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: ArtDaily.org
February 5, 2010
More than a dozen dwelling, ritual and funerary sites, some of them more than 1,000 years old, were located inside shallow caves at Barranca de la Sinforosa (Sinforosa Gully), Chihuahua. According to preliminary studies, vestiges could correspond to Tubar people, an indigenous group that isolated in Tarahumara Mountain Range during Colonial times to avoid evangelization, and extinguished in late 19th century.
Nine dwelling sites, 2 ceremonial and 2 of funerary character were found i
Source: AFP
February 5, 2010
The father of evolution Charles Darwin was a direct descendant of the Cro-Magnon people, whose entry into Europe 30,000 years ago heralded the demise of Neanderthals, scientists revealed in Australia Thursday.
Darwin, who hypothesised that all humans evolved from common ancestors in his seminal 1859 work "On the Origin of Species", came from Haplogroup R1b, one of the most common European male lineages, said genealogist Spencer Wells.
Director of the Genograph
Source: BBC
February 5, 2010
He is Scotland's national poet, but his popularity extends beyond the shores of Ayrshire.
Few places have more of an ear for Burns than Northern Ireland, which has one of the largest collections of his works outside of Scotland in a Belfast library.
The Linenhall Library's Burns Collection was amassed by Andrew Gibson in the last decades of the 19th century. From Ayrshire himself, he was a governor of the library and it bought his collection in 1901 with £1,000 raised
Source: BBC
February 5, 2010
A Rwandan politician who stirred up controversy with comments on the genocide recently has been attacked by a group of men at a government office.
About 10 men set upon Victoire Ingabire and her driver as they waited for papers to register their party for next year's election.
She escaped unharmed but her driver was said to have serious injuries.
Ms Ingabire, a Hutu, was criticised last month for highlighting crimes against Hutus during the 1994 genocide.
Source: BBC
February 5, 2010
The leader of Plaid Cymru's MPs has said he has a memo showing Tony Blair and George Bush struck a secret deal to invade Iraq a year before the 2003 war.
Elfyn Llwyd told the BBC's Straight Talk he had written to Iraq Inquiry chair Sir John Chilcot to say he would be prepared to hand the document over.
He said the memo, which is marked "Top Secret and Confidential" contradicted statements made by Mr Blair.
Mr Blair previously told the inquiry he
Source: BBC
February 5, 2010
Nelson Mandela has celebrated the 20th anniversary of his release from prison with a special dinner, inviting ex-wife Winnie and one of his former jailers.
Mr Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president, was freed from Robben Island jail on 11 February 1990 after a prison sentence of 27 years.
Mr Mandela has said he developed a friendship with warder Christo Brand that cemented his views of humanity. Mr Mandela's daughter, Zindzi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 5, 2010
An online Shakespeare game based on Romeo and Juliet has become an internet hit, drawing in 22 million players worldwide.
"Romeo wherefore art thou" sees web users take on the role of one of Shakespeare's most famous characters, as he collects flowers for Juliet.
Initially commissioned by Shakespeare Country tourist site, the game has become a surprise hit with a third of the amount of the UK's population said to have played it.
The aim is to c
Source: Fox News
February 5, 2010
Republicans aren't the only ones opposed to a civilian trial for Sept. 11 conspirator Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his alleged four accomplices.
Attorney General Eric Holder's decision not to use a military commission to bring them to justice has driven a wedge between him and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, whose opposition is grounded in politics, according to the New Yorker.
Emanuel feared that a fight over Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could alienate key Republicans
Source: AP
February 5, 2010
Latvia sold a deserted town built around a Soviet-era radar station to a Russian investor who bid $3.1 million at an unusual auction Friday, officials said.
The town formerly known as Skrunda-1 housed about 5,000 people during the Cold War but was abandoned over a decade ago after the Russian military withdrew from Latvia following the Soviet collapse.
A representative of a Russian investor won the bidding contest in Latvia's capital, Riga, with an offer of $3.1 million
Source: AP
January 31, 2010
...Saturday's celebration was the first in which the dwindling remnants of Iran's once plentiful Zoroastrian religious minority were joined by thousands of Muslims, reflecting a growing interest in the strict Islamic society for the country's ancient traditions.
The festival, known as Sadeh, celebrates the discovery of fire and its ability to banish the cold and dark, and it is held in the frigid depths of winter.
