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
March 11, 2010
Britain should apologise to a former Bosnian president for "mistreating" him in prison, the chairman of the joint presidency of Bosnia-Hercegovina said.
Former Bosnian President Ejup Ganic, 64, was arrested at Heathrow over war crimes allegations on 1 March at the request of Serbia. He was later bailed.
Haris Silajdzic, chairman of the joint presidency of Bosnia-Hercegovina, said Mr Ganic was denied basic rights. Mr Ganic is a
Source: BBC
March 12, 2010
This is a struggle between Israel and Germany, between a Jewish refugee family from Prague and Israeli public opinion over a collection of papers that might include unpublished works by the celebrated 20th Century writer Franz Kafka.
Kafka became famous in spite of himself. Just before he died in 1924, the young novelist, who suffered from various mental and physical illnesses, entrusted his friend, Max Brod, with a collection of handwritten documents.
He asked him to
Source: BBC
March 11, 2010
The arrest of a former Bosnian president is still causing diplomatic fallout, even after the decision by the High Court in London on Thursday to release him on bail.
Ejup Ganic was arrested on 1 March on a Serbian extradition request alleging war crimes committed in 1992. His arrest sparked demonstrations outside the British embassy in Sarajevo and diplomatic protests.
But speaking in London after his release, the Bosnian President Haris Silajdzic said he had told the
Source: BBC
March 12, 2010
New York City officials have agreed to pay up to $657.5m (£437m) to thousands of rescue and clean-up workers after 9/11.
The settlement would compensate more than 10,000 plaintiffs who say they were made sick by dust at the Ground Zero site of the attacks.
At least 95% of the plaintiffs must approve the deal for it to take effect. The money would come from a federally financed insurance fund of almost $1bn that the city controls.
Source: BBC
March 12, 2010
Winnie Mandela, the former wife of ex-President Nelson Mandela, has denied giving an interview accusing him of letting down black South Africans.
Ms Madikizela-Mandela said the article, published in London's Evening Standard newspaper this week, was a fabrication.
The article was written by Nadira Naipaul, the wife of Nobel prize-winning author VS Naipaul.
The Mandelas, who were both leaders in the struggle against South Africa's minority white rule, divo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 12, 2010
An atheist has claimed in court that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" on US currency should be removed on the grounds they breach his constitutional rights as a non believer.
The San Francisco-based 9th U S Circuit Court of Appeals panel rejected two legal challenges by Michael Newdow, a doctor, who said the references to God are unconstitutional and infringe on his religious beliefs.
The same appeals court ca
Source: National Geographic
March 9, 2010
According to the first known evidence of "double burials," ancient people in what is now Mexico routinely dug up decomposing bodies and took off their arms, legs, and heads, then reburied the bodies, new research shows.
Indigenous peoples of the Cape Region of Baja California Sur (see map) practiced these double burials for about 4,500 years, from about 300 B.C. to the 16th-century A.D, when Europeans first arrived in the region, anthropologists say.
To the na
Source: Medieval News
March 11, 2010
Archaeologists have found saxon pottery on the site of the new adventure playground for the town of Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, England
Further investigations will take place, but the find will not delay the start of work on the £800,000 project.
The adventure playground is an investment from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to provide the facility for the Waterlees district, which was identified as an area of ‘play deprivation’.
An e
Source: BBC News
March 12, 2010
Imagine a number of safety deposit boxes, in different banks in different countries. No-one is quite sure what's inside them.
Yet private individuals, state bodies and commercial institutions are locked in a seemingly endless legal battle to own their contents.
Sounds like a Kafka novel? Well, almost.
This is a struggle between Israel and Germany, between a Jewish refugee family from Prague and Israeli public opinion over a collection of papers that might i
Source: NYT
March 10, 2010
Even as a panel of educators laid out a vision Wednesday for national standards for public schools, the Texas school board was going in a different direction, holding hearings on changes to its social studies curriculum that would portray conservatives in a more positive light, emphasize the role of Christianity in American history and include Republican political philosophies in textbooks.
