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: Times of Malta
February 27, 2009
Preliminary archaeological studies in St George's Square, Valletta have uncovered an undocumented network of underground passageways, which could possibly connect to the Palace.
Studies are being undertaken in St George's Square in preparation for the building of a one-storey underground car park and the subsequent embellishment of the square.
The project, piloted by the Works Division and the Valletta Rehabilitation Project, still needs to be given the green light by t
Source: AP
February 26, 2009
Geologists, biologists and other scientists convened Thursday in Paris to discuss how to stop the spread of fungus stains — aggravated by global warming — that threaten France's prehistoric Lascaux cave drawings.
Black stains have spread across the cave's prehistoric murals of bulls, felines and other images, and scientists have been hard-pressed to halt the fungal creep.
Marc Gaulthier, who heads the Lascaux Caves International Scientific Committee, said the challenges
Source: AP
February 26, 2009
Landscapers were digging a hole for a fish pond in the front yard of a Boulder home last May when they heard a "chink" that didn't sound right. Just some lost tools. Some 13,000-year-old lost tools. They had stumbled onto a cache of more than 83 ancient tools buried by the Clovis people — ice age hunter-gatherers who remain a puzzle to anthropologists.
The home's owner, Patrick Mahaffy, thought they were only a century or two old before contacting researchers at the Univer
Source: Reuters
February 26, 2009
Japanese archaeologists working in Egypt have found four wooden sarcophaguses and associated grave goods which could date back up to 3,300 years, the Egyptian government said on Thursday.
The team from Waseda University in Tokyo discovered the anthropomorphic sarcophaguses in a tomb in the Sakkara necropolis, about 25 km (15 miles) south of Cairo, the Supreme Council for Antiquities said in a statement.
Sakkara, the burial ground for the ancient city of Memphis, remains
Source: AP
February 26, 2009
After helping to fund the reopening of Iraq's National Museum, Italy is planning a virtual exhibition of Mesopotamian and Islamic treasures, many of which are still missing from the looted Baghdad repository, officials said Wednesday.
Starting late next month, Internet surfers will be able to roam eight virtual halls showcasing artifacts dating from the birth of civilization in ancient Iraq to the founding of Baghdad in A.D. 762.
The Web site will include 3-D models, vi
Source: IHT
February 27, 2009
A UN tribunal convicted a former Rwandan military chaplain on Friday of attempted rape and genocide for crimes that included killing people who had sought refuge in a seminary.
The three-judge panel sentenced Emmanuel Rukundo to 25 years in prison.
There was clear evidence that Rukundo, who is 50, directed the killings of Tutsi civilians in the central Rwanda area of Gitarama during the 1994 genocide, said Judge Joseph Asoka Nihal de Silva. The judges also considered Ru
Source: IHT
February 27, 2009
The damp mud falls away easily from the long thighbone jutting out of the dirt wall of the trench at the gentle prod of the shovel's tip. Beyond the mass grave filled with the skeletal remains of some 2,000 people, presumed to be Germans who died in the closing months of World War II, stands the red-brick fortress of the Teutonic Knights that was once one of Germany's greatest landmarks until it was forced to cede the territory to Poland after the war.
Until then, Malbork was the Ge
Source: IHT
February 27, 2009
Bosnian Serb leaders have threatened to pull out of state institutions and are pressing anew for independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina, threatening to throw the fragile, multiethnic country into political crisis once again.
Analysts and observers of the region said the situation could unravel the United States-brokered Dayton accords of 1995, which ended a savage war that killed more than 100,000 people, most of them Muslims, between 1992 and 1995. The pact divided Bosnia and Her
Source: BBC
February 27, 2009
A Turkish prosecutor has ordered the digging up of several sites where it is believed the bodies of Kurds killed in the 1990s may have been dumped.
Hundreds of people disappeared at the height of the fighting in the mainly Kurdish south-east.
Human rights lawyers say many were last seen with security forces members.
The Kurdish conflict, which began in the 1980s when insurgents started fighting for a separate Kurdish state, still continues today.
Source: BBC
February 28, 2009
A sketch found in one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks could be an early self-portrait, experts believe.
The drawing had been obscured by handwriting for 500 years before being discovered by Italian scientific journalist Piero Angela.
