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: AP
November 15, 2010
Lawyers for a Manchester woman charged with lying about her role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide argued Monday she will not flee if she is released from custody while awaiting trial next year.
Beatrice Munyenyezi, 40, has been in custody since June, when she was indicted for lying on applications to enter the United States in 1995 and to obtain citizenship. Federal prosecutors say she ordered rapes and murders of Tutsis during the genocide that killed up to 800,000 people.
Source: Navy Times
November 11, 2010
PITTSBURGH — With all their texting, tweeting and Internet surfing, today's kids might be the right-now generation.
Who among them has time for what some call the greatest generation?
Jordan Brown, for one.
An 11-year-old from Lebanon County, he has long been fascinated by World War II and one old soldier in particular — Dick Winters, the Easy Company commander made famous by the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers."
Winters, a Lancaster
Source: The Canadian Press
November 5, 2010
WASHINGTON — The National Park Service is marking the election of president Abraham Lincoln's election 150 years ago at the start of the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War.
Groups in Kentucky and at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Ill., will recreate the election on the exact anniversary Saturday....
Source: Independent (UK)
November 14, 2010
When "A M", a Spanish lawyer in her forties, talks about the Franco death squads who murdered her grandfather and tossed his body in a roadside ditch where it remained hidden for the next 74 years, any hatred or anger at the perpetrators is either long gone or deeply buried. But a huge reservoir of sorrow remains, together with resentment at extreme bureaucratic insensitivity.
"In the records of the government office where he worked, he's still noted as 'absent from h
Source: Yahoo News
November 11, 2010
PARIS – A solemn ceremony at Paris' Grand Mosque has been held to honor the memory of Muslims who fought for France in World War I.
Defense Minister Herve Morin and Veterans Affairs Minister Hubert Falco took part in Thursday's ceremony, one of several official events marking the 92nd anniversary of the end of World War I....
Source: Yahoo News
November 15, 2010
PARIS (AFP) – When it comes to meal time, the French do it differently. That is the argument being put to UNESCO as it decides this week whether French cuisine deserves a spot on its intangible heritage list.
"The gastronomic meal of the French" is seen as a strong contender as the UN agency meets in Nairobi from Monday to Friday to consider new submissions for the list, set up in 2003 to safeguard cultural traditions, rituals and crafts.
France's submission t
Source: Yahoo News
November 14, 2010
BERLIN – Germany's defense minister has honored the 395 Jewish soldiers who died serving their homeland in World War I as part of services marking the National Day of Mourning....
Source: Yahoo News
November 15, 2010
PRAGUE – An international team of scientists opened the tomb of a famous 16th-century Danish astronomer Monday in an effort to shed light on his sudden and mysterious death.
Tycho Brahe, who was born in 1546, has been buried in the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn near Prague's Old Town Square since his death in 1601.
Brahe was in Prague at the invitation of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II after he left his scientific observatory on the island of Hven over disagreements
Source: Yahoo News
November 14, 2010
GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP)—Duke without the Blue Devil? Notre Dame without the Fighting Irish? Most students and alumni at those proud universities wouldn’t dream of dropping those enduring symbols of school pride.
But that’s exactly what’s happening at the University of North Dakota, where the state’s flagship school is undergoing a mandatory facelift after the NCAA concluded the 80-year-old Fighting Sioux nickname was hostile and abusive.
North Dakota was the nation’s las
Source: CS Monitor
November 15, 2010
Congressional activity that occurs after an election but before new lawmakers are sworn in, such as that now getting under way in Washington, is called a “lame-duck session.” A lawmaker who has been defeated but gets to return to Capitol Hill and cast votes one last time is called a “lame duck.” Where did this colorful avian-based language originate?
Like many aspects of US politics, it apparently has its roots in England. In the late 1700s, a “lame duck” was a British stockbroker w
Source: WaPo
November 14, 2010
In 1969, Richard Nixon was eager to spend time at the Catoctin Mountains retreat reserved exclusively for the fraternal order he had just joined: U.S. presidents. His daughter Julie accompanied him as he whisked into the secluded sylvan enclave, where a jarringly simple sign announced their arrival in "Camp 3."
