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: AFP
August 5, 2010
A Danish archeologist shot dead a polar bear that attacked and severely clawed his colleague during a dig in Greenland, the museum that employs them said Wednesday.
Bjarne Groennov killed the animal after it threw fellow expert Jens Fog Jensen to the ground in the incident on Saturday, said the National Museum of Denmark.
"It was a shocking experience but in such a situation we are just glad to get out alive and more or less unharmed," Jensen was quoted by the
Source: Balkan travellers
August 5, 2010
A team of archaeologists discovered what they believe is an ancient winery during their continued exploration of the Late Antiquity-Early Byzantine fortress on the Saint Atanas Cape on Bulgaria’s northern Black Sea coast.
The supposed winery, according to reports, consisted of two stone buildings connected through a wooden passage. One of them would be filled with grapes that were pressed with large rectangular stones.
Several structures thought to be ancient wineries
Source: The Sofia Echo (Bulgaria)
August 6, 2010
His name is Alexei Petrov. He used to be an officer, now he is a defendant in a case, accused of being part of an "organised crime group" and facing a 15-year sentence. But he's not "that" Alexei Petrov, the one arrested in "Operation Octopus", just a namesake. His alleged crime is stealing a tank.
If you follow the news closely, you will likely remember the story from two and a half years back, when police arrested two German nationals as they attempte
Source: AP
August 6, 2010
A gang of thieves on Friday staged a remarkable break-in near the Swedish royal family's residence in Stockholm, smashing display cases at a historic 18th-century Chinese-style landmark and getting away with artifacts that police called potentially priceless.
The heist at the ornate Chinese Pavilion, a birthday gift from King Adolf Fredrik to Queen Lovisa Ulrika in 1753, took just six minutes, and occurred just after security guards had made their rounds at 2 a.m., police spokeswoma
Source: AP
August 5, 2010
A new Iranian website that denies and mocks the Holocaust with cartoons showing Jews as hook-nosed worms burrowing holes through a history book provoked outrage in Israel on Thursday.
The site, holocartoons.com, features caricatures including a Jew with a hook nose and a black hat emblazoned with a Star of David tracing fake bodies on the ground at a concentration camp. The website design uses Nazi imagery, with the icon for flipping pages marked with a swastika.
"
Source: CNN
August 6, 2010
A court hearing is scheduled for Friday in the case of an Army officer who has refused to deploy to Afghanistan because, in his view, President Barack Obama has not proven that he was born in the United States and is therefore ineligible to be president.
Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin is scheduled to go before a judge in Virginia to enter a plea on charges that include disobeying a lawful order and dereliction of duty.
He is a decorated Army doctor and an 18-year veteran who is now
Source: BBC
August 5, 2010
Former Iraqi deputy PM Tariq Aziz has staunchly defended Saddam Hussein in an interview with The Guardian newspaper.
Interviewed by the UK daily in his Iraq prison cell, Aziz said the West was wrong about the former Iraqi president.
In his first interview since he was captured shortly after the fall of Baghdad more than seven years ago, Aziz said that pulling out US combat troops before the country was stable would be lethal for Iraq....
Source: BBC News
August 6, 2010
Bronislaw Komorowski has been sworn in as Poland's new president, a month after his election victory.
Mr Komorowski defeated Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the twin brother of the late President Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in a plane crash in April.
In a gesture to Kaczynski supporters, he vowed to work for national unity.
His first foreign visits would be to Brussels, Paris and Berlin in order to "show Poland's European roots", the new, strongly pro-EU l
Source: BBC
August 5, 2010
The Japanese city of Hiroshima is marking the 65th anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack.
For the first time, a representative of the United States, which dropped the bomb on the city, is attending.
Washington's decision to send its ambassador to Tokyo, John Roos, is being seen by some in Japan as a sign that President Barack Obama may decide to visit Hiroshima when he comes to Japan.
If so, he would be the first sitting US president to visit
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 5, 2010
The unspoken thought when Chairman's Mao grandson was appointed as China's youngest ever major-general last week was that revolutionary heritage had triumphed over martial prowess.
Now Mao Xinyu, 40, has confirmed that nepotism played its part in his appointment, admitting to a popular Chinese website that his family background was "definitely a factor" in the decision to add a second star to his epaulettes.
