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: LA Times
June 3, 2010
An Armenian church based in La Crescenta has filed a civil lawsuit against the Getty Museum, claiming the institution illegally bought seven pages from a sacred Bible.
The Western Prelacy claims that the seven pages, which date back to 1256, were ripped from the Armenian Orthodox Church's Zeyt'un Gospels during the Armenian Genocide, according to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The Western Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Americas is
Source: BBC
June 3, 2010
Calls from a former tour guide for a statue to Henry VII at the castle where he was born are being backed by the area's new MP.
Melanie Phillips has been campaigning for the monument at Pembroke Castle where she once worked.
The king, who founded the Tudor dynasty, was born in the castle in 1457 and lived there until he was 11.
Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire MP Simon Hart said he would help to find funding for the statue.
Source: BBC
June 3, 2010
The medals of a British army officer who overslept and found himself surrounded by 30,000 rebels during the Indian Mutiny have been sold.
A spokesman for Bosleys auctioneers in central England told the BBC that the medals fetched $6,443 (£4,400).
The medals belonged to Capt Thomas Waterman, who was reputedly the last British officer to escape from the city of Lucknow as it was sacked.
The siege of Lucknow began in 1857 after an uprising by Indian soldier
Source: BBC
June 3, 2010
Russian authorities are preparing to remove a huge arsenal of shells from a sunken German World War II barge off the Baltic coast.
The wreck is just 1.5km (0.9 miles) from the shore, near the town of Baltiysk, and about 20m (66ft) down.
More than 10,000 shells containing explosives are on board, but without detonators, a Russian government official told the BBC.
The removal work could take two years, Maxim Vladimirov said.
Source: BBC
June 3, 2010
A US lawyer arrested on allegations of genocide denial tried to commit suicide in his cell, Rwandan officials said.
Peter Erlinder arrived in Rwanda last week to help defend opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who has been charged with promoting genocide ideology last month.
Police spokesman Eric Kayiranga said Mr Erlinder has "admitted" that he tried to kill himself.
His daughter told the BBC shes does not believe he would try to take
Source: BBC
June 3, 2010
British Airways has apologised after a photograph in a staff magazine showed a frequent flyer boarding pass in the name of Osama Bin Laden.
The image appeared on the front page of LHR News and was meant to promote the benefits of online check-in.
It showed a passenger holding up an iPhone displaying a boarding pass in the name Bin Laden/Osama, seat 07-C.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 3, 2010
The oldest member of Sweden's royal family will not attend the royal wedding as she has Alzheimer's disease.
Princess Lilian, 94, will miss Crown Princess Victoria's wedding to Daniel Westlin in two weeks due to her deteriorating health.
The Welsh-born princess, the widow of Prince Bertil, an uncle of King Carl XVI Gustaf, has cut down on her royal duties in recent years for health reasons.
The princess married Prince Bertil in 1976 after initially meeting
Source: BBC News
May 31, 2010
You only really start to understand the place when you get a feel for its past. And a nation's history isn't only to be found on its battlefields, or in the ruins of its castles. It also lies in the bones of its culture - in its poems, in its music, and in the stories your neighbours might tell you.
The door-handles of my old Berlin apartment are beautiful. Brass, art nouveau and engraved with flowers worn smooth by more than 100 years of hands - the hands of those who lived here be
Source: Civil War Interactive
June 2, 2010
At a land transfer ceremony this afternoon, the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT), the nation’s largest nonprofit battlefield preservation organization, formally donated 54 acres of hallowed ground associated with the October 1862 Battle of Perryville to the Commonwealth of Kentucky for integration into the Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site.
“Today we celebrate a great step forward for one of Kentucky’s outstanding historic sites,” said Tourism, Arts and Heritage Secretar
Source: Ridgefield Press (CT)
June 3, 2010
Donning a 1944 Navy nurse cape and cap, Ridgefielder Evelyn Wisner joined the town’s Memorial Day parade for the first time this year.
Ms. Wisner was 22 years old when she signed up to become a Navy flight nurse in World War II.
At 89, she remembers treating patients while flying high over the South Pacific as clearly as ever.
