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 News
May 17, 2010
A reconstruction has revealed the face of a medieval knight whose skeleton was discovered at Stirling Castle.
Experts are now attempting to discover the identity of the warrior, who is likely to have been killed in the 13th or 14th Century.
The skeleton is one of 10 excavated from the site of a lost royal chapel at the castle. The skeleton of a woman was found near the knight.
Forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black is leading the investigation.
Source: BBC News
May 17, 2010
After the arrest of a man in Kosovo on war crimes charges this month, the BBC's Nick Thorpe visits Albania, which is at the centre of the EU-led investigation into torture and murder.
The Hotel Drenica still graces the sea-front in Durres, on Albania's Adriatic coast - one of a long line of hotels and restaurants waiting for the summer influx of tourists.
Children take their first dip of the season in the warming sea, while their parents sip coffee and watch them from t
Source: The Atlantic
May 18, 2010
For months, the Western and Asian punditry alike have brooded over the threat of a Thai civil war.
Outside of academic circles and op-ed pages, however, this scenario has been largely regarded as hysterical. The silliness seemed to peak last month when charitable groups attempted showings of "Hotel Rwanda" in Bangkok on huge outdoor screens -- a cautionary tale for Thais consumed with class hatred.
But now, the Thai capital looks, smells, and sounds like war.
Source: BBC News
May 18, 2010
Archaeologists say they have discovered an ancient tomb inside a pyramid in Chiapas in southern Mexico.
They say it could be 2,700 years old, making it the oldest burial site in a pyramid in Mesoamerica.
Inside the tomb, they found the skeletons of four people, one of them of a man surrounded by jade and amber.
The researchers believe he could have been a high priest or ruler of Chiapa de Corzo, a prominent settlement at the time.
Rich offering
Source: BBC News
May 17, 2010
Kim Phuc, the girl in one of the unforgettable images of the Vietnam War, has been reunited for a BBC radio programme with Christopher Wain, the ITN correspondent who helped save her life 38 years ago.
When Chris last saw Kim, she was lying on a hospital bed with first-degree burns to more than half of her body, after a South Vietnamese napalm bomb attack.
It was 8 June 1972 and Chris and his crew had been in Vietnam for seven weeks, covering the conflict for ITN.
Source: BBC News
May 17, 2010
The worldwide eradication of smallpox may, inadvertently, have helped spread HIV infection, scientists believe.
Experts say the vaccine used to wipe out smallpox offered some protection against the Aids virus and, now it is no longer used, HIV has flourished.
The US investigators said trials indicated the smallpox jab interferes with how well HIV multiplies.
But they say in the journal BMC Immunology it is too early to recommend smallpox vaccine for fightin
Source: BBC News
May 18, 2010
An Iranian convicted of the 1991 murder of Iranian former Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar has been released from prison in France.
Ali Vakili Rad, who faced a deportation order, boarded a flight from Orly airport to Tehran soon after leaving his prison in Poissy under escort.
Iran recently freed a French teacher who had been convicted of espionage after the presidential election.
France has denied any deal with Iran to secure Clotilde Reiss's release.
Source: Lee P Ruddin
May 17, 2010
Simon Jenkins gave the 15th Annual Douglas W. Bryant Lecture at the British Library on Monday evening.
Speaking before a packed auditorium, the prominent journalist and author chronicled the history of anti-Americanism from the late 19th century to the early twenty-first. The 35-minute lecture spanned Charles Dickens to the shift in global opinion from “sympathy to dismay post-9/11”.
Since 1993 the Eccles Centre has hosted an annual lecture named in memory of Douglas W
Source: Science Daily
May 17, 2010
The six-foot-long babies of the world's biggest shark species, Carcharocles megalodon, frolicked in the warm shallow waters of an ancient shark nursery in what is now Panama, report paleontologists working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the University of Florida.
Paleontologists from the Smithsonian and the University of Florida collected more than 400 fossil shark teeth from Panama´s 10-million-year-old Gatun Formation as part of ongoing work to reveal the origi
Source: Science Daily
May 17, 2010
A mass extinction of fish 360 million years ago hit the reset button on Earth's life, setting the stage for modern vertebrate biodiversity, a new study reports.