What happened to "David"? The disappearance of that name erased a dictate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the GOP general Nixon had served as vice president. It
Source: CNN
November 14, 2010
He was an adventurer, a scholar, and possibly a spy -- but as Dutchman Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje proved with his rare 1885 photographs and sound recordings of Mecca, he was also a pioneering multimedia journalist.
Snouck's extraordinary collection of sepia-tinted images of Mecca in a bygone age have gone on display in Dubai ahead of the annual Hajj pilgrimage that originally drew him to the heart of Islam.
Accompanied by crackling, eerie soundscapes captured by Snouck
Source: AP
November 14, 2010
It was another day on the rocky hillside, as archaeologists and laborers dug out statues of Buddha and excavated a sprawling 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery. A Chinese woman in slacks, carrying an umbrella against the Afghan sun, politely inquired about their progress.
She had more than a passing interest. The woman represents a Chinese company eager to develop the world's second-biggest unexploited copper mine, lying beneath the ruins.
The mine is the centerpiece of
Source: Denver Post
November 14, 2010
This place is a pit. A giant, oozing, squishy bog of malodorous peat, sticky clay and mud that can suck the boots off your feet. But for anyone looking for a spot where everything went right for paleontology and posterity, it is here at Ziegler Reservoir.
For two weeks, Denver Museum of Nature & Science crews have been pulling out treasures: five or more mastodons, a bison skull with 7-foot horn span, a couple of Columbian mammoths, a giant Jefferson ground sloth (the state's fi
Source: Fox News
November 10, 2010
Today, many Londoners are participating in a unique archaeological dig. But in lieu of shovels and pickaxes, all they will need is a computer with Internet access.
The event is called Digital Archaeology -- and it's the first ever archaeological dig of the Internet. The exhibition, held in London as part of Internet Week Europe, showcases 15 websites that were once considered groundbreaking in their prime but have since been lost to time and technological evolution.
The
Source: Irish Times
November 15, 2010
THE IRISH at Gallipoli is one of the most marginalised stories of all, those attending an event commemorating the first World War heard in Dublin on Saturday.
Historian and author Philip Orr said that, while the struggle at Gallipoli was part of the narrative of many nations, describing it as a “founding myth” of Australia and New Zealand and an important part of identity in Northern Ireland, it had only come back into the consciousness of the Republic in recent years.
Source: BBC
November 14, 2010
Remembrance Sunday services have taken place across the country in memory of Scotland's war dead.
A ceremony was held at the Stone of Remembrance on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, with a march by serving and ex-service personnel and civilian organisations.
HMS Ark Royal crew members led a parade as part of Glasgow's ceremony in George Square, while a service was held in Glasgow Cathedral.
Events also took place in towns and cities across Scotland.
Fir
Source: BBC
November 14, 2010
The 70th anniversary of the Coventry Blitz has been marked in the city.
Coventry saw one of Britain's largest raids of World War II on 14 November, 1940. An estimated 1,200 people died with most of the city centre destroyed.
A remembrance service at Coventry Cathedral earlier was attended by dignitaries including the German ambassador and the Mayor of Dresden.
A civic service was later held at the cathedral and an air-raid siren sounded within the buildi
Source: BBC
November 14, 2010
Singer James Blunt has told the BBC how he refused an order to attack Russian troops when he was a British soldier in Kosovo.
Blunt said he was willing to risk a court martial by rejecting the order from a US General.
Blunt was ordered to seize an airfield - but the Russians had got there first.
The confusion surrounding the taking of Pristina airfield in 1999 has been written about in political memoirs, and was widely reported at the time.
But
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 12, 2010
The Church of England is planning to sell a collection of historic paintings by the Spanish Old Master Francisco Zurbarán which have been in its possession for 250 years.
The paintings of Jacob and his sons, completed in the 1640s, are expected to raise at least £15 million for Church funds when they are sold.
The Church Commissioners, who manage the Church of England’s assets, are said to be considering replacing the 12 paintings, which hang in Auckland Castle, with