“World War II is pretty much history — there aren’t many of us left,” Ms. Wisner said to fellow World War II veterans at a meeting o
Source: Der Spiegel (Germany)
June 2, 2010
It has long been known that German civilians fell victim to Czech excesses immediately following the Nazi surrender at the end of World War II. But a newly discovered video shows one such massacre in brutal detail. And it has come as a shock to the Czech Republic.
For decades, the images lay forgotten in an aluminum canister -- almost seven minutes of original black and white film, shot with an 8 mm camera on May 10, 1945, in the Prague district of Borislavka during the confusing da
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 3, 2010
Aeroplanes, organ transplants and even scratch and sniff paper are among a "remarkable" set of predictions made in the 17th century by one of Britain's forefathers of science, it has been revealed.
The chemist Robert Boyle made the "wish list" as he helped found the Royal Society, the world's first scientific body in 1660s London.
The predictions, which also include submarines, genetically modified crops and psychedelic drugs, were unveiled as the ce
Source: CNN
June 3, 2010
Efraim Zuroff's great-uncle was kidnapped in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 13, 1941, by a gang of Lithuanians "roaming the streets of the city looking for Jews with beards to arrest."
"He was taken to Lukiskis Prison -- to this day the main jail in the city -- and was murdered shortly thereafter," says Zuroff. So were his wife and two boys.
Born seven years later in Brooklyn, New York, Zuroff was named for his great-uncle and grew up questioning his Am
Source: BBC News
June 3, 2010
The Ukrainian parliament has approved a bill that effectively rejects any ambition to join Nato.
The law, submitted by President Viktor Yanukovych, cements Ukraine's status as a military non-aligned country - though it will co-operate with Nato.
President Yanukovych was elected earlier this year, vowing to end Ukraine's Nato membership ambitions and mend relations with Russia.
His predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, had pursued a pro-Western foreign policy.
Source: NYT
June 2, 2010
It has been five years since a former curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles went on trial in Rome for conspiring to traffic in stolen antiquities. The case has become a cornerstone of Italy’s aggressive campaign to recover ancient treasures from around the United States and has led major American museums to make their peace with the Italian government. As the museums have relinquished dozens of artworks that Italy claims were looted, receiving loans of other objects in exchange, off
Source: AFP
June 2, 2010
Pigs ears, smoked udders or veal lungs? French archaeologists this week begin examining the remains of an open-air banquet shovelled underground almost 30 years ago as an art performance.
Supervised by the creme-de-la-creme of French archaeology, a bunch of dusty diggers are unearthing the leftovers from a work now known as "Lunch Under The Grass" -- a meal for 80 in sumptuous gardens south of Paris where the star course was offal.
On April 23, 1983, Swiss art
Source: Guardian
June 2, 2010
Comparisons between modern Muslim-Christian tensions and the crusades of 1099 are a 'distortion', announces Tom Asbridge at the Hay festival.
Christian and Muslim attempts to draw parallels between the tensions of today and the crusades of almost 1,000 years ago are a distortion and manipulation of history, according to historian Tom Asbridge.
Speaking at the Guardian Hay festival today, Asbridge, author of two books on the crusades, argued that the modern belief that t
Source: BBC
June 1, 2010
A former World War II aviator who survived being shot down by the Germans and was helped by the French Resistance afterwards has died.
Arthur Pritchard, who was 86, from Felinheli, Gwynedd, spent most of his life driving JCBs and digging holes or demolishing things.
But he was one of only two survivors when his Lancaster bomber crashed in flames in northern France in 1944.
His funeral will take place at St Mary's Church, Felinheli, on Thursday.
Source: BBC
June 2, 2010
A campaign to feature social pioneer Robert Owen on banknotes is being taken to the Scottish parliament.
MSPs will debate a motion by Labour MSP Bill Butler calling for Owen to feature on Scottish notes in time for the United Nations Year of Co-operatives in 2012.
Owen pioneered co-operative values during his time as mill manager at New Lanark from the late 18thCentury. Child labour was abolished and the workers were provided with homes, education and health care.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 2, 2010
Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has compared the Gaza flotilla attack with America's fight against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
In an interview with Fox News, he described the operation, in which nine people died, as "perfectly legal, perfectly humane – and very responsible".
His comments came as Israel began deporting hundreds of activists seized from the flotilla, including more than 120 activists from Muslim countries who
