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: Telegraph (UK)
April 17, 2009
Polish authorities claim to have identified three survivors of an infamous SS unit that garnered a reputation for brutality that shocked even German wartime commanders.
Prosecutors attached to Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), the body charged with investigating crimes committed during the war, have announced that they intend to bring the men to justice for their apparent involvement in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising while serving with the SS Dirlewanger Bri
Source: Foxnews
April 17, 2009
The Justice Department says it wants to clear the way to deport John Demjanjuk to Germany and end what it considers delay tactics.
The government said in a letter released on Friday that it plans to ask a federal appeals court in Ohio to dismiss a stay that on Tuesday stopped the deportation of Demjanjuk a few hours after immigration officers took him from his home.
In a letter to the clerk of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Assistant U.S. Attorney
Source: CNN
April 17, 2009
The Cuban government, long the object of a U.S. economic blockade, is prepared to meet with the Obama administration, Cuba's leader said.
The response came days after President Obama lifted all restrictions on the ability of American citizens to visit relatives in Cuba as well as to send them remittances. Travel restrictions for Americans of non-Cuban descent will remain in place.
This week's move represents a significant shift in a U.S. policy that had remained largely
Source: NYT
April 17, 2009
“Our horse chestnut is in full bloom,” Anne Frank told her diary on Saturday, May 13, 1944, “thickly covered with leaves and much more beautiful than last year.”
She would have been 79 this year, turning 80.
Had she survived, Miss Frank would still be able to see the horse chestnut tree by which she measured the seasons of life during her two years of hiding from the Nazis, not just behind the building in Amsterdam from which she and her family were taken by the Gestapo
Source: NYT
April 17, 2009
Following is the third and final set of answers from Michelle and James Nevius, the authors of “Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.” This week they will be answering questions about the history of Manhattan from Henry Hudson’s arrival in 1609 to the present. If you have ever walked by a building in the borough and wondered about its origins, or whether a historic event really took place where you think it did, or any other little-known fact, they will know the answers. Both
Source: The Fix--WaPo Blog
April 17, 2009
New data out of the indispensable Gallup polling organization shows that President Obama's average job approval during his first 90 days in office is 63 percent, the highest rating in its surveys during that critical time period in more than three decades.
Since Jimmy Carter scored an average of 69 percent approval rating in his first 90 days in office, the ratings for the subsequent presidents have steadily declined from Ronald Reagan (60 percent), to George H.W. Bush (57 percent),
Source: Foxnews
April 17, 2009
Faculty at Brown University — the seventh-oldest and arguably the most progressive of America's higher learning institutions — caved into pressure by students and teachers trying to right the perceived wrongs of history by voting earlier this month to rename the Columbus Day holiday as "Fall Weekend."
Proponents cited Christopher Columbus' enslavement and violent treatment of Native Americans, and argued the name of the Italian explorer should be expunged from the day of c
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
April 17, 2009
The disclosure of four Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel opinions on interrogation and torture is likely to have significant political and perhaps legal consequences. But their release is also a landmark in national security classification policy.These OLC memos, released by the Justice Department yesterday, were among the most urgently sought and the m
Source: Christian Science Monitor
April 14, 2009
Iraqis are book lovers. So much so that there’s a saying in the Arab world: Cairo writes, Beirut
publishes, Iraq reads. But lately it’s been hard for Iraqis to lay their hands on the books that
they crave.
Reporting from Iraq for McClatchy Newspapers, Corinne Reilly writes that throughout Iraq, “Libraries
and schools are understocked, and many bookstores are closed…. College-level texts, books on
specialized subjects and recent editions are the hardest to come by. Most elementary and
Source: BBC
April 16, 2009
A rare photograph showing the proclamation of King Edward VII's ascension to the throne in 1901 has been uncovered in a Devon church.
The faded photograph was found by a parishioner of St Thomas Church in Exeter, where it had been gathering dust at the back of the building.
It shows the mayor and town clerk outside Exeter Guildhall reading the proclamation surrounded by dignitaries.
