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 9, 2010
An auction of the papers of Giorgio Vasari, the man credited with founding European art history, has been called off at the last moment.
The papers, which include letters to and from Michelangelo, were due to be auctioned to pay off tax debts.
But lawyers for their owners, an aristocratic Italian family, stepped in at the last minute, claiming they were being sold too cheaply.
Giorgio Vasari, himself an acclaimed artist, lived in the 16th Century.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 9, 2010
Tourists are to be banned from large areas of resorts on the Indian islands because of fears they will bring disease which could wipe out the 350 remaining members of a local tribe.
The Indian government has introduced a buffer zone around a reservation for the threatened Jarawa tribe on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and ordered the closure of an expensive beach resort in an attempt to save the tribe from being driven into extinction.
Its Attorney General has told t
Source: AP
March 8, 2010
A woman certified as the oldest person living in the United States has died.
Mary Josephine Ray, who was born in Canada, died Sunday at a nursing home in Westmoreland, New Hampshire, at age 114 years and 294 days old.
The Gerontology Research Group says that until her death, Ray was the oldest person in the United States and the second-oldest person in the world.
Source: BBC
March 9, 2010
The son of Rwanda's first President, Dominique Mbonyumutwa, has told the BBC he is protesting against an order to exhume his father's remains.
The mayor of Muhanga district has given the family 60 days to decide where they want the former president re-buried.
He was buried in Gitarama town's sports stadium, which is being redeveloped.
The stadium, called Democracy Stadium, is where Rwanda's Hutu leaders declared that the Tutsi monarchy would be abolished.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 9, 2010
The brother of Pope Benedict XVI has admitted that he slapped choirboys at the German choir school that he headed for 30 years, as the Vatican struggled to address burgeoning sex abuse scandals across Europe.
Georg Ratzinger, 86, who ran the choir from 1964 to 1994, said he now regretted using corporal punishment against his charges and asked their forgiveness.
The choir that he ran, the Domspatzen in Regensburg, Bavaria, has become the latest Catholic institution in
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 9, 2010
A collection of photographs from the Royal Marines' archive that show the Prince of Wales going through his commando training have emerged.
The collection also includes never-before-seen snaps of other well known royals including Diana, Princess of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh.
Other celebrities are also present in the photographs taken through the 1970s and 1980s and among them are The Krankies, Jimmy Saville and Larry Grayson.
The collection was com
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 9, 2010
David Kimche, the Israeli spy-turned-diplomat who played a key role in the Iran-Contra scandal that rocked President Ronald Reagan's administration, has died. He was 82.
The British-born Kimche began his career with Israel's Mossad spy agency in the 1950s after emigrating to Israel, and rose to deputy director of the agency. He later served as director-general of Israel's Foreign Ministry.
Kimche also is said to have been a key proponent of Israel's failed attempt to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 9, 2010
The corpse of the former Cyprus president, Tassos Papadopoulos, has been recovered by police three months after it was mysteriously snatched from the grave.
The body was found dumped at a cemetery in a suburb of Nicosia late on Monday following an anonymous telephone tip-off to police on the eastern Mediterranean island.
Mr Papadopoulos's grave was robbed on December 11 – the eve of the first anniversary of his death – in a crime that baffled Greek Cypriots.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 9, 2010
An alleged al-Qaeda terrorist cell arrested in the North West was within days of launching an attack on Britain a senior officer in MI5 has told a tribunal.
The men, who were arrested in Manchester and Liverpool in April last year, were said to be in direct contact with al-Qaeda in Pakistan, using coded email messages that talked about cars and girls.
They were said to be “operating in a similar manner” to those planning the mass casualty attacks of July 7 2005 and th
Source: CBC News
March 9, 2010
The government of Peru has withdrawn six of the 17 elements of its 2008 lawsuit against Yale University that demands the return of Inca artifacts removed from Machu Picchu.
Yale holds more than 4,000 pieces excavated from the ancient Peruvian city by history professor Hiram Bingham between 1911 and 1915.