Sadeh was the national festival of ancient Persia when Z
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
February 5, 2010
While many graduates of American colleges cannot answer basic civics questions, a higher education does make their opinions more liberal on controversial social issues, according to a new report issued on Friday by an academic think tank....
"The Shaping of the American Mind," the fourth report from the institute on civic literacy, will be formally released on Wednesday.
Richard A. Brake, a co-author of the report, said he and his colleagues had sought to see
Source: AP
February 4, 2010
A top German investigator said Thursday he is skeptical about a new claim by a Sobibor survivor who says he remembers John Demjanjuk as a guard at the Nazi death camp.
Thomas Walther, who led the investigation that prompted Germany to prosecute Demjanjuk, said if survivor Alexej Weizen did remember Demjanjuk, it almost certainly would have come up before in the roughly 30 years the retired U.S. autoworker has faced investigations of his past.
Weizen had given statements
Source: AP
February 3, 2010
[Note: The original headline on FOX News read"British Encyclopedia Apologizes for Mangling Irish Civil War History." Encyclopaedia Britannica has been an American publication since 1901.]
Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. apologized Wednesday for mangling the history of the Irish Civil War, a longtime screw-up detected only this year when an Internet version of the reference book was supplied to Ireland's 4,000 schools.
A concise version of the Britannica first published seven years
Source: ProPublica.org
February 5, 2010
...It’s official, recession hounds: The 26 states with insolvent unemployment insurance trust funds have now borrowed more than was borrowed during 1981 and 1982, the last time there was a severe recession in the U.S., and oft-used benchmark for when things are Officially Really Bad.
According to this long-buried CBO document (PDF) [2], in March 1983, total outstanding state loans were 13.7 billion, a figure that includes borrowing during 1981 and 1982 and the first quarter of 1983
Source: CNN
February 5, 2010
The last member of an ancient tribe that has inhabited an Indian island chain for around 65,000 years has died, a group that campaigns for the protection of indigenous peoples has said.
Boa Sr, who was around 85 years of age, died last week in the Andaman islands, about 750 miles off India's eastern coast, Survival International said in a statement.
The London-based group, which works to protect indigenous peoples, said she was the last member of one of ten distinct Gre
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 29, 2010
Lieutenant-Colonel Lee Archer, who died on January 27 aged 90, was a member of America's segregated "Tuskegee" air corps and recognised as the only black fighter "ace" during the Second World War; subjected to racial discrimination and prejudice, both within and outside the Army, he and his comrades none the less served their country with great distinction.
Strict racial segregation existed when Archer volunteered to be a pilot. He and like-minded African-America
Source: NYT
February 5, 2010
Experts at the respected Institute of Contemporary History in Munich say they want to prepare a critical, annotated version of the book for release when the copyright expires 70 years after Hitler’s suicide in his Berlin bunker.
“We hope to prevent neo-Nazi publications by putting out a commented, scholarly edition before that,” said Edith Raim, a historian at the institute. “‘Mein Kampf’ is one of the central texts if you want to explain National Socialism, and it hasn’t been avail
Source: WaPo
February 5, 2010
For 50 years now, the faces of the students have been etched in our memories, four young men at a lunch counter, nattily dressed, clean-shaven, looking over their shoulders, serious about their actions, perhaps a little uncertain about its results....
On Wednesday night on a plain stage at the National Museum of American History, a floor below where an eight-foot-long portion of that same lunch counter is on exhibit, stood living history. Now only three remain, Jibreel Khazan (forme
Source: Voice of America
February 5, 2010
Afghan-American writer, lecturer, and teacher Tamim Ansary is man ideally placed to help Westerners see the history of our world through another set of eyes. Growing up in Afghanistan as a young history buff, Ansary had an opportunity to read and learn about the world from dual perspectives. A decade ago, when he was working as a textbook editor, a publisher in Texas hired him to develop a new world history textbook for high school students....
Ansary begins with two lists of the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 5, 2010
A piano that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945 is to take centre stage in a peace concert in New York.
A group of Japanese musicians have been loaned the piano from its owner Yoko Matsuba, an 84-year-old survivor of the nuclear bombing.
The piano will be used in a concert taking place in the autumn at the United Nations headquarters in New York in order to promote global peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons.
The instrument was in the Hi
