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: Deutsche Welle
February 23, 2009
The European Court of Human Rights was established in 1959 to protect civil and political rights when the horrors of previous decades were still fresh in Europe's mind. The aim was to provide a basis of trust and solidarity to burgeoning European unification and provide a safeguard against any erosion of human beings' basic rights and dignity.
It proved so successful that since its inception, the court has seen its case load brought by individuals, organizations and nations grow to
Source: AP
February 23, 2009
BAGHDAD –- Iraq's restored National Museum reopened Monday with a red-carpet gala in the heart of Baghdad nearly six years after looters carried away priceless antiquities as American troops largely stood by in the chaos of the city's fall to U.S. forces.
The ransacking of the museum became a symbol for critics of Washington's post-invasion strategy and its inability to maintain order as Saddam Hussein's police and military unraveled.
But Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al
Source: Time Magazine
February 19, 2009
Nobody at the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad knows exactly how the three stolen Sumerian tablets
got all the way to Lima, Peru. All authorities in Lima told Iraqi museum officials was that the
three tablets, more than 2,000 years old and each small enough to hold in the palm of one's hand,
were found roughly a year ago in the luggage of an American traveling in the country and seized at
the airport."I'm not involved in the other details," says Dr. Amira Edan, who heads of the museum's
eff
Source: LAT
February 23, 2009
Quick spending to repair America's infrastructure is the priority for most of the bill's $787 billion. Instead of grand public works, officials seek to fix roads, schools, sewer lines and the like.
Compared with the epic approach of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, President Obama's economic recovery strategy could be summed up as: Think small -- in a huge way.
FDR left a legacy of engineering marvels that still adorn the landscape: the San Francisco-Oakland
Source: Stone Pages Archaeo News
February 22, 2009
Britain's archaeological heritage is being plundered by metal detector users who are illegally raiding protected sites across the country, it has been claimed. The first comprehensive national survey of its kind revealed thieves armed with state-of-the-art equipment are raiding some of the nation's most sensitive heritage sites. Researchers found knowledgeable criminals, dubbed nighthawks, are using auction websites such as eBay to cash in on what was once an illicit hobby. Police said some thie
Source: Stone Pages Archaeo News
February 22, 2009
A Saudi-German team of archeologists has discovered the 13 km-long remains of buildings during excavations at Tayma in northeastern Saudi Arabia. The team from the German Archeological Institute (GAI), which has an agreement with the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) to continue excavations in Tayma for five years, is researching the relationship between the settlement at Tayma - which dates back to 3,000 BCE - and the civilizations of Sham, Egypt and Iraq. According to Dr. Ali
Source: Newsweek
February 21, 2009
Has America's even-tempered new president already ruffled feathers in the land that spawned Borat and Benny Hill? That's certainly how the spiky British press responded after the White House sent back to the British Embassy a bust of Sir Winston Churchill that had occupied a cherished spot in President Bush's Oval Office. Intended as a symbol of transatlantic solidarity, the bust was a loaner from former British prime minister Tony Blair following the September 11 attacks. A bust of Abraham Linc
Source: MSNBC
February 22, 2009
A group of students from Idaho have taken an unusual field trip to Connecticut for a special reunion.
On Saturday, the 14 students will meet in Middletown with the family members of former soldier Anthony J. Malone to return to them the helmet he wore in World War II.
Their mission was to find out the history behind the Army helmet Mansfield’s father had given to him 40 years ago.
Inside the helmet was Malone’s name and a serial number.
After a
Source: Times (UK)
February 22, 2009
IT IS the Queen Mother as she is most fondly remembered. At the races, sitting with her corgis in the garden and, most poignantly, looking the East End in the eye during the London blitz.
The scenes in bronze relief accompany a 9 and a half foot statue of the Queen Mother, seen here for the first time, resplendent in her Order of the Garter robes and with a faint smile.
The memorial, which has been kept secret, will be unveiled by the Queen on Tuesday. It stands in fron
Source: Times Online
February 23, 2009
What may be a hitherto unknown portrait of Leonardo da Vinci in middle age shows that the Renaissance genius had piercing blue eyes, a long nose and long greying hair with a droopy moustache.
The damaged oil-on-panel portrait was discovered by Nicola Barbatelli, a medieval historian, while he was researching the archive and picture collection of an aristocratic family at Acerenza (population 3,000), an ancient village perched on a rock above the river Bradano near Potenza in the so
Source: Argus Observer (Oregon)
February 19, 2009
Under cover of the night, thieves scramble away with Payette’s Civil War-era monument.
