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: Independent (UK)
January 18, 2009
The most complete ancient Greek ship ever found – which is being painstakingly pieced back together by marine archaeology experts in Portsmouth – is shown here as it would probably have looked when it sailed around the Greek islands at the time of Homer.
Discovered in silt off the coast of Sicily, the vessel is believed to be around 2,500 years old. It arrived in boxes at the Mary Rose Centre in Portsmouth Harbour last week for what is expected to be a 10-year programme of preserva
Source: Deutsche Welle
January 17, 2009
In a new project known as "Zeitungszeugen," copies of German newspapers from the 1930s and 1940s are published in a weekly series aimed at schools and the general public.
The first issue of reprints begins with the day that Adolf Hitler was elected German chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933. "Reichskanzler Hitler," reads the headline.
Intended for educational purposes, the facsimiles are annotated by German historians and juxtaposed with texts published by
Source: BBC
January 19, 2009
Kaing Guek Eav - better known as Comrade Duch - will be the first in the dock, facing charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
He ran Tuol Sleng prison, where detainees were tortured and executed.
As many as two million people are thought to have died during the Khmer Rouge government in the late 1970s.
The process of bringing the regime's leaders to court has suffered years of procedural delays, and no major figures have yet stood trial.
Source: Foxnews
January 18, 2009
Bush bashers say they aren't going to let the inauguration of Barack Obama get in the way of their effort to have the president prosecuted on war crimes.
Activists who have spent years protesting President Bush admit their chances are slim of seeing Bush or any members of his administration face legal recourse for what they say are "crimes against humanity."
Several activists hoped to squeeze out a few parting shots against the outgoing president in the run-u
Source: IHT
January 19, 2009
The destruction of this 800-year-old city usually proceeds as follows: the Chinese character for "demolish" mysteriously appears on the front of an old building, the residents wage a fruitless battle to save their homes, and quicker than you can say "Celebrate the New Beijing," a wrecking crew arrives, often accompanied by the police, to pulverize the brick-and-timber structure.
But before another chunk of ancient Beijing disappears entirely, a hospice administra
Source: IHT
January 17, 2009
When John Beyrle, the new American ambassador to Moscow, appeared on a Russian radio show shortly after Russia's five-day war with Georgia, the questions he got were predictably in-your-face. Is Washington planning to rearm Georgia? Is it true that the United States is sneaking weapons into Georgia disguised as humanitarian aid?
And then: Is it true that your father was a Soviet soldier?
The answer, which Beyrle delivered on the air in flawless Russian, has to be one of
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 19, 2009
Barack Obama will call on Americans to replace the "anything goes" culture of recent years with a new "era of responsibility" in his inaugural address.
Aides said the President-Elect's first words as president would hark back to John F Kennedy's plea to "ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country".
Rahm Emanuel, who will be chief of staff in the new White House, said: "We need that culture of resp
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 18, 2009
It is hardly the most flattering of associations, particularly for a prime minister, but Gordon Brown has been compared rather unfavourably to the disgraced former US president Richard Nixon by the screenwriter who immortalised them both in film.
Peter Morgan, who wrote the film Frost/Nixon and also penned Brown's character in The Deal, noticed shared personality traits between the two men. He says: "They are people who are hard to like, people who have complicated emotional i
Source: Newsweek
January 17, 2009
Barack Obama's ascension to the presidency won't end racism, but it does mean race is no longer the dominant issue in American politics. Instead, over the coming decades, class will likely constitute the major dividing line in our society—and the greatest threat to America's historic aspirations. This is a fundamental shift from the last century. Writing in the early 1900s, W.E.B. DuBois observed, "The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line." Developments in the e
Source: Guardian (UK)
January 19, 2009
A century after Sir Ernest Shackleton conceded "it was better to be a living donkey than a dead lion" and abandoned hopes of becoming the first explorer to reach the south pole, three descendants of the explorer and his team successfully completed his mission yesterday.
Nearly three months after setting off on the 900-mile journey, Henry Worsley, a descendant of Shackleton's skipper, Frank Wild; Henry Adams, great grandson of Shackleton's number two Jameson Boyd-Adams; and
Source: Washington Post
January 18, 2009
By David Maraniss
Barack Obama saw his future home for the first time a quarter-century ago. He was a year out of Columbia, working in Harlem as a community organizer, when he rode to Washington with a scrum of college undergraduates protesting proposed cuts in student aid.
