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)
August 13, 2010
Charles Taylor, the former Liberian leader, told his country's senate that Naomi Campbell was "excited" to meet him and had promised to visit his country, it has emerged.
Mr Taylor, who is currently on trial in The Hague for war crimes, was so impressed by the "most delightful" evening spent in the company of the supermodel at a dinner held by Nelson Mandela, that he is thought to have framed the picture of them standing together and hung it prominently at his h
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 15, 2010
With his hunched back and deformed face, Quasimodo, the tragic hero of Victor Hugo's novel The Hunch Back of Notre Dame, has always been considered a mythical creation drawn from the depths of the author's imagination.
But a new discovery appears to reveal the real-life inspiration behind the character from Hugo's seminal novel, which tells the story of the deaf bell-ringer of Notre Dame and his unrequited love for the gipsy girl Esmeralda.
Clues suggesting that Quasi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 15, 2010
President Barack Obama has backtracked over his enthusiastic support for the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York, saying he was "not commenting on the wisdom of making the decision".
President Barack Obama
The decision to build an 15-storey Islamic centre in Manhattan, including a mosque, two blocks from the Ground Zero site of the September 11th terrorist attacks has incensed many Americans, with polls indicating that more than two-thirds oppose it.
Source: CNN
August 15, 2010
British Prime Minister David Cameron, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will join hundreds of veterans Sunday to commemorate the 65th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day, or VJ Day, which was Saturday.
Cameron will lay a wreath on behalf of the British government, the statement said.
On August 14, 1945, Japan surrendered to Allied forces, effectively ending World War II....
Source: CS Monitor
August 15, 2010
Until recent years, Indian citizens could fly their flag only on two days: Republic Day (Jan. 26) and today's holiday, Independence Day. That changed after an Indian studying in Dallas saw Americans proudly waving Ol' Glory six ways from Sunday....
"What we are facing is something America faced from its foundation. If you have a non-homogenous population, a multicultural nation, what unifying thing have you got?" says Graham Bartram, chief vexillologist of the Flag Institu
Source: WaPo
August 15, 2010
In July, one of the longest losing streaks in the history of culinary combat finally came to end. According to the Nielsen Company, 52-week dollar sales of packaged wheat bread topped those of white bread for the first time in U.S. supermarkets. Call it a victory for health -- but nutritional aspects alone don't account for this reversal of fortune.
For years -- no, make that millennia -- the public has chosen white bread over its darker, grainier counterpart. In 77 A.D., Pliny note
Source: WaPo
August 15, 2010
On a recent summer afternoon, Alaskan and American flags fluttered together above the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center, a low-slung gray building on the banks of Portage Lake. Inside, tourists perused a chart on sockeye salmon and maps of the surrounding Chugach Mountains. Few people paid any attention to a black-and-white memorial to the center's namesakes.
"On October 16, 1972, United States House of Representatives Majority Leader Thomas Hale Boggs and United States Representati
Source: WaPo
August 15, 2010
Hundreds of couples donned sailor hats and nurse's caps and smooched in Times Square on Saturday to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The couples were re-enacting the famous Life magazine photograph of a nurse being passionately kissed by a sailor at the end of the war. A 26-foot statue replicating the original photo was also erected for the celebration.
World War II veterans and their children on hand for the kiss said they want today's generat
Source: AP
August 15, 2010
Japan's new liberal prime minister shunned a visit to a shrine that has outraged Asian neighbors for honoring war criminals, breaking from past governments' tradition and instead apologizing Sunday for the suffering World War II caused.
Members of the now-opposition Liberal Democratic Party, which ruled Japan nearly continuously since the end of the war, made a point by carrying out their own trip to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Source: AP
August 13, 2010
A crate of Scotch whisky that was trapped in Antarctic ice for a century was finally opened Friday — but the heritage dram won't be tasted by whisky lovers because it's being preserved for its historical significance.
The crate, recovered from the Antarctic hut of renowned explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton after it was found there in 2006, has been thawed very slowly in recent weeks at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island.
