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: IHT
February 22, 2009
Vasily Reutov had never set foot in Russia until a few months ago, but the moment he did, he knew he had finally made it home.
His ancestors, members of an ascetic offshoot of Russian Orthodoxy known as Old Believers, fled this region in the 1920s after the Communist Party violently suppressed religion. They settled in cloistered villages in South America that they turned into Little Russias, as if by preserving the ways of the past, they would somehow, someday, be able to return.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
March 14, 2009
They are the nameless heroes buried in anonymous graves after the carnage of the Great War.
For nine decades their last resting place has been marked simply with the words 'Unknown Soldier' or 'Known Only Unto God'.
But thousands may soon be identified after the discovery of a vast forgotten archive.
For British families who know they have a relative who died in the 'war to end all wars', but have never been able to pinpoint their remains, the discovery
Source: BBC
February 21, 2009
Serdar Kaya is 43 and has never been to court before; now he's suing the Turkish ministry of education.
The father of an 11-year old girl, Mr Kaya is angry that she was forced to watch what he calls a "very bloody propaganda film" at school.
Sari Gelin, or "Blonde Bride", was commissioned by the Turkish General Staff and distributed in recent months by the education ministry.
It is an attempt to counter what Turkey calls "baseles
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 22, 2009
Former prisoners of the German POW camp immortalised in the film 'The Great Escape' will return this week to pay homage to the men who were murdered after the breakout.
Adolf Hitler ordered 50 recaptured Allied airmen to be shot as a deterrent to others seeking to escape after their spectacular bid for freedom from Stalag Luft III.
Tuesday will be the 65th anniversary of the spectacular freedom bid and the men involved will be honoured by several prisoners who were in
Source: IHT
March 21, 2009
Every time Radovan Karadzic, the onetime Bosnian Serb leader, appears in court on war crimes charges he has hammered on one recurring claim: a senior American official pledged that he would never be standing there.
The official, Richard Holbrooke, now a special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Obama administration, has repeatedly denied promising Mr. Karadzic immunity from prosecution in exchange for abandoning power after the Bosnian war.
But the rumor persist
Source: BBC
March 20, 2009
A veterans' association has rejected an offer of Lottery funding for a trip to mark the 65th anniversary this summer of the D-Day landings in France.
The Normandy Veterans Association said it would not accept the money at this late stage.
It said it had almost raised enough with the help of a national newspaper.
The government has said it will provide support for those wishing to travel, but has not clarified exactly what help will be available.
Source: BBC
March 20, 2009
A former SS man alleged to have taken part in the extermination of 8,000 Jews in one day has been freed by Austria, a day after being extradited from the US.
The Austrian justice ministry said the former guard, 83-year-old Josias Kumpf, could not be put on trial because the statute of limitations had expired.
The US says he acted in the killing and burial in pits of Jewish interns at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Austrian justice ministry sp
Source: AP
March 20, 2009
The severed head of King Badu Bonsu II is going home to Ghana, around 170 years after it was hacked off in retaliation for the slayings of two Dutch emissaries whose skulls were hung from the tribal leader's throne.
Bonsu's head was discovered last year in a jar of formaldehyde at the Leiden University Medical Center's anatomical collection by a Dutch author.
Ghana immediately asked for it to be returned and the Dutch government asked the hospital to cooperate.
Source: AP
March 21, 2009
A 350-year-old statue of a saint and former pope, taken from an Italian church nearly two decades ago, has been found in the home of a North Carolina couple who had no idea it was stolen, authorities said.
The intricately carved bust of St. Innocent will be returned to the church in Naples, Italy, U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement agents said.
The statue was one of 17 similar busts and two oil paintings taken from the church in November 1990. Authorities told
Source: AP
May 21, 2009
A bit of Jurassic Park is going on sale with a 150-million-year-old complete skeleton of a dinosaur going on the auction block in New York.
The I.M. Chait Gallery says the fossil of the 9-foot-long dryosaurus dating from the Jurassic era is one of only two of its kind in the world.
The gallery said it could bring up to $500,000 at Saturday's auction.