After a long day on Capitol Hill, they walked west along the Mall, then circled around to Pennsylvania Avenue and paused in front of the White House. Beyond the fence, past the northwest gate, lived
Source: AFP
January 18, 2009
WASHINGTON -— Moments after Barack Obama delivers his first address as the new US president on Tuesday, a slight, bespectacled woman will take his place at the podium and read the world a poem.
For a spellbinding pause in time, Elizabeth Alexander, 46, will step out of the shadows of the rarified world of contemporary poetry and before millions in Washington and abroad deliver a poem she is composing for the occasion.
It will only be the fourth time in US history that a
Source: Politico
January 17, 2009
Barack Obama may get to keep his BlackBerry, but David Axelrod is losing his IM.
The lawyers broke the bad news to Obama aides at a briefing Friday morning convened by incoming Deputy White House Counsel Cassandra Butts: Not only are they leaving the modern world to enter a White House where some of the clunky desktop computers still run Windows 2000 but — worst of all — they'll be forced to surrender a form of communication staffers have relied on for the last two years to communic
Source: Los Angeles Times
January 18, 2009
For years, Robert Searcy tried to forget serving as a Tuskegee Airman during World War II. Sometimes, he thought of his service in the segregated military as two years, 10 months and 27 days lost...
He never bothered to join national airmen's groups, skipped their award ceremonies and movie premieres and stuffed his military honors away in a dog-eared envelope.
Then last month, President-elect Barack Obama invited the more than 300 surviving airmen to his inauguration.
Source: New York Daily News
January 18, 2009
Inauguration revelers are unlikely to storm the White House as President Obama looks on this Tuesday. The vice president will surely not show up drunk. And hopefully, Obama won't catch pneumonia and die.
Consider these inaugural low-lites from our nation's history.
1841 - In a driving sleet storm, a coatless William Henry Harrison delivered the longest inaugural address ever - 8,444 words, spanning one hour and 45 minutes. A month later, he died of pneumonia, setting an
Source: New York Post
January 18, 2009
All that's required by the Constitution for the president-elect to lose the "-elect" is the swearing of a 35-word oath of loyalty. Over the centuries, however, the ceremony has become encrusted with tradition and precedent. "Today's inaugurations are about 50 times as elaborate as they used to be," says Paul F. Boller Jr., emeritus professor of history at Texas Christian University and author of the book "Presidential Inaugurations." "The Founding Fathers wante
Source: New York Daily News
January 17, 2009
At President Franklin Roosevelt's inaugural in 1933 amid the depths of the Great Depression, he rallied demoralized Americans by proclaiming, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Within 100 days, Roosevelt's New Deal was up and running.
Barack Obama is studying the lessons of Roosevelt to meet the challenge of restoring public confidence in the nation's battered economy - and in his program to rebuild it.
When he steps into the Oval O
Source: CNN
January 18, 2009
As George W. Bush spends his final days in office, a national poll suggests that two-thirds of Americans see his presidency as a failure.
Sixty-eight percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Sunday said that Bush's eight years in the White House were a failure, with 44 percent saying this was because of his personal shortcomings and 22 percent blaming the failure on circumstances beyond his control.
Thirty-one percent said they consider
Source: AP
January 16, 2009
MADRID, Spain -– A chance discovery of a medieval clay oven has revealed that Moorish architects used powdered animal bones to protect the walls of fortresses close to the Alhambra Palace in southern Spain.
The finding represents the first evidence of powdered bones being used in protective coats, or patinas, in Moorish architecture, said Granada University geologist Carolina Cardell, who headed a yearlong scientific research project at the site.
"We know this meth
Source: NYT
January 17, 2009
The National Park Service and an organization representing victims’ families have reached a deal to buy the most critical piece of land needed for the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pa.
Driven by a goal of getting a deal done before President Bush leaves office on Tuesday, the park service and the organization, Families of Flight 93, reached an accord late Friday with Svonavec Inc., the quarry company that owns the 274-acre parcel at the heart of the site where United A
