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
June 5, 2010
Millions of documents stored at the World War II code-breaking centre, Bletchley Park, are set to be digitised and made available online.
Electronics company Hewlett-Packard has donated a number of scanners to the centre in Milton Keynes so volunteers can begin the ground-breaking task.
Many of the records at the once-secret centre have not been touched for years.
During the war, it was home to more than 10,000 men and women who decoded encrypted German
Source: BBC
June 3, 2010
A cartoon that appears to refer to the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square has been printed in a Chinese newspaper.
The image, in the Southern Metropolitan Daily, shows a boy drawing a person standing in front of three tanks.
Online commentators have likened the image to the photograph of "tank man", the protester who stopped a column of tanks during the demonstrations.
It appeared in the paper days before the 21st anniversary of the crackdown in
Source: BBC
June 4, 2010
Five former intelligence and military officials in Argentina have gone on trial on charges of murdering 65 people.
They are accused of kidnapping, torturing, and killing left-wing activists under the country's military rule between 1976 and 1983.
Human rights groups hope the trial will shed light on Operation Condor, a joint effort among South American military rulers aimed at suppressing opposition.
The five have denied the charges.
Source: BBC
June 2, 2010
A statue of Shaka Zulu has been removed from the new airport in South Africa's port city of Durban after complaints about the warrior king's portrayal.
In it he is unarmed and surrounded by cattle, but some think the king should have a spear, shield and wild animals.
The current Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini has also questioned the statue's airport location, reports say.
Once an agreement has been reached on a new design, the statue will be put back up,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 4, 2010
China decided that it had no choice but to "spill some blood" during the Tiananmen Square massacre in order to preserve stability, a new memoir by a top leader of the time has claimed.
The phrase, attributed to China's then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, appears in a previously suppressed diary which publishers say will lift the veil of secrecy over how the decision was made to send in the tanks on the night of June 3-4.
Leaked extracts of the diary said to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 4, 2010
Congressman John Boehner, a leading Republican, has demanded Sir Paul McCartney apologise for mocking former president George W Bush during a star-studded event at the White House.
Mr Boehner, the House Minority Leader, was outraged after Sir Paul made clear his admiration for president Barack Obama when receiving the third Gershwin Prize for song-writing.
He then concluded by saying: "After the last eight years, it's great to have a president who knows what a lib
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 4, 2010
Two fragments of papyrus featuring the handwriting of Cleopatra have gone on display featuring the latest discoveries in the search for her long-lost tomb.
The document with the Greek inscription, "make it happen," refers to a tax break for a friend of her husband Mark Antony. It is one of 150 artifacts in an exhibition featuring the latest discoveries in an intensifying search for her long-lost tomb.
Some of the items in "Cleopatra - the Search for the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 4, 2010
A musical based on the life of John Paul II is to open in Rome next week featuring big dance numbers as it covers key events in his life.
The unlikely spectacular will cover moments in his life, including his early years under Nazi occupation in his native Poland, his struggle against Communism and his election as pontiff in 1978.
It will also depict the attempt on his life in 1981, when a Turkish gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca, shot him in the stomach, hand and arm as the p
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 4, 2010
Germany's two main neo-Nazi parties are considering plans to merge in an attempt to gain popularity, according to reports.
The National Democratic Party (NPD) and the German People's Union (DVU), who have face flagging membership and money problems, are reportedly asking members their thoughts, according to sources at the NPD's party conference in Bamberg.
According to the newspaper Tagespiegel, the DVU in particular needs to merge in order to avoid being wiped out. Th
Source: AP
June 4, 2010
A colleague says a U.S. law professor charged in Rwanda with denying the country's 1994 genocide remains jailed.
Gena Berglund says she spoke Friday with U.S. embassy officials in Kigali, Rwanda who attended the hearing for professor Peter Erlinder. Berglund has worked with Erlinder in Minnesota on humanitarian issues.
Berglund says a judge in Rwanda is expected to issue a decision in Erlinder's case Monday.
