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: BBC
January 23, 2009
A man thought to be the last surviving Irish fighter of the International
Brigade in the Spanish Civil War has died at 93.
Bob Doyle, who died in London on Thursday, fought on the Aragon front
during the war for the pro-government republicans against the
nationalists.
He was captured by Italian fascists at Calaceite in March 1938 and
imprisoned in the San Pedro prison camp.
He also served in the British merchant navy during World War II.
Source: AP
January 22, 2009
Video testimony of nearly 600 survivors of Nazi forced labour programmes was posted online Thursday for historians and students to better understand their ordeal, organisers said Thursday.
The project is an offshoot of a compensation fund founded by the German government and major companies in 2001 for survivors of a programme that saw 12 million people rounded up and conscripted to work during World War II.
The 341 men and 249 women featured in the videos tell of worki
Source: BBC
January 23, 2009
Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January is an occasion for Jews and Roma (Gypsies) to remind the world how their families were terrorised and butchered by the Nazis in World War II.
The Roma people of Vlasca - traditional metal workers called Kalderash - are closed and inward-looking. They are reluctant to talk to anyone from outside the community.
Historians often call it "the forgotten Holocaust". Up to 500,000 Roma are believed to have died in mass shootings
Source: PIPA/WorldPublicOpinion.org
January 22, 2009
The world is full of nationalistic people certain that their country is morally superior to others, right? Actually, a new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 21 nations around the world finds that people can be remarkably modest.
Asked to assess the morality of their nation's foreign policy, in 19 out of 21 nations the most common answer is that their nation is about average or below average.
In the United States, about half (49%) say the morality of US foreign policy is av
Source: NYT
January 22, 2009
Mother Teresa recited the simple prayer of St. Francis every day. Margaret Thatcher cited it upon becoming prime minister of Britain, and Alcoholics Anonymous included it in its “12 steps” book.
But something else is notable about the prayer that begins: “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith.”
St. Francis of Assisi, who was born in the 12th century, probably had nothi
Source: Azzaman
January 22, 2009
The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has drawn up a new plan to retrieve “all the antiquities
that have been stolen,” according to the minister, Qahatan al-Jibouri.
Jibouri, whose ministry is in charge of the Antiquities Department, said the return of smuggled and
stolen Iraqi relics as well as the protection of Iraqi ancient sites was a top priority.
The relative quiet in the country has encouraged the government to draw the plan which among other
things calls for the deploy
Source: AP
January 22, 2009
A federal judge ordered Russia on Thursday to preserve sacred religious documents that members of a Hasidic Jewish movement fear could be headed to the black market.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth issued a restraining order telling Russia to protect the documents and return any that may already have been removed from the Russian State Military Archives.
The order comes in a lawsuit filed by members of Chabad-Lubavitch, which follows the teachings of Eastern European
Source: NYT
January 22, 2009
CRAPSTONE, England — When ordering things by telephone, Stewart Pearce tends to take a proactive approach to the inevitable question “What is your address?”
In the scale of embarrassing place names, Crapstone ranks pretty high. But Britain is full of them. Some are mostly amusing, like Ugley, Essex; East Breast, in western Scotland; North Piddle, in Worcestershire; and Spanker Lane, in Derbyshire.
Others evoke images that may conflict with residents’ efforts to appear d
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
January 24, 2009
Veterans of British nuclear bomb testing in Australia have no evidence to prove their health problems were caused by the radioactive blasts, a London court heard.
Lawyers for the British Ministry of Defence told the High Court that claims about how the veterans had suffered a variety of illnesses since the tests more than 50 years ago were not backed up by solid medical evidence.
More than 800 veterans have gone to the High Court in the hope they will be given the go-ah
Source: Times (UK)
January 23, 2009
A murder mystery involving royal intrigues and an eccentric scientist with a golden nose could be resolved after 400 years when researchers open the tomb of Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer, in the light of new evidence that he was murdered by a contract killer.
