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)
February 26, 2009
Some of the oldest words in use in have been identified by scientists studying the evolution of language.
English and Indo-European words including 'I', 'we', 'two' and 'thou' have changed so little in tends of thousands of years that ancient hunter-gatherers would have been able to understand them.
Researchers have also identified several words that could die out within 1,000 years because they are likely to evolve into different forms. They include "throw",
Source: BBC
February 26, 2009
The strong statement said China did not recognise the 31m euro (£28m, $39m) sale of the bronze rat and rabbit.
It also ordered tighter checks on artefacts that Christie's auction house takes into or out of China.
The bronzes were sold as part of the estate of late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.
China says the animal heads were part of a collection of 12 looted from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860 when it was sacked and burnt by Fren
Source: BBC
February 25, 2009
Herman Simm, a former head of security, pleaded guilty to treason on Wednesday.
The court where he was tried did not reveal which country he spied for, but investigators said Mr Simm passed nearly 3,000 documents to Russia.
They said he received 1.3m kroons (£73,000; $106,000) for the data. The Kremlin denied any involvement.
Nato made no comment, but the case, which is Estonia's biggest spy scandal since the Cold War, is seen as an embarrassment for the
Source: BBC
February 26, 2009
Along with five other Serbian ex-officials, he is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the conflict in Kosovo in the 1990s.
This will be the court's first ruling on alleged crimes committed by Serb forces during the Kosovo conflict.
Prosecutors in The Hague are seeking jail terms of between 20 years and life for the men, who all deny the charges.
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) accus
Source: BBC
February 26, 2009
The Royal Horseguards Hotel is connected to Whitehall by underground passages used during the war.
Guests will now be offered guided tours of the building to learn about its secret past.
The 280-bed hotel on the River Thames will mark its reopening with a charity fundraiser on Thursday evening.
The hotel tours will also take in Gladstone Library, the National Liberal Club, as well as the passages used by politicians to secretly enter the Grade I listed b
Source: NYT
February 24, 2009
[A] weathered sign next to a garbage pile briefly describes the rise and fall of Nueva Cádiz, by 1515 a slaving center and the flash point for Latin America’s first frenzied commodities boom, built around pearls. By 1541, the sign says, “The depleted oyster beds put a final end to the city.”...
Nueva Cádiz is now largely forgotten, even in Venezuela. Scholars occasionally drop by for a glimpse into the dawn of the Spanish conquest, and archaeologists sometimes obtain permits to dig
Source: Reuters
February 25, 2009
The closure of Everest's northeast ridge came after China told tourist agencies in Tibet to cancel all tours until April and stopped issuing entrance permits for Tibet to foreigners.
Tensions in Tibet are running high ahead of the anniversary of the Dalai Lama's flight into exile on March 10. Many Tibetans have chosen not to celebrate Tibetan New Year, or Losar, today (weds) to silently protest Chinese rule.
China's move to close off Tibet will ensure a news black-out i
Source: NYT
February 24, 2009
Previous economic downturns have often led to decreased enrollment in the disciplines loosely grouped under the term “humanities” — which generally include languages, literature, the arts, history, cultural studies, philosophy and religion. Many in the field worry that in this current crisis those areas will be hit hardest.
Already scholars point to troubling signs. A December survey of 200 higher education institutions by The Chronicle of Higher Education and Moody’s Investors Serv
Source: NYT
February 24, 2009
The District of Columbia took a significant step toward winning a full vote in the House on Tuesday as the Senate cleared the way for legislation that would permanently expand House membership for the first time in almost a century.
The Senate voted 62 to 34 to begin debating a measure that would also grant an additional House seat to Utah, enlarging the House to 437 seats. In 2007 supporters of the bill fell three votes short of overcoming a Senate filibuster against it.
Source: The Daily Beast
February 25, 2009
Has former president Bush already grown restless? Starting next month, he will begin an international speaking tour, making ten speeches over the next year across the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia. The tour is expected to gross him hundreds of thousands of dollars, a modest sum compared to the almost $10 million figure that former president Clinton made in 2006 alone. The tour is aimed at rehabilitating his image, though he seems to not have learned why it was so damaged in the first place: The
Source: American Presidency Project (UC Santa Barbara)
February 25, 2009
After 37 days in office, Obama’s administration continues to be the leader in use of unilateral powers of the presidency (30 actions vs. an average of 14.5 for the comparison group). Obama’s “going public” strategy has also been distinctive. Obama has been among the slowest of our group of “change presidents” to use his “bully pulpit” to address the nation as a whole about his priorities. ...