It is this enduring respect for his grandfather tha
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 5, 2010
Naomi Campbell, the model, told a war crimes tribunal that she gave alleged "blood diamonds" to the head of Nelson Mandela's children's charity.
The admission draws Mr Mandela, one of the world's most revered statesmen, into the centre of allegations surrounding the funding of the 1991 – 2002 Sierra Leone war, which was characterised by the use of boy soldiers and the mutilation of 20,000 people who lost arms, legs, lips and ears under machete attack.
Mr Tay
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 5, 2010
A US couple who gave their children Nazi-themed names, including Adolf Hitler Campbell, have been denied custody by a New Jersey court.
decision that there is insufficient evidence of abuse by the parents Heath and Deborah Campbell.
Their children – Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell – have been in foster care since January 2009.
The case first came to public attention after a supermarket refused to de
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 5, 2010
Pope Benedict XVI wanted to become a librarian 13 years ago but his request to quit the Vatican high office was rejected.
His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, declined his request to spend his last years as the archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives and as a librarian of the Vatican Library, according to the incumbent librarian and archivist Cardinal Raffaele Farina.
But he found his job “burdensome” and wanted to retire to academic study of ancient documents for the
Source: AP
August 5, 2010
The U.N. Security Council called on Iraq Thursday to address all outstanding issues related to Kuwait, oil-for-food program contracts, and disarmament so it can cancel sanctions and more than 70 resolutions adopted after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Iraq still has outstanding issues with Kuwait, including demarcation of the border, accounting for 600 missing Kuwaitis and the $24 billion debt Baghdad owes Kuwait as reparations for the invasion.
In May 2003, weeks after t
Source: AP
August 5, 2010
Reginald Levy, a pilot praised for his cool-headed bravery during a 1972 hijacking by Palestinian militants, has died at the age of 88, his daughter said Thursday.
Linda Lipschitz said her father died Sunday in Dover, southern England, of a suspected heart attack or blood clot.
Levy was a pilot for Belgian airline Sabena when he took off from Brussels bound for Tel Aviv on May 8, 1972 — his 50th birthday — with 90 passengers onboard. Mid-journey, the Boeing 707 was hija
Source: AP
August 5, 2010
Naomi Campbell testified before a war crimes tribunal Thursday that she had received some "dirty-looking stones" after a 1997 dinner party with former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor, but said she gave them to a children's charity -- a claim the group quickly denied.
Campbell, an extremely reluctant witness at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, was being questioned in Taylor's war crimes trial about claims made by actress Mia Farrow. Farrow had said Taylor gave the model an
Source: AP
August 5, 2010
Some 200 Germans have arrived in the Ukrainian capital to take part in actions aimed at apologizing for Nazi forebears' crimes in World War II.
A mourning procession from the German city of Tubingen walked Thursday along the so-called "death road" to the monument near Babi Yar ravine in Kiev, the site of one of the most horrific chapters of the Holocaust.
Processions by Germans also are expected in 15 other cities in Ukraine on Friday....
Source: CNN
August 5, 2010
President Obama, moving into campaign mode ahead of the midterm elections, has added new, sharper language to his stump speech – twice this week invoking the name of his predecessor.
Obama frequently criticizes Republican policies on the economy – that is certainly nothing new. But the latest wrinkle in Obama's rhetoric is that until now, he has avoided referring to former President Bush by name. That changed this week.
Thursday marked the second time in a week that Ob
Source: CNN
August 5, 2010
Solicitor General Elena Kagan was easily confirmed Thursday as the next associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, completing the 50-year-old native New Yorker's climb to the peak of the American legal profession.
The 63-37 vote was mostly along party lines. Five GOP senators backed Kagan, and only one Democrat -- Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska -- opposed her. Republican leaders offered spirited floor opposition to the nominee, but were unable to muster a prolonged delay or filibuste
Source: New York Observer
August 3, 2010
The way we look at 9/11 is about to undergo a radical change.
Quietly, as the city focuses on the ground zero mosque and Condé Nast's planned move to the neighborhood, Joe Daniels has been working on a $700 million monument to the dead. Mr. Daniels, president of the foundation behind the 9/11 Memorial and Museum at ground zero, is doing more than simply planning a museum-he and his team may well be reframing the dialogue about that day in a surprisingly forthright and confrontationa