Archeologists are waiting for permission to open the tomb in the Tyn Cathedral, one of the landmarks of the Old Town in Prague. Brahe, the first astronomer to describe a supernova, in 1572, is also famous for his incredib
Source: Spiegel Online
January 23, 2009
In Malbork, Poland, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Gdansk, Radoslaw Gajc slings a pick-ax over his shoulder. Dressed in green overalls like all the city's housing industry employees, he crosses an icy dirt track, then descends into an open pit. Just 200 meters (650 feet) away, the majestic brick walls of Malbork Castle soar in the background.
Gajc is a construction worker, and together with his colleagues he's supposed to be building a luxury hotel here. Instead, he fin
Source: Deutsche Welle
January 23, 2009
The project, which focuses on reprinting newspapers from 1933 to 1945, is meant to educate Germans but has instead sparked outrage from Jewish groups and authorities worried about the possible offence to Holocaust survivors and the potential misuse of the material by neo-Nazis.
On Thursday, the Bavarian finance ministry, which says it holds the rights to all publications from the main Nazi publishing house, said it would resort to the courts to stop future papers being published. It
Source: University of Liverpool
January 20, 2009
Previously unpublished medieval records of the English government of Aquitaine are to be made available online by historians at the University of Liverpool.
The Gascon Rolls are the single most important source of information about the ancient administration located in the south-western France. The documents relate to the period between the mid-13th and the mid-15th centuries when Aquitaine existed as an English duchy and tensions over its control culminated in the outbreak of the H
Source: Talking Points Memo/TPM Muckraker
January 22, 2009
The experts' verdicts on the potential impact of President Obama's executive order on presidential records are starting to come in. And they're bolstering our initial take that Obama's move could significantly boost efforts to release crucial records that the Bush administration has fought to keep secret.
Doug Kmiec, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine law school and expert on executive privilege, told TPMmuckraker that the order makes it harder for former presidents to blo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 21, 2009
BUENOS AIRES -- The Nazi doctor Josef Mengele is responsible for the astonishing number of twins in a small Brazilian town, an Argentine historian has claimed.
The steely hearted "Angel of Death", whose mission was to create a master race fit for the Third Reich, was the resident medic at Auschwitz from May 1943 until his flight in the face of the Red Army advance in January 1945.
His task was to carry out experiments to discover by what method of genetic qui
Source: CNN
January 21, 2009
WASHINGTON -- President Obama retook his oath of office Wednesday after Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed while delivering it at Tuesday's inauguration.
Roberts administered the oath the second time as well, according to the White House.
The move was aimed at dispelling any confusion that might arise from Tuesday's take -- in which "faithfully" was said out of sequence -- and erase any question that Obama is legally the president.
"We believ
Source: The Media Line news agency
January 18, 2009
The Iraqi Interior Ministry accused security companies working with the American military forces of attempting to smuggle out unique archeological artifacts, stating its concern that Babylonian-era Torah manuscripts were smuggled to Israel, the London-based daily Al-Hayyat reported.
Iraq is searching for over 9,400 artifacts that were lost or stolen since the start of the American-led invasion in May 2003.
Among these precious artifacts are Babylonian-era Torah manuscri
Source: UPI
January 19, 2009
Every new president of the United States wants his inaugural to be a "renewal of hope," but true "renewal of hope" inaugurals aren't that common: President-elect Barack Obama's will be the first in 28 years since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981.
That is because true "renewal of hope" inaugurals can only occur when they succeed outgoing failed presidencies, and there have been six of them in the past century. Barack Obama's will be the first "rene
Source: LAT
January 19, 2009
Like so many presidents before him, Barack Obama has invited a revered guest to his inauguration: God.
Although the Constitution forbids the government from establishing religion, faith is once again figuring prominently into the nation's grandest political pageant, just as it has over the course of American history.
Whether Republican, Democrat or Whig, presidents from the nation's beginnings have invoked the Almighty's powerful hand to convey their visions in times of
Source: VOA
January 19, 2009
More than two million Cubans have left the island since Fidel Castro took power 50 years ago and turned Cuba into a communist country.
One of the first waves of migration started shortly after he took over, and included more than 14,000 children traveling without their parents.
The trips that began in 1960 evolved into a massive operation that became the largest migration of unaccompanied children in U.S. history.
A Cuban passport is one of the few things S
