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: Telegraph (UK)
November 24, 2008
Germany is embroiled in a controversy over a monumental Nazi-era holiday resort on the German island of Ruegen that is to be opened to holidaymakers for the first time.
The giant complex of hotels in the Prora resort on the country's biggest island in the Baltic Sea was designed to house 20,000 tourists as part of Adolf Hitler's Strength Through Joy program to keep the German nation healthy.
The construction of the mammoth project began in 1936 but was abandoned in 1943 due to the war, a
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 24, 2008
The Prince of Wales has told "Kindertransport" refugees how "incredibly proud" he felt of his grandmother for sheltering Jewish refugees when the Second World War broke out.
Prince Charles met a member of the "Kinder" - now elderly citizens - and their families over tea at a reunion in north west London, to mark the 70th anniversary of the decision to allow thousands of children into Britain from Nazi-occupied Europe.
In a short speech to t
Source: AP
November 22, 2008
About 500 people crowded Saturday into the plaza where John F. Kennedy was shot 45 years ago, all agreeing it was right to remember a pivotal moment in American history, even if they didn't all believe the official line.
People stood shoulder to shoulder and bowed their heads during a moment of silence at 12:30 p.m. Some hawked JFK memorabilia or pitched conspiracy theories to visitors. Others offered firsthand accounts of their memories of the killing.
Source: Peter Steinfels in the NYT
November 21, 2008
For more than 40 years he was a world figure, his renown stretching from the American Midwest to Moscow to the Middle East. As he neared death in 1883, The New York Times wrote that he “deserves to be ranked among the foremost of the few great men of the century.”
Earlier, he had received accolades and awards from France, Britain, Russia, the Ottoman sultan, the papacy and President Abraham Lincoln, who sent him not a medal but, in quintessentially American fashion, a matched pair o
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 24, 2008
The bacteria can cause serious heart disease in humans are being spread by rat fleas, sparking concern that the infections could become a bigger problem in humans.
Research published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology suggests that brown rats, the biggest and most common rats in Europe, may now be carrying the bacteria.
Since the early 1990s, more than 20 species of Bartonella bacteria have been discovered. They are considered to be emerging pathogens, because they
Source: AP
November 23, 2008
More than half a century ago, a prominent Egyptian archaeologist unearthed a stunning ancient mummy mask at the Saqqara pyramids near Cairo — the golden image of a noblewoman's face.
Mohammed Zakaria Ghoneim deposited the 3,200-year-old relic in a warehouse at Saqqara, where he meticulously documented his discovery. Seven years later, in 1959, Egyptian records show it was still in the same storeroom.
What happened to the burial mask of Ka Nefer Nefer in the four decade
Source: Boston Globe
November 23, 2008
In 1762, the Huntsberry family settled the land along Redbud Run, outside Winchester, with a deed from Lord Fairfax. Eight generations later, Bob Huntsberry spent his summers there as a child, finding old minie balls that had been fired from the muskets of Civil War soldiers. He grew up steeped in elders' stories of the day, late in the summer of 1864, when Union General Philip Sheridan and 39,000 troops came marching in.
Now, Huntsberry, 80, has reached a $3.35 million deal with Ci
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 22, 2008
Far from being a hated symbol of military occupation, Hadrian's Wall was the business opportunity of a lifetime for ancient Britons, archaeologists have discovered.
The 73-mile long Roman wall, built in AD 122 to defend the Roman Empire from hostile Celtic tribes, created a thriving economy to serve the occupying army, according to aerial surveys.
Farmers, traders, craftsmen, labourers and prostitutes seized the occasion to make money from the presence of hundreds of Ro
Source: National Geographic News
November 21, 2008
Cloaked by time's leafy shroud, the prehistoric settlement of Gaer Fawr lies all but invisible beneath a forest in the lush Welsh countryside. Commanded by warrior chiefs who loomed over the everyday lives of their people, the massive Iron Age fortress once dominated the landscape.
Now the 2,900-year-old structure lives again, thanks to a digital recreation following a painstaking survey by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales.
The Iron
Source: Times (UK)
November 23, 2008
The spot in the Roman Forum where Romulus, the first King of Rome, is said to have met a grisly end at the hands of senators who resented his high handed autocratic rule is to be shown as a tourist attraction after being covered up for half a century.