The Civil War cannon replica has been snatched from Payette’s Central Park in downtown, and city officials want it back.
The cannon is a replica of a real Civil War cannon that was moved from the park to the Payette County Historical Society museum nearby about four years ago to protect it from being stolen, Platt said. The original is between 5 and 6 feet in length, and the replica a
Source: AP
February 22, 2009
As her spending habits, wardrobe choices and overall behavior became fodder for public outrage, the young princess became the object of gossip, backbiting and derision that ultimately led to her gruesome downfall.
Sex, lies, but no videotape for Marie Antoinette, the legendary French queen seen by Houston Ballet Artistic Director Stanton Welch as an 18th-century version of modern-day celebrities stalked by paparazzi and splashed across supermarket tabloids.
"I thou
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 22, 2009
Never before seen memos about an unknown Tory politician called Margaret Thatcher, which singled her out for prominence because she was "very pretty" and dressed attractively, have been unearthed in the BBC archive.
The collection of documents also include a series of long forgotten television and radio interviews with Baroness Thatcher which charts her gradual transformation from suburban housewife to a major player on the world stage as the Iron Lady by the end of the 1
Source: CNN
February 22, 2009
The notorious Iraq prison once called Abu Ghraib has reopened under Iraqi government control. And the Ministry of Justice has launched a public-relations campaign to show it has changed since the days when prisoners were tortured there -- first under Saddam Hussein, and later by American troops.
It is now called Baghdad Central Prison, and has water fountains, a freshly planted garden and a gym -- complete with weights and sports teams' jerseys on the walls.
Rooms have
Source: AP
February 22, 2009
Protests that have nearly shut down the French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique are not just about demands for lower prices and higher wages: For demonstrators they are no less than a battle against the vestiges of slavery.
Afro-Caribbean islanders — most of whose forbears toiled in the sugarcane fields under the yoke of slavery more than 160 years ago — not only resent France's handling of the global economic crisis, they have long resented that slaveholders' descenda
Source: Independent (UK)
February 22, 2009
They returned from war hailed as heroes. But the demobbed British Jews who won medals defeating Hitler were horrified to see fascist salutes on the streets of Britain.
Oswald Mosley, whose British Union of Fascists preached anti-Semitism before the war, was released from internment in 1946. His Blackshirts, dressed like Nazi stormtroopers, were revived. Jewish houses were daubed with the letters PJ – Perish Judah. Jews were beaten and taunted in the streets: “Not enough Jews were b
Source: Observer (UK)
February 22, 2009
The spot where US soldiers forced naked Iraqis to form a human pyramid now smells of fresh paint and disinfectant. The prison wing where hundreds more were executed during Saddam Hussein's regime is silent and empty, but for a few desks and documents that stand testament to his sadism.
There are signs of new beginnings at the reborn Abu Ghraib jail as it prepares to open its doors again to prisoners; there are greenhouses under construction, a rehabilitated sports yard, a barber sho
Source: Independent (UK)
February 22, 2009
This week’s dramatisation of the fall of Margaret Thatcher shows her as a more human figure than often supposed. As the Iron Lady is re-evaluated on TV, we asked some of those who were prominent in the 1980s how they regard her now.
Sir Max Hastings Editor of The Daily Telegraph in the late 1980s
She regenerated the capitalist system in Britain and was right to privatise large areas of state ownership, but failed to reform such vital sectors as education and health whic
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 22, 2009
The Fuhrer dreamed of his troops goose-stepping down the Golden Mile and unfurling the Swaztika on top of Blackpool Tower, it was revealed.
His invasion plans of Great Britain included making the Lancashire resort a headquarters for his paratroopers and also a "playground" for him and his men.
The plan explains why Blackpool escaped almost unscathed from the Luftwaffe'as bombing blitz despite the fact the RAF built hundreds of Wellington bombers in the town an
Source: Deutsche Welle
February 21, 2009
Christian Bouchacourt, South American superior for the Society of St. Pius X in Buenos Aires, told the newspaper La Nacion on Saturday, Feb. 21, that British-born Richard Williamson would comply with the government order within the given deadline.
The ultra-traditionalist bishop had been told he had 10 days to leave the country. If Williamson refused to leave voluntarily, he would be forcibly deported, officials said. He could, however, still appeal the decision.
Under