Gallery operator Josh Chait says the fossil was taken from private land in Wyoming in 1993 and is being sold
Source: TPM (Liberal blog)
March 20, 2009
As we delve into the back-story behind the collapse of AIG, we thought it might be useful to lay out some key factual information about the firm's Financial Products unit, known as AIGFP, whose disastrous credit default swaps brought the company to its knees. How and when did AIG Financial Products get started? Who ran it, and from where? How did it get into credit default swaps, and what exactly are they, anyway? And how did this group of derivatives traders eventually wind up bringing down one
Source: AP
March 20, 2009
Barack Obama's optimistic campaign rhetoric has crashed headlong into the stark reality of governing.
In office two months, he has backpedaled on an array of issues, gingerly shifting positions as circumstances dictate while ducking for political cover to avoid undercutting his credibility and authority. That's happened on the Iraq troop withdrawal timeline, on lobbyists in his administration and on money for lawmakers' pet projects.
It's the same delicate dance each of his predecessors fa
Source: AP
March 20, 2009
President Barack Obama's budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates, significantly worse than predicted by the White House just last month.
The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated Press Friday, predict Obama's budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. That's $2.3 trillion worse than the White House predicted in its budget.
Wo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 20, 2009
A portrait believed to be the only surving portrait of William Shakespeare painted in his lifetime could be the 17th century courtier Sir Thomas Overbury, an expert believes.
The Jacobean painting from the family collection of art restorer Alec Cobbe was thought to be the bard because it closely resembled the engraving in Shakespeare's First Folio.
It is also noticeably similar to another painting believed to be the playwright owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library i
Source: BBC News
March 20, 2009
For the first time since 15 April, 1746, a team will attempt to recreate a Jacobite night march from Culloden to the outskirts of Nairn.
Battlefield archaeologist Dr Tony Pollard will lead the group of re-enactors on the trek.
A few thousand men drawn from Bonnie Prince Charlie's forces tried, but failed, to surprise attack a government camp under the cover of darkness.
Source: BBC News
March 20, 2009
The air aces of World War I - like the Red Baron - left a rich mythology that persists to the present day. But the man who was, perhaps, Britain's best pilot, remains little known.
A 90-year-old photo album discovered recently in northern France, reveals possibly the last picture of Britain's "highest scoring" fighter pilot from World War I.
It's an innocent photograph. A highly decorated RAF pilot poses for the camera, his arm gently resting on the shoulder of a lo
Source: BBC
March 20, 2009
The air aces of World War I - like the Red Baron - left a rich mythology that persists to the present day. But the man who was, perhaps, Britain's best pilot, remains little known.
A 90-year-old photo album discovered recently in northern France, reveals possibly the last picture of Britain's "highest scoring" fighter pilot from World War I.
It's an innocent photograph. A highly decorated RAF pilot poses for the camera, his arm gently resting on the shoulder
Source: AP
March 19, 2009
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is telling federal agencies to release their records and information to the public unless foreseeable harm would result.
Attorney General Eric Holder issued new guidelines fleshing out President Barack Obama's Jan. 21 order to reveal more government records to the public under the Freedom of Information Act in cases where release isn't specifically barred by another law.
The new standard essentially returns to one issued by Attorney
Source: The Independent (UK)
March 20, 2009
A large number of secret documents detailing government blunders over Iraq remain buried in Whitehall, a Foreign Office whistle-blower said yesterday as he called for a full public inquiry into the war.
Carne Ross, formerly Britain's top Iraq specialist at the United Nations, protested that the Butler and Hutton inquiries had not fully examined the events leading to military action in 2003. He told MPs, who are investigating leaks and whistle-blowing by civil servants, that the inte
Source: The Independent (UK)
March 20, 2009
The great grandson of Afghanistan's legendary Iron Amir – who once forced an adulterous man to eat his mistress – has joined the race to be the country's next president. Prince Abdul Ali Seraj, who opened Afghanistan's first nightclub in the 1970s, says it is time to launch "psychological warfare" against the Taliban and reclaim Islamic law from the extremists. He insists Afghanistan needs a "change candidate" because President Hamid Karzai has failed.
His great