Professor Angelo Bottini, Superintendent of Archeology in Rome, said the underground area of black marble paving stone or "Lapis Niger" marking the spot where Romulus is traditionally said to have been killed and dismembered
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 24, 2008
Conflicting claims over the ownership over a cluster of four islands off north Japan has prevented the two nations agreeing a peace treaty to formally end the Second World War.
However, Taro Aso, Japan's prime minister, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, have agreed to produce "concrete" measures to resolve the six-decade dispute in a bid to normalise relations in the region.
During a private meeting during the Asia-Pacific leader summit in Lima, Mr Aso to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 24, 2008
The letter, which sets up a new rendezvous point for the fleet, was written 20 months before the Battle of Trafalgar at a time when Nelson's fleet were blockading the French inside Toulon.
The secret order reads: "Rendezvous No 99 - Twelve leagues due West from Cape Corse. To be added to the list of Rendezvous."
It is addressed from "Victory at the Madalina Islands, 13th February 1804" and sent to Sir Richard Bickerton bart, Rear Admiral of the Whi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 24, 2008
The pagoda was wedged tightly inside an iron case that was discovered at the site of a former temple in the city in August.
The four-storey pagoda, which is almost four feet high and one-and-a-half feet wide, is thought by archaeologists to be one of the 84,000 pagodas commissioned by Ashoka the Great in the second century BC to house the remains of the Buddha.
Ashoka, one of India's greatest emperors, converted to Buddhism after waging a bloody war in the eastern sta
Source: BBC
November 24, 2008
The event in Nagasaki was organised by the Roman Catholic church and a cardinal sent by the Pope is attending.
It commemorates some of many thousands of people who lost their lives when the ruling shoguns were attempting to wipe out Christianity in Japan.
Today, fewer than 1% of Japanese people identify themselves as Christian; most follow Buddhist or Shinto faith.
About 30,000 people, including a Vatican envoy, were expected to attend the event in a bas
Source: BBC
November 24, 2008
Red Army Faction leader Christian Klar, aged 56, is serving five life terms but will have served the minimum required 26 years by January.
The court in Stuttgart said there were no grounds to keep him in custody.
The group, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, targeted bankers, businessmen, judges and US servicemen.
More than 30 people were killed by the gang, before it disbanded 10 years ago.
Source: BBC News
November 22, 2008
A Vatican newspaper has forgiven the late English singer John Lennon for saying four decades ago that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus.
In an article praising The Beatles, L'Osservatore Romano said Lennon had just been showing off.
Lennon told a British newspaper in 1966 - at the height of Beatlemania - that he did not know which would die out first, Christianity or rock and roll.
At the time, the comparison sparked controversy in the US.
Source: NYT
November 21, 2008
IN 2002, after the dot-com bubble burst, most people were trying hard to forget the preceding years of seemingly irrational entrepreneurial exuberance. But not David Kirsch.
Mr. Kirsch, a professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland, saw a way to ensure that the next generation of entrepreneurs could avoid the problems of that bubble, or “at least make new mistakes”: He would document what did and didn’t work during the flurry of business activity around
Source: NYT
November 22, 2008
It is one thing to run a movement, filled with passion and an army of true believers set on a single goal, and another to run a country, where competing agendas are often fueled by deep divisions. And while the communications stars do seem to be aligned for Mr. Obama, historians, political scientists and strategists say that being the first Internet president poses its own challenges. The Internet, after all, is a two-way medium, and the bully pulpit is inherently one-way.
“I don’t
Source: AP
November 22, 2008
KIEV, Ukraine: Church bells tolled, candles flickered under falling snow and national flags, adorned with black ribbons, flew in the Ukrainian capital Kiev Saturday as the country marked the anniversary of the start of a Soviet-era famine that killed millions.
But the solemn events were overshadowed by fierce opposition from Russia. The Kremlin is resisting Ukraine's campaign to win international recognition of the 1932-33 tragedy as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 22, 2008
They have hailed as a hero Yury Trushyochkin, 70, a former Soviet officer who claimed last week to have fired the missile which brought down Mr McCain's plane as it flew over a bridge near Hanoi in 1967.
Mr Trushyochkin served in a mixed Soviet-North Vietnamese missile unit during the Vietnam war, which was guarding the bridge near a power plant under attack from a 20-strong strike force whose pilots included Mr McCain. The Soviet-made missile blew off a part of one wing of Mr McCa