However, Obama has been very active in participating in public events at which he makes “re
Source: WaPo
February 25, 2009
Barack Obama climbed Capitol Hill last night and staked his presidency on bringing the nation out of its economic crisis.
Not since Franklin Roosevelt delivered his first fireside chat, eight days into his presidency, have Americans been more hungry -- and more desperate -- for economic leadership. And not since FDR has there been an economic agenda as bold or ambitious, or as likely to reshape American capitalism.
Just a month in office, Obama has already pushed throu
Source: Financial Times (UK)
February 24, 2009
A Paris judge yesterday gave the go-ahead to the controversial sale of two Chinese bronzes looted more than a century ago by British and French troops and now part of the collection amassed by the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.
The decision means that the auction planned for Wednesday morning at Christie's in Paris can proceed and the two Ching dynasty sculptures - a rabbit and a rat's head - are expected to fetch between €8m and €10m ($12.7m, £8.8m).
The que
Source: Beaumont Enterprise (Texas)
February 23, 2009
Like a toy surprise in a box of Cracker Jacks - er, slightly water-logged Cracker Jacks, that is - a Civil War era shipwreck turned up among Hurricane Ike debris.
The discovery, thought to be previously uncharted, was made by crews last week scanning the bays around Galveston to chart debris.
While the find came as a kind of fun surprise to the contractors doing the work, State Marine Archeologist Steve Hoyt was pleased - but not terribly surprised.
Hoyt ad
Source: Latin American Herald Tribune
February 25, 2009
The Leoff-Vinot collection, made up of more than 8,100 pre-Columbian pieces bought on the black market, was presented here Tuesday by its new owner, Mexico's National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH.
Considered to be the most important antiquities collection in Mexico in private hands due to the number and age of the pieces, some of them more than 3,000 years old, the items will be catalogued and researched in the archaeological zone of Xochicalco, located in the central
Source: Yahoo News
February 24, 2009
Maintenance workers at Egypt's Giza Pyramids have found an ancient quartzite statue of a seated man buried close to the surface of the desert, the culture ministry said on Tuesday.
The statue, about life-size at 149 cm (five feet) tall, was found north of the smallest of Giza's three main pyramids, the tomb of the fourth dynasty Pharaoh Mycerinus, who ruled in the 26th century BC, the ministry said in a statement.
The man was wearing a shoulder-length wig and was seated
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 25, 2009
The former Liberian President Charles Taylor may walk free because the global financial crisis has cut donations to the court trying him for war crimes committed in neighbouring Sierra Leone, its chief prosecutor has said.
The UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which is pursuing those held most responsible for atrocities during the country's 1991-2002 civil war, faces a budget shortfall of more than $5 million from May, officials said.
Taylor, a warlord in a ci
Source: BBC
February 24, 2009
Investigators in Peru say they have for the first time successfully used DNA to identify victims of the country's civil conflict in the 1980s and 1990s.
The technique identified 23 victims, who were buried in Peru's largest mass grave in 1984.
The director of the Peruvian forensic anthropology team, Jose Pablo Baraybar, said they expected to identify several more victims in the next few weeks.
Some 70,000 people died in the conflict between the military
Source: BBC
February 25, 2009
Amnesty International has called on the Guatemalan authorities to do more to provide justice for thousands of victims of the country's civil war.
More than 200,000 people - most of them civilians - were killed or disappeared between 1960 and 1996.
The group said that tens of thousands of cases have yet to be heard by the commission established to probe cases.
Amnesty called on the Guatemalan government to approve a law for a National Search Commission fo
Source: Foxnews
February 24, 2009
A long-running dispute between two men who both claim to own the "sniper's perch" in the JFK assassination returns to court next month.
They both claim ownership of the sixth-floor window from the Texas School Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald hid out to shoot President John F. Kennedy in Dallas.
Caruth Byrd, 67, of Van, Texas, sued 81-year-old Aubrey Mayhew, of Nashville, Tenn. over who owns the "real" window after both had been posted for sal
