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: Sofia echo (Bulgaria)
December 15, 2010
The oldest temple of the Sun has been discovered in northwest Bulgaria, near the town of Vratsa, aged at more then 8000 years, the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) reported on December 15 2010.
The Bulgarian 'Stonehenge' is hence about 3000 years older than its illustrious English counterpart. But unlike its more renowned English cousin, the Bulgarian sun temple was not on the surface, rather it was dug out from under tons of earth and is shaped in the form of a horse shoe, the r
Source: Jerusalem Post
December 15, 2010
A newly released report by the US National Archives details the close collaborative relationship between Nazi leaders and the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, indicating that Nazi authorities planned to use Husseini as their leader after their conquest of Palestine.
Husseini was paid handsomely by the Nazis for his efforts, recruited Muslims for the SS and was promised that he would be made Palestine’s leader after its Jewish population of 350,000 had been murdered.
Source: Telegraph
December 16, 2010
A five-year battle to save the former home of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has gone to the High Court after campaigners applied for a judicial review of a decision to allow development of the Grade II listed house.
Undershaw, in Hindhead, Surrey, is where the creator of Sherlock Holmes wrote many of his most famous books, including the Hound of the Baskervilles, after he built it in 1897.
Since then it has remained largely unchanged, and retains original features including s
Source: Telegraph
December 16, 2010
The image on the search engine home page is of a man in top hat and breeches accompanied by a demure-looking woman in a bonnet as they take a country stroll.
They could be from any number of Austen's much-loved books - perhaps Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice or Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley from Emma.
The English novelist was born on December 16, 1775 and died on July 18, 1817.
Over her lifetime she published four novels, Sense
Source: BBC News
December 16, 2010
Germany has agreed to contribute $80m (£51m; 60m euros) towards a fund aiming to preserve the Auschwitz Nazi death camp as a symbol of the Holocaust.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Fund, set up in 2009, says $120m is needed to preserve the site in southern Poland.
The barracks, gas chambers and other buildings that are part of the memorial are in need of urgent repair.
More than a million people were murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz.
"Germany ac
Source: MSN
December 15, 2010
Archaeologists in Oman have unearthed evidence of a human settlement dating back to the Iron Age during excavation there, a news report has said.
The settlement was unearthed during excavation in the Sohar Port area of the country at as many as 57 burial sites, Biubwa Ali Al Sabri, Director of Excavation and Archaeological Studies at the Ministry of Heritage and Culture said.
The excavation work was conducted by five specialists from the national team of the Ministry of
Source: Reuters
December 13, 2010
Pompeii mayor Claudio D'Alessio does not want to go down in history linked with Pliny the Younger, the Roman who chronicled the destruction of the ancient city nearly 2,000 ago in an eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
D'Alessio is worried not only because he loves culture. He knows that the economy of his modern city of 25,000 people relies heavily on tourists who come from all over the world to see the famed archaeological site.
The collapses sparked charges of official negle
Source: National Geographic News
December 10, 2010
American Indian casinos aren't exactly new to the game—people were playing dice in the New World as early as 5,000 years ago, preliminary research suggests.
Mysterious holes arranged in c shapes—punched into clay floors at the Tlacuachero archaeological site in Mexico's Chiapas state (see map)—may have been dice-game scoreboards, according to archaeologist Barbara Voorhies.
If so, Voorhies added, the semicircles are the oldest known evidence of games in Mesoamerica, a r
Source: BBC
December 14, 2010
Hamas leader Ismail Haniya says the Islamist movement is committed to Palestinian national reconciliation in order to fight the Israeli occupation.
He was addressing tens of thousands of supporters at a rally in Gaza City to mark the group's 23rd anniversary.
Palestinians are divided between Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, and Fatah which controls the West Bank.
The rift dates back to 2007 when they fought each other in Gaza's streets. Mediation efforts h
Source: BBC
December 14, 2010
A Roman statue buried for centuries has been unearthed after a massive storm battered Israel's coast, officials say.
The white marble statue of a woman was found after a cliff collapsed in the city of Ashkelon.
The statue - which lacks a head and arms - dates back about 1,800-2,000 years, officials at the Israel Antiquities Authorities (IAA) believe.