Though the crate wa
Source: Oxford Mail
August 13, 2010
THE huge archive of material relating to the discovery of King Tutankhamun has been put online for the first time.
The comprehensive notes and photos recording the find by archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922, were donated to Oxford University’s first Professor of Egyptology, Frank Griffith, by the Carter family.
In turn, this archive became the Griffith Institute, attached to Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, and it is the institute’s Keeper of the Archives Dr Jaromir Malek,
Source: BBC
August 13, 2010
Pakistan's president has directed that there should be no official celebrations of Independence Day on Saturday as the country tries to cope with devastating floods.
Asif Ali Zardari will instead spend the day touring affected regions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces.
He has been heavily criticised at home for not taking a more direct role.
The region's worst flooding in 80 years has affected 14 million and killed 1,600, according to the UN....
Source: BBC
August 12, 2010
The lawyer of Liberian ex-leader Charles Taylor was temporarily banned from speaking at his war crimes trial after a row with a prosecutor.
The judge sanctioned Courtenay Griffiths after he lost his temper in an argument and referred to one prosecution lawyer as a boy.
Mr Griffiths later apologised and was allowed to resume speaking....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 13, 2010
An architect’s 19th century drawings for features in Central Park are at the centre of a lawsuit after New York City took Christie’s auction house and the owner of the drawings to court.
Sam Buckley had placed 86 Jacob Wrey Mould drawings with Christie’s auction house for potential sale, while keeping at least 41 more himself, according to court papers.
Mr Buckley, a New Jersey real estate broker, says his dead father found them in the trash more than 50 years ago.
Source: BBC
August 13, 2010
Roman charioteers earned far more than even the best-paid footballers and international sports stars of today, according to academic research.
While golfer Tiger Woods was heralded last year as the first athlete to earn over $1 billion, the figure would apparently have been small beer for the fearless entertainers of the Circus Maximus.
One charioteer, named Gaius Appuleius Diocles, amassed a fortune 35,863,120 sesterces in prize money – the equivalent of $15 billion
Source: AP
August 13, 2010
The Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized Israeli President Shimon Peres on Friday for thanking Romania for saving Jews, saying he should have condemned the Romanian state for the tens of thousands of Jews who were killed there during World War II.
On Thursday, Peres publicly thanked Romania for helping 400,000 Romanian Jews emigrate to Israel during the communist regime that ended in 1989. Peres did that while making the first visit to Romania by an Israeli head of state since 1948 wh
Source: AP
August 13, 2010
A top leader in Southern Sudan warned Friday that the Sudanese government risks the collapse of a peace accord that ended a war that killed more than 2 million people if it stalls an independence referendum for the south scheduled for January.
Southern Sudan is eagerly awaiting the vote, which could turn the arid region into the world's newest nation and split Africa's largest country in two. A 2005 peace agreement that ended four decades of on-and-off war between Sudan's north and
Source: CNN
August 13, 2010
In a region already rich with archaeological artefacts, the excavation of a small alabaster box containing a few pieces of bone amid the ruins of a medieval monastery might easily have passed unnoticed.
But when Bulgarian archaeologists declared they had found relics of John the Baptist, one of the most significant early Christian saints, their discovery became the subject of rather more interest -- prompting angry exchanges in the local media and even calls for a government ministe
Source: Hurriyet (Turkey)
August 12, 2010
An investigation begun after a man was killed by a falling rock at the ancient city of Hasankeyf has revealed that construction vehicles working in the area have brought the 10,000-year-old settlement close to collapse.
“It is a crime by law to enter protected areas with heavy-duty vehicles. Before the rock broke, there were cracks but the necessary precautions were not taken,” said archaeologist Ercan Alpay, a member of the committee formed by the Initiative to Revive Hasankeyf to
Source: AP
August 13, 2010
Police have raided a house used by people suspected of digging illegally for antiquities and discovered two tunnels leading to an underground tomb that housed an ancient marble coffin and frescoes, officials said Friday.
Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay described the discovery near the town of Milas, in western Turkey, as an "important archaeological find" and ordered digs in surrounding areas, Haber Turk newspaper reported.
Looting of ancient artifacts is common in