After months of restoration work, the image was aged using criminal investigation techniques and compared with older self-portraits of Leonardo.
The findings will be revealed on Italy's RAI television channel.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 28, 2009
DNA tests have proved that Alex Haley – the black American author whose book Roots traced his family origins from the slave plantations of the US back to Africa – was of Scottish ancestry.
The tests have established that Haley – whose work is credited with helping transform the self-image of millions of black Americans – is directly descended from a Scottish paternal bloodline.
The findings came after a sample of DNA from Haley's nephew Chris Haley matched that of his
Source: Times of London
February 28, 2009
A father is suing the Turkish Education Ministry for forcing his 11-year-old daughter to watch a "racist" and "disturbing" film countering claims that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenians in 1915 with graphic allegations of Armenian atrocities against Turks.
The landmark case takes on what human rights activists have called the state's militarist policy of brainwashing Turkey's schoolchildren to the point of racist paranoia, aiming to preserve a nat
Source: AP
February 27, 2009
The Vatican said Friday that the apology issued by an ultraconservative bishop who denied the Holocaust was not good enough to admit him into the Catholic Church as a clergyman, the Vatican said Friday.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said Bishop Richard Williamson's statement "doesn't appear to respect the conditions" the Vatican set out for him.
In an interview broadcast last month on Swedish state TV, Williamson denied 6 million Jews were killed du
Source: NYT blog: The Caucus
February 26, 2009
MALBORK, Poland — The damp mud falls away easily from the long thighbone jutting out of the dirt wall of the trench at the gentle prod of the shovel’s tip. Beyond the mass grave filled with the skeletal remains of some 2,000 people, presumed to be Germans who died in the closing months of World War II, stands the red-brick fortress of the Teutonic Knights that was once one of Germany’s greatest landmarks until it was forced to cede the territory to Poland after the war....
Europe ha
Source: BBC
February 27, 2009
Richard Williamson said if he had known the full harm his comments would cause, he would not have made them.
He said that his opinions had been formed "20 years ago on the basis of evidence then available".
However, Jewish leaders said the bishop failed to address the issue of whether he believed the Holocaust was a lie.
Renzo Gattegna, the president of Italy's Jewish Communities, described the apology as "absolutely ambiguous".
Source: NYT
February 26, 2009
The Senate Intelligence Committee is completing plans to begin a review of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program, another sign that lawmakers are determined to have a public accounting of controversial Bush administration programs despite White House concerns about the impact of unearthing the past.
The review, Congressional officials said, will focus in part on whether harsh interrogation procedures authorized by President George W. Bush actually succeeded in extracting
Source: Newsweek
February 27, 2009
Shedding the state's hillbilly image has become
a personal crusade of Gov. Joe Manchin, a charismatic Democrat who has
authorized a multimillion blast of cash and marketing aimed not only
at rehabilitating the region's reputation, but also stemming a
three-decade exodus of the state's best and brightest residents.
In the next few weeks he will announce a"Come Home to West Virginia"
spokesperson—the face of a new campaign to cast the state as a
destination for families, entrepreneurs
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
February 26, 2009
Neo-Nazis are on the rise in Germany and are planning to exploit the economic crisis to build a Fourth Reich, a defector from their ranks warned yesterday.
Uwe Luthardt painted a chilling picture of the far-Right trying to recruit the record number of young Germans facing a bleak future as the country's economy contracts and unemployment mounts.
Experts fear that the worsening conditions are worryingly similar to those of the late 1920s and early 1930s which propelled H
Source: BBC
February 27, 2009
A group of mothers of those killed in the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square has urged China's leaders to fully investigate the deaths. Their call was issued as the 20th anniversary of the massacre approaches, and days ahead of the annual session of the National People's Congress.
The Tiananmen Mothers want the government to name the dead, compensate families and punish those responsible.
In an open letter, Chinese leaders were also urged to "break the taboo&qu
Source: Times (UK)
February 27, 2009
An 18th-century icon that was stolen from a Serbian Orthodox monastery 32 years ago has been returned to Belgrade by the Italian authorities.
“We had already lost all hope but thanks to international cooperation to return stolen art objects we have been able to recover this treasure, which will return to its native country,” the Serbian Ambassador Sanda Raskovic-Ivic said during a ceremony in Rome where the statue was handed over.