Source: AP
June 5, 2010
A few notes scribbled in the margins, some brief e-mails and occasional memos help paint only a faint picture of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan when she served as a domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton.
There's a rough outline, but little definition. And as with many faded or blurry pictures, there's just enough material for people to see what they want in the woman President Barack Obama has tapped for the Supreme Court.
Discussing the effects of the 19
Source: CNN
June 4, 2010
Sometimes, good things are worth waiting for. Even almost 70 years.
Just ask Robert Judson Bell. The 88-year-old World War II Navy veteran was reunited this week with the wallet he lost way back in 1941 while undergoing naval training in Chicago. It may not have contained any money, but its value to Bell and his family can't be understated. Inside were two photographs of his first wife, who had died in a 1948 car crash.
And so it remained lost, for nearly 45 years. Ente
Source: Jakarta Post
June 3, 2010
Despite being rich in sunken treasure, Indonesia is undecided whether to ratify a world convention that protects underwater cultural heritage, a senior official said Wednesday at a workshop for officials and academics in Jakarta.
“Indonesia still needs to carefully weigh up the benefits and consequences of ratifying [the convention],” Hari Untoro Drajat, the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s director general for history and archaeology said.
He said ratifying the UNESCO conventi
Source: Discovery News
June 3, 2010
Tantalizing new clues are surfacing in the Amelia Earhart mystery, according to researchers scouring a remote South Pacific island believed to be the final resting place of the legendary aviatrix.
Three pieces of a pocket knife and fragments of what might be a broken cosmetic glass jar are adding new evidence that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan landed and eventually died as castaways on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribat
Source: BBC News
April 6, 2010
US actress Rue McClanahan, star of TV show The Golden Girls, has died following a stroke at the age of 76, her manager has announced.
The award-winning performer played feisty Southern belle Blanche in the popular series.
McClanahan, who underwent heart bypass surgery last year, is the third of the main cast members to pass away.
Only Betty White remains, following the deaths of Estelle Getty and Bea Arthur, who died in 2008 and 2009.
White, 88
Source: WSJ
June 4, 2010
...The first national spelling bee was held in 1925, and this year's competition will feature 273 spellers from the U.S. and around the world. Interestingly, English is not even the first language of 21 of those spellers, and Scripps reports that 102 of the contestants speak other languages, from Hebrew to Hindi.
Given this amazing diversity united under one language, the author of America's first dictionary and the originator of uniform spelling in America (which makes the Bee poss
Source: BBC News
June 3, 2010
Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is set to go on trial on charges of corruption, including attempting to sell President Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat.
Mr Blagojevich has denied all 24 charges which include racketeering, wire fraud, attempted extortion and bribery.
He was arrested 18 months ago along with his brother and co-defendant, Robert Blagojevich.
The trial begins with jury selection.
Mr Blagojevich, who intends to take the wi
Source: digital emunction
May 30, 2010
For nearly four decades, there’s been an open question about the 1971 coup that brought dictator Hugo Banzer Suárez to power in Bolivia: was the U.S. government involved? Thanks to newly declassified documents, we now have an answer.
Banzer was a dictator of Bolivia from 1971-8 and a democratically elected president from 1997-2001. His three-day coup in August 1971 was significant not only for the fighting that accompanied it, which left 110 dead and 600 wounded, but for the seven-y
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 3, 2010
One of Monet's celebrated water-lily paintings is to be auctioned in London for a price expected to reach up to £40 million.
The painting - dating back a century and from his most famous series of works - will be part of the most valuable art auction yet to take place in the city later this month.
The impressionist and modern art at Christie's sale also features a ''blue period'' Picasso, also tipped to go for up to £40 million, after being withdrawn from sale four ye
Source: MSNBC
June 3, 2010
The Stone Age version of successful businessmen like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates might have been involved in the color and glue trade.
A once-thriving 58,000-year-old ochre powder production site has just been discovered in South Africa. The discovery offers a glimpse of what early humans valued and used in their everyday lives.
The finding, which will be described in the Journal of Archaeological Science, also marks the first time that any Stone Age site has yielded evid