The picture has been restored by Exeter photographer and author, Peter T
Source: The Daily Beast
April 16, 2009
President Bush's former No. 2 State Department official says he hopes he would have had "the courage to resign" if he knew the CIA was using waterboarding, a torture tactic, to interrogate suspects. Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, told Al Jazeera English in an interview airing Wednesday he doesn't think CIA agents who interrogated using waterboarding should be prosecuted, even though he thinks it was torture. The White House and the Justice Department signed off
Source: Belfast Telegraph
April 16, 2009
Farmer Gary Sproule accidentally unearthed the precious artefact while ploughing over a field at Castlegore near Castlederg last April. The intricate item is believed to date from almost 1,000 years before the birth of Christ.
An inquest was held yesterday in Belfast at which the item, which would have belonged to an important warrior or priest, was officially classified as treasure.
Under the law, a ‘treasure trove’ inquest must be held by the coroner to determine th
Source: Science Daily
April 16, 2009
The discovery of a remarkably well-preserved monumental temple in Turkey — thought to be constructed during the time of King Solomon in the 10th/9th-centuries BCE — sheds light on the so-called Dark Age.
Uncovered by the University of Toronto's Tayinat Archaeological Project (TAP) in the summer of 2008, the discovery casts doubt upon the traditional view that the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive.
Anc
Source: The Daily Star (Lebanon)
April 16, 2009
It has been more than 65 years since the guns fell silent, but the World War II desert battlefields where Allied forces defeated German General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps are still claiming lives. Each year the casualty count grows, as bedouins planting crops, herding livestock and collecting scrap metal are killed or maimed by rusting land mines and munitions hidden beneath the baking sands of Egypt's North West Coast.
More than 670 Egyptians have been killed and 7,500 injured by
Source: Spiegel
April 14, 2009
John Demjanjuk is not an isolated case. German investigators have set their sights on other presumed Nazi war criminals, raising the question of how the law should deal with the aged accessories of the Holocaust.
The Central Office for the Prosecution of National Socialist Crimes (ZSTL) in Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart, already has its sights set on four other men who may have committed murder or been accessories to murder on behalf of the Germans, and who, like Demjanjuk, subsequentl
Source: BBC
April 16, 2009
The designer of the first national memorial to the hundreds killed in the Belfast blitz has recalled how her own family narrowly escaped injury in the bombing raids.
About 1,000 people perished in the city as a result of the attacks by German planes during April and May 1941.
On Thursday, a 5ft high bronze structure by Carolyn Mulholland symbolising the devastation will be officially dedicated at the Northern Ireland War Memorial Hall.
Source: BBC
April 16, 2009
A US appeals court has requested more information on the health of a 89-year-old man due to be deported to Germany on war crimes charges.
The removal of John Demjanjuk was halted by the court shortly after he was removed by federal marshals from his Cleveland, Ohio home.
The Justice Department now has until 23 April to tell the court how it decided Mr Demjanjuk was fit to travel.
The request for health information was made by the 6th Circuit US Court of
Source: CNN
April 16, 2009
The Obama administration released four Bush-era memos on terror interrogations Thursday.
Also on Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that CIA officials will not be prosecuted for waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics that had been sanctioned during the Bush administration.
The memos, written by a top Justice Department lawyer, provided legal guidance to the entire executive branch, including the intelligence agencies, on permissible "enhanced
Source: National Parks Traveler website
April 14, 2009
Quite often we hear about tree removal projects to clear sight lines and recreate appearances at Civil War units of the National Park System. At Gettysburg National Military Park, they're planting trees to return the landscape to 1860s appearances.
Park crews last week started replanting four more historic orchards in major battle action areas on the battlefield. The goal is to replant 30 acres of orchards with hardy varieties of apple so visitors can better understand the fighting
Source: Stone Pages Archaeo News
April 14, 2009
A team of archaeologists from the Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute is back from Haryana (India) where they stumbled upon a record 70 Harappan graves at a site in Farmana, discovering the largest burial site of this civilisation in India so far.
The excavation proved one of the biggest breakthroughs in South Asian history and is now listed for World Heritage status conferred by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). It is an extrao