The hearings are the latest round in a long-running cultural battle on the 15-member State Bo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 12, 2010
Germany is fighting to keep sealed the Eichmann files detailing the years the Holocaust's chief logistics organiser spent on the run before he was captured by Mossad agents.
Those hoping to have a 50-year secrecy order overturned believe the government is embarrassed by details within that may prove German and Vatican officials colluded in his escape and freedom.
The secrecy order is being challenged in a benchmark court case against the BND, Germany's domestic intellig
Source: BBC News
March 11, 2010
Parts of routes believed to have been followed by Jacobites attempting a night assault could be recreated in a new network of public footpaths.
The National Trust for Scotland (NTS) said elements of the ill-fated night march of April 1746 could be a feature of the project at Culloden.
However, the trust stressed the paths idea was still in the early stages.
Supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie tried to march from Culloden to Nairn to attack Hanoverian troops
Source: Houston Chronicle
March 11, 2010
The State Board of Education's Hispanic and African-American members clashed with its Anglo majority for hours Thursday over how to present history to the state's 4.7 million public school children.
Much of the conflict centered on the racial balance of the historical figures to be included in textbooks starting in the 2011-2012 school year. Tempers boiled over when sex or religion were added to the mix.
Members grew increasingly distraught over the process as they move
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 12, 2010
Candid pictures of John Lennon which have never been seen in public have been found after being kept hidden in a photographer's drawer for more than 40 years.
The extraordinary photos of the musician and Yoko Ono, taken during their famous Bed-in for Peace in Montreal in 1969, snapped by Life photographer Gerry Deiter.
He was the only photojournalist allowed to witness and document the bed-in for the full eight days and managed to capture pictures of the couple totally
Source: BBC News
March 12, 2010
Imagine a number of safety deposit boxes, in different banks in different countries. No-one is quite sure what's inside them.
Yet private individuals, state bodies and commercial institutions are locked in a seemingly endless legal battle to own their contents.
Sounds like a Kafka novel? Well, almost.
This is a struggle between Israel and Germany, between a Jewish refugee family from Prague and Israeli public opinion over a collection of papers that might i
Source: Salon.com
March 12, 2010
Austrian government officials say they have identified at least two mass graves of Nazi victims on property used by the army.
Interior Ministry spokesman Rudolf Gollia says talks will be sought with the owners of the site to discuss possible exhumation. He said Friday he did not know whether the army owns the property or rents it.
The mass graves are located underneath an army sports field in the southern city of Graz. Government officials say they contain about 70 bodi
Source: BBC News
March 12, 2010
Fifty-one decapitated skeletons found in a burial pit in Dorset were those of Scandinavian Vikings, scientists say.
Mystery has surrounded the identity of the group since they were discovered at Ridgeway Hill, near Weymouth, in June.
Analysis of teeth from 10 of the men revealed they had grown up in countries with a colder climate than Britain's.
Archaeologists from Oxford believe the men were probably executed by local Anglo Saxons in front of an audience
Source: AP
March 10, 2010
Tourists and history buffs will be able to see some rare, personal belongings of abolitionist Harriet Tubman when a museum of African-American history opens on the National Mall.
On Wednesday, historian Charles L. Blockson donated about 40 objects from Tubman's life to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.
The museum is slated to open near the Washington Monument in 2015.
Once owned by the woman who led hundreds of slave
Source: WaPo
March 11, 2010
When visitors walk into the lobby, they are greeted by the likenesses of Frederick Douglass and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. If they take a right at the statue of a shirtless President Abraham Lincoln, they will be flanked by four murals, one showing Gen. Andrew Jackson on a white horse at the Battle of New Orleans and another a dying Col. Robert Gould Shaw being held by a soldier of his Massachusetts 54th Regiment during the Civil War.
But this isn't a museum. It's a government
Source: ABC News (Australia)
March 10, 2010
Archaeologists say they may have found proof of the oldest and most southerly human habitation in the world at the site of a major road project in Tasmania.
Archaeologists and Aboriginal heritage officers have been removing sediment from eight trenches along the Jordan River levee at the Brighton roadworks site, north of Hobart.
Initial findings suggest the sediment is between 28,000 and 40,000 years old, making it the oldest, most southern site of human habitation in t