However, the storm also caused some damage to the Roman-era port of Caesarea.
Israel's official
Source: BBC
December 14, 2010
Scientists say they have identified an embalmed head as belonging to King Henri IV of France, who was assassinated in 1610 at the age of 57.
The head was lost after revolutionaries ransacked the royal chapel at Saint Denis, near Paris, in 1793.
A head, presumed to be that of Henri IV, has passed between private collectors since then.
A team of scientists used the latest forensic techniques to identify features seen in portraits of the king....
Source: BBC
December 15, 2010
Christmas truces between opposing soldiers continued throughout WWI rather than being a one-off, a historian has claimed.
A seasonal ceasefire, exchange of gifts and carol singing famously took place on the battlefields in 1914.
Dr Thomas Weber, of the University of Aberdeen, says cease-fires continued to take place in 1915 and 1916.
However, the academic believes this was played down when it came to official war records....
Source: BBC
December 15, 2010
Cuban leader Fidel Castro came close to death in 2006, according to the latest secret US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks.
Mr Castro almost died after suffering a perforated intestine during an internal flight, unnamed sources told US diplomats in Havana.
The illness led Mr Castro to hand power to his brother Raul, although he has since returned to public life.
The 84-year-old's health is considered a state secret in Cuba.
The Wikileaks
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 15, 2010
Bulgaria said on Wednesday it may recall many of its top diplomats in capitals across the world following embarrassing revelations that they were spies during the communist era.
Bulgaria started opening up the archives of its notorious Darzhavna Sigurnost secret police in 1997, already unearthing skeletons in the cupboards of thousands of people, including politicians such as the country's current president Georgy Parvanov.
But the publication this week of the names of
Source: AP
December 15, 2010
Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer is celebrating his 103rd birthday with the launch of a museum
dedicated to his career.
The Oscar Niemeyer Foundation outside Rio de Janeiro will house exhibits about the legendary architect's 70 years of work.
Niemeyer is responsible for more than 600 modernist projects around the world. They include the sweeping concrete structures that house Brazil's government in the capital, Brasilia, and U.N. headquarters in New York....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
November 22, 2010
Some 1,652 German mortar shells have been found in a small French village in the Hinterland between France and Germany - a flash point in the First World War.
The village Coucy-lès-Eppes, where the shells were unearthed after a house was being constructed, is very near to the site of the Battle of Verdun, one of the major battles on the Western Front.
Locals have been evacuated until Friday for safety reasons and the shells, which are almost 100 years old, will be destr
Source: Fox News
December 14, 2010
PARIS – Civilians detained by the Kosovo Liberation Army were allegedly shot to death in northern Albania so their kidneys could be extracted and sold on the black market after the war in Kosovo ended in 1999, according to a report prepared for Europe's premier human rights watchdog.
The report by Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty — more than two years in the making — also suggested Kosovo's U.S.-backed prime minister was once the "boss" of a criminal underworld b
Source: CBS News
December 14, 2010
In his final words before emergency heart surgery, Richard Holbrooke, the influential U.S. diplomat who died on Monday following complications from the surgery, apparently urged an end to America's nine-year old Afghanistan conflict.
"You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan," Holbrooke apparently told doctors before entering into surgery, according to family members' accounts originally reported by Washington Post.
Later reports note that Holbrooke made t
Source: Newsweek
December 14, 2010
...Last January, four dozen gay and lesbian activists gathered for a center retreat overlooking the Smoky Mountains to get inspiration on how they could show—not just tell—America that their rights are being violated.
But how? There are no “heterosexuals only” Woolworth counters where gays and lesbians can protest segregation; even Woolworth itself is long gone from the U.S. “We needed to create the urgency and critical mass to stop the injustice towards our community,” says Robin M
Source: NJ.com
December 15, 2010
PRINCETON BOROUGH -- Sociologist Suzanne Keller, the first woman to earn a tenured faculty position at Princeton University, died of a stroke Dec. 9 in Miami. She was 83.
Keller, who conducted pioneering research on community in America and on elite life, was the author of several books, including two published 40 years apart that are considered ground-breaking works in her field.
Her examination of the elite power structure in America, "Beyond the Ruling Class: St
