBC
April 29, 2009
Auschwitz survivor Albert Veissid does not know who put his name on a list that remained hidden inside a bottle for more than 60 years.
Builders working near the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp found the bottle recently. It had been left in a cement wall by inmates.
"I'm surprised by all of this," the 84-year-old told BBC News from his home in a village in the south of France.
The note bears Mr Veissid's name along with those of six P
Source: AP
April 29, 2009
A banner across the main square in Jesus' boyhood town condemns those who insult Islam's Prophet Muhammad — a message by Muslim hard-liners for Pope Benedict XVI during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land next month.
The pontiff may have to tread carefully with his visit to Nazareth. Many Muslims are still angry over a 2006 speech in which Benedict quoted a medieval text depicting the prophet as violent.
The banner — clearly visible from the church, which Benedict is to vis
Source: Press Release--Clark University
April 29, 2009
Is Freud still relevant a century after laying out the course of psychoanalysis? This fall, in celebration of the centennial of the five landmark lectures Sigmund Freud presented at Clark University in 1909, some of the world’s leading scientists will gather to explore the workings of the mind and new developments in the study of brain and genetics, the psychological approach, and how thought, motivation and emotion play a role in behavior.
The academic conference, from Oct. 3 to 5
Source: BBC
April 29, 2009
The work of carving the names of 67 service personnel killed in service during 2008 is beginning at the Armed Forces Memorial in Alrewas, Staffs.
It will take a single stonemason three weeks to carve the names on the walls at the National Memorial Arboretum.
The engraving process, which began at 0600 BST, takes place every spring.
Prince William visited the memorial on Friday and became patron of an appeal which aims to raise £8m for the site.
Source: Deutsche Welle
April 28, 2009
Notorious Austrian holocaust denier Gerd Honsik was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday, as a Vienna court found him guilty of spreading National Socialist ideology. While living in Spain from the early 1990s to evade a previous Austrian prison sentence, the neo-Nazi had continued to publish National Socialist ideology in a magazine and other mediums.
"He is one of the ideological leaders of the neo-Nazi scene," prosecutor Stefan Apostol said Friday, alleging th
Source: KC Johnson at HNN blog Cliopatria
April 27, 2009
In light of the seemingly endless Coleman-Franken battle in Minnesota (the Supreme Court announced last week it wouldn’t hear oral arguments on former Sen. Coleman’s appeal until June 1), U.S. Senate Historical Office has put together a most useful page listing the contested Senate elections in U.S. history.The basics: since the advent of popular elections, there have been 26 contested Senate elec
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 29, 2009
Ali, 25, and Shakil, 32, both from Leeds, admitted knowing the bombers - but denied helping them.
At Kingston Crown Court, Ali and Shakil were cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions, but found guilty of a second charge of conspiracy to attend a training camp in Pakistan, after being arrested in 2007 at Manchester Airport.
A third man, 28-year-old Sadeer Saleem, was acquitted of all charges. The men were originally tried in 2008, but the first jury failed to reach v
Source: BBC
April 29, 2009
Alex Lees, 97, and born in Manchester, had been the gardener in the famous PoW camp in Germany during World War II.
Mr Lees used his work to help get rid of the spoil dug from the escape tunnels at the camp.
Of those who broke out of the camp only three reached safety and of the 73 recaptured, 50 were shot.
Source: CNN
April 28, 2009
After Hurricane Ike slammed into Galveston, Texas, in September, the 12-block Strand Historic District, with its 19th-century buildings and their elaborate cast-iron storefronts, was awash in 13 feet of saltwater, oil and debris.
The water "permeated the columns and arches, weakening the interior brick support and greatly accelerating rust," said Peter Brink, vice president for programs at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In other words, the forces of nature p
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 27, 2009
Egyptian archaeologists have unveiled mummies, brightly painted sarcophagi and dozens of ancient tombs carved into a rocky hill in a desert oasis south of Cairo.
The 53 tombs - some as old as 4,000 years - were discovered recently on a sandy plateau overlooking farming fields in the village Illahun, located in the Fayoum oasis about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of the Egyptian capital.
Archaeologists gave journalists a rare tour of the ancient burial site, which
Source: CNN
April 28, 2009
After a nearly decade-long effort, the National Congress of Black Women on Tuesday honored Sojourner Truth by making her the first African-American woman to have a memorial bust in the U.S. Capitol.
Truth, whose given name was Isabella Baumfree, was a slave who became one of the most respected abolitionists and women's rights activists.
"One could only imagine what Sojourner Truth, an outspoken, tell-it-like-it-is kind of woman ... what she would have to say about
Source: The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University
April 27, 2009
The media have given President Obama more coverage than George W. Bush and Bill Clinton combined and more positive coverage than either received at this point in their presidencies, according to a new study by researchers at George Mason and Chapman Universities. But the study also finds that Mr. Obama’s positive media image hasn’t precluded heavy criticism of his policies.
During his first 50 days in office, the three broadcast network evening news shows devoted 1021 stories lastin
Source: Inside Higher Ed
April 28, 2009
Graduates of Oberlin College -- a cradle of social justice movements like abolitionism -- have never had to look very far for activist opportunities. Indeed, the college's commencement ceremonies actually seem tailored toward students who want to make a political stand. The processional has traditionally run beneath Oberlin's Memorial Arch, a controversial structure that either symbolizes the sacrifice of missionaries killed in China or the repression wrought by American imperialism, depending o
Source: Arkansas News Bureau
April 27, 2009
The sinking of the Titanic was not the worst maritime disaster in American history, U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Little Rock, told fellow U.S. House members Monday.
That distinction belongs to the sinking of the paddle-wheeled steamboat Sultana on the Mississippi River near Memphis on April 27, 1865, Snyder said. His speech, posted on YouTube, was in support of a resolution he introduced to recognize the anniversary of the Sultana’s sinking.
The House voted 393-0 to approve the re
Source: NYT
April 27, 2009
That Barack Obama is now president is not directly relevant to any issue in the case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, No. 08-322, which will be argued on Wednesday and is widely considered the most important of the term.
Yet as they consider whether to cut off one of the great legal legacies of the civil rights era, the justices may be asking themselves the inevitable question: Is a law rooted in the age of Jim Crow still needed in the Obama era?