Peru recently filed papers in U.S. Federal Court withdrawing its claims that Yale committed fraud and conspiracy in collecting the artifacts, which include silver statu
Source: NYT
March 8, 2010
Supporters of Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport contend that it might be the salvation of a city that, despite its incredible historical resonance, has become an economic and geographic backwater. Detractors vehemently argue that the airport will be just another misguided drain of money by a local government critics say has failed to help Berlin realize its potential despite the city’s status as one of the hottest destinations on the planet....
The landlocked capital on the e
Source: New Yorker
March 9, 2010
James Traficant, the flamboyant former Democratic congressman from Ohio who recently completed a seven-year stint in jail for bribery and racketeering, has announced that he plans to run for Congress this year as an independent. As I detail in my new book, “The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession,” Traficant’s history is much more sordid and disturbing than many realize, in ways that extend well beyond his conviction in 2002.
Traficant emerged out of p
Source: AP
March 9, 2010
A dozen centuries-old shipwrecks — some of them unusually well-preserved — have been found in the Baltic Sea by a gas company building an underwater pipeline between Russia and Germany.
The oldest wreck probably dates back to medieval times and could be up to 800 years old, while the others are likely from the 17th to 19th centuries, Peter Norman of Sweden's National Heritage Board said Tuesday.
"They could be interesting, but we have only seen pictures of their e
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 9, 2010
Feminism has been out of fashion but there are signs that women are becoming activists again, says Cassandra Jardine.
Trafalgar Square on Saturday afternoon was filled with marching women carrying feminist placards. “It’s more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier,” said one. “Turn your back on Page 3,” read another. When speakers called out: “Can you hear me, sister?” voices and arms were raised in enthusiastic response.
These weren’t the ageing remnants of Sixties and Seve
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
February 24, 2010
A sikh fighter pilot's life was saved by the padding in his turban after he was forced to ditch his plane in a WWII dogfight.
Squadron Leader Mohinder Singh Pujji, one of only a handful of Indian ace flyers in the RAF, crashed into the English Channel after his plane was shot down in a mid-air skirmish.
Advised to plant his stricken Hurricane in the sea because he was unable to swim, the 22-year-old nose-dived into the water.
Rescuers boarded boats to help
Source: Prague Monitor (Czech Rep.)
March 8, 2010
An expedition of Czech archaeologists has found remains of an about 150,000-year-old prehistoric settlement in Arbil, north Iraq, which has been the so far oldest uncovered in this part of northern Mesopotamia, team head Karel Novacek told reporters Friday.
The archaeologists revealed a high number of items, mainly prehistoric stone tools, about nine metres under the ground in Arbil, capital of the Kurdish autonomous region, said archaeologist Novacek, from the University of West Bo
Source: CNN
March 9, 2010
The magnitude-8.8 earthquake that rocked the west coast of Chile last month was violent enough to move the city of Concepcion at least 10 feet to the west and the capital, Santiago, about 11 inches to the west-southwest, researchers said.
The quake also shifted other parts of South America, as far apart as the Falkland Islands and Fortaleza, Brazil.
The results were reached via global positioning satellite measurements taken before and after the February 27 quake by teams fro
Source: CNN
March 9, 2010
Before he was a convicted serial killer, Rodney Alcala was a winning bachelor on "The Dating Game."
"Oh yeah, I remember it quite clearly," said Jed Mills, the game-show contestant who sat next to Alcala in 1978. "He was creepy. Definitely creepy."
Found guilty in February of murdering four women and a child, Alcala, 66, is acting as his own attorney in the penalty phase of the trial. He is hoping to persuade the jury in Santa Ana, California, to
Source: WaPo
March 9, 2010
Japan confirmed for the first time Tuesday the existence of once-secret Cold War-era pacts with the U.S. that tacitly allowed nuclear-armed warships to enter Japanese ports in violation of Tokyo's postwar principles.
While declassified U.S. documents have already confirmed such 1960s agreements, Tuesday's revelation broke with decades of official denials.
The investigation by a government-mandated panel is part of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's campaign to rein in the
Source: USA Today
March 8, 2010
The SS United States, America's greatest ocean liner and the fastest ship of its kind ever to cross the Atlantic, is in "imminent danger" of being sold and ripped up for scrap, according to a preservation group.
The SS United States Conservancy says Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), which owns the mothballed ship, has set a deadline this month for bids from buyers and could sell it soon to a scrapper.
"This is it," says Dan McSweeney, conservancy director