The mass extinction scrambled the species pool near the time at which the first vertebrates crawled from water towards land, University of Chicago scientists report. Those few species that survived the bottleneck were the evolutionary starting point for all vertebrates -- including humans -- that exist today, according to a
Source: Science Daily
May 17, 2010
Mediterranean is the birthplace of ancient peoples and cultures, but has it acted as a bridge or a barrier in the genetic history of northern and southern populations? Gene flow and population structure on the north and south shores of the Mediterranean form the basis of the work published recently by the Human Population Genetics research group, directed by Pedro Moral of the Department of Animal Biology at the University of Barcelona.
The research, published in two separate artic
Source: Independent (UK)
May 17, 2010
A colossal statue of the ancient Egyptian god Thoth, the deity of wisdom, is the latest artefact to be discovered near the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III during archaeological works aimed at controlling the subterranean water level on Luxor's west bank.
The 3.5 metre tall red granite statue is one of several artefacts discovered in the area since excavations began. The head of a 2.5 metre high statue depicting Pharaoh Amenhotep III in a standing position – possibly the best prese
Source: USA Today
May 17, 2010
Human footprints frozen in time, lodged in volcanic ash in a Mexican valley, seemed poised to rock history.
In the current Journal of Human Evolution, a study tells the story of how they didn't — and how science checks out extraordinary claims.
A handful of sites, notably a suspected hearth in Chile's Monte Verde ruins suggest some people arrived a bit earlier, perhaps 15,000 years ago. But 40,000-year-old footprints in Mexico would suggest that prehistoric modern human
Source: AP
May 16, 2010
Israeli antiquities authorities operating under heavy police guard began relocating ancient graves on Sunday to make way for construction of a hospital emergency room, setting off protests from ultra-Orthodox Jews who say Jewish remains are being disturbed.
Officers forcibly carried off dozens of demonstrators who had staged a sit-in to try to stop the work outside Barzilai Hospital in the southern city of Ashkelon. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said 30 protesters were arrested.
Source: The Jakart Globe
May 14, 2010
Given the country’s thousands of sprawling islands, key shipping lanes and bounty of shipwrecks, the government should immediately draft legislation on the recovery and management of sunken treasures, stakeholders said.
Last week’s lack of bidders at an auction of 10th-century ceramics and jewelry recovered from the depths was clear proof that the government had a long way to go toward managing such items, said speakers at a discussion organized by the Indonesian Heritage Trust (BP
Source: AOL News
May 17, 2010
Recent decay at some of Rome's most famed archaeological sites is fueling a debate on the precarious state of the Eternal City's historical heritage in the face of government budget cuts.
About half a square yard of mortar fell off Rome's Colosseum earlier this month, fortunately so early in the morning that the usually crowded downtown square hosting the amphitheater was deserted. Archaeologists who rushed to the site have downplayed the alarm, saying the falling mortar was not a
Source: BBC
May 17, 2010
The Ulster Museum in Belfast has been short-listed for the UK's largest single arts prize.
The Art Fund Prize annually awards £100,000 to a museum or gallery for a project completed in the last year.
News of the shortlisting follows the announcement that the museum has lifted a prestigious award for the best permanent exhibition in the UK.
Since reopening last October, the museum has become Northern Ireland's busiest tourist attraction with current visit
Source: BBC
May 14, 2010
South Africa's governing African National Congress has paid tribute to the apartheid-era politician Frederik van Zyl Slabbert who has died aged 70.
Mr Slabbert was best known for his efforts in the late 1980s to open up dialogue between Afrikaners and the then-exiled ANC.
He was one of the few members of South Africa's white-dominated parliament to oppose apartheid.
The ANC said he had made an "indelible mark" in fighting white minority rule.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 17, 2010
An ambitious plan to build a mosque next to New York's Ground Zero has angered residents of the city.
Supporters of the project say the planned multi-storey Islamic centre would transform both the drab lower Manhattan street and the way Americans have interacted with Muslims since nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Boasting a mosque with sports facilities, a theatre and possibly day care, the centre would be open to all visitors to demonstr
Source: AP
May 16, 2010
The White House on Saturday asked Bill Clinton's presidential library to speed the release of more than 160,000 pages of paper, including e-mail, in its possession from Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's tenure as a Clinton adviser in the 1990s.
In a letter to the U.S. archivist, White House counsel Bob Bauer said he was requesting the expedited release to aid the Senate's review of Kagan's nomination. Kagan currently is the U.S. solicitor general.
Kagan has never been
