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 11, 2010
Nelson Mandela condemned former US President George W Bush as a "small man" who was seeking to dominate the world over his decision to invade Iraq, it has emerged.
The South African freedom fighter-turned-world leader is said to believed strongly in the West as a force for good and felt betrayed by Mr Bush's unilateral grandstanding, and Tony Blair's support for it.
When the decision was taken in 2003 to invade without the backing of the UN, Mr Mandela, a Nob
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 11, 2010
Millions fell silent across Britain today to mark the anniversary of the day peace returned to Europe at the end of the First World War.
The agreement between Germany and the Allies took effect at the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918 after four years of fighting.
As the nation stopped to remember those who died in battle, the Archbishop of Canterbury, defence ministers, representatives of military associations, veterans and s
Source: AP
November 11, 2010
John Demjanjuk's lawyer says former Nazi death camp guards were tortured for confessions by the Soviets after the war and their statements shouldn't be used as evidence.
Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk served in the Red Army and is on trial, accused of becoming a guard at Sobibor after he was captured by the Germans. He denies the charges.
In statements read in court Thursday, two ex-guards told Soviet authorities years after the war they had admitted to things in the immediat
Source: CNN
November 11, 2010
Togo is conducting its first census in 29 years, and some of the trained enumerators who have fanned out across the West African nation say complacency and suspicion among the people are making the task more difficult.
The census, which began Saturday, is expected to close on November 19. Togo's last census was in 1981, a lapse that violates United Nations Development Program directives for countries to hold a national count every 10 years.
In all, 7,000 trained census-
Source: CNN
November 11, 2010
There is only one living U.S. veteran of World War I: 109-year-old Frank Buckles, who was an Army corporal who drove a troop ambulance in Europe.
On Veterans Day in recent years, Buckles would stop by Arlington National Cemetery to visit the grave of Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing, the commander of American troops in that conflict.
He would also visit Washington's World War I memorial, a tall marble gazebo on the National Mall. The monument, dedicated in the
Source: Montreal Gazette
November 11, 2010
Historians who say Prime Minister Stephen Harper got a one-sided perspective on Second World War atrocities when he visited a museum in Ukraine last month jumped the gun, according to the museum's former director.
Volodymyr Viatrovych, a historian popular with Ukrainian nationalists in both his own country and in Canada, was ousted from his job at the Prison at Lonsky museum after Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's pro-Moscow president, took office this year.
Viatrovych was r
December 31, 2069
ncient Rome's biggest temple reopened to the public on Thursday after 26 years of restoration work.
The massive Temple of Venus and Roma, in the heart of the Roman Forum and a stone's throw from the Colosseum, was designed and commissioned by the Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD.
It was so large that a huge bronze statue of the Emperor Nero – known as the Colossus – had to be moved to another site.
The restoration of the temple was particularly welcom
Source: AP
November 10, 2010
CAIRO – The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will return 19 artifacts taken from the tomb of the famed boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun, Egypt's antiquities authority and the museum said Wednesday.
The trove is made up of small figurines and jewelry, including a miniature bronze dog, a sphinx-shaped bracelet ornament and a necklace, said antiquities chief Zahi Hawass.
"Thanks to the generosity and ethical behavior of the Met, these 19 objects from the tomb of Tutankha
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 10, 2010
Archaeologists have uncovered a World War I trench system in a Scottish city park.
The trenches, used to train recruits of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, were found in Stirling's Kings Park after a tip-off from a retired park keeper....
Source: The Age (AU)
November 10, 2010
EHUD Netzer, one of Israel's best-known archaeologists, who unearthed King Herod's tomb near Bethlehem three years ago, has died after being injured in a fall at the site. He was 76.
Netzer was leaning on a wooden safety rail when it gave way, sending him tumbling six metres. He was taken to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem with critical injuries and died there three days later.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described his death as ''a loss for his family, for scholars
Source: CNN.com
November 10, 2010
The vicious, swirling storm that battered the Great Lakes region in late October inspired talk of a similar gale that brought about one of the great mysteries of the 20th century.
The mighty ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald, one of the largest ships on America's inland seas, seemed invincible in its bulk and mass, but it was no match for a howling Lake Superior gale on November 10, 1975.
A day earlier, the 729-foot behemoth, operated by mineral company Oglebay Norton, had
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 10, 2010
Philip Malins, 91, from Birmingham, is to receive the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays, for his initiatives to reconcile British and Japanese troops in the aftermath of the war.
Mr Malins, who fought the Japanese in Burma, will be bestowed the top Japanese honour at a special reception lunch at the ambassador's London residence later this month.
Confirming the award to Kyodo News, he said: "My reaction on getting the award is one of amazement. It has c
Source: AOL News
November 11, 2010
(Nov. 11) -- In a dilapidated hangar in a faraway corner of Brooklyn, N.Y., veterans -- some of whom served before the age of jet propulsion -- assemble model airplanes.
Very big model airplanes.
The Historic Aircraft Restoration Project, dubbed HARP by its members, is a program that allows former servicemen and aircraft lovers of all ages to spend their days rebuilding and refurbishing antique airplanes, from propeller-powered trainers to Vietnam War-era jets....
Source: AP
November 10, 2010
The father of a black student has sued a Detroit-area school district claiming that his daughter was racially harassed by a fifth-grade teacher's reading aloud from a book about slavery.
The suit claims Jala Petree's teacher at Margaret Black Elementary School in Sterling Heights read excerpts from Julius Lester's "From Slave Ship to Freedom Road" that contain racial epithets and racist characterizations, The Macomb Daily reported.
The suit against Warren Cons
Source: BBC News
November 10, 2010
A close ally of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is under pressure to resign after a building collapsed at the 2,000-year-old Pompeii site.
Culture Minister Sandro Bondi faces a vote of no confidence in parliament over the collapse of the "House of the Gladiators" on Saturday in heavy rain.
The opposition accuses the government of letting Pompeii fall into neglect.
Staff at museums, libraries and other institutions plan to strike on Friday
Source: AP
November 10, 2010
The first robotic exploration of a pre-Hispanic ruin in Mexico has revealed that a 2,000-year-old tunnel under a temple at the famed Teotihuacan ruins has a perfectly carved arch roof and appears stable enough to enter, archaeologists announced Wednesday.
Archaeologists lowered the remote-controlled, camera-equipped vehicle into the 12-foot-wide (4-meter) corridor and sent wheeling through it to see if it was safe for researchers to enter. The one-foot (30-cm) wide robot was called
Source: BBC News
November 10, 2010
The unknown warrior was carried from a French battlefield 90 years ago, to be laid to rest among kings and statesmen in Westminster Abbey. But how did this symbol of the sacrifice of war come to be chosen?
In 1916, a Church of England clergyman serving at the Western Front in World War I spotted an inscription on an anonymous war grave which gave him an idea.
That moment of inspiration would blossom into a worldwide ceremony that is still being replicated in the 21st Ce
Source: NY Daily News
November 9, 2010
Seventeen people were accused yesterday of stealing $42.5 million from Holocaust survivor funds by ghoulishly recruiting phony Nazi victims.
Six of the alleged scam artists worked for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and helped orchestrate 5,500 bogus applications over 16 years. prosecutors charged.
"If ever there was a cause that you would hope and expect would be immune from base greed and criminal fraud, it would be the Claims Conference,
Source: BBC News
November 11, 2010
German playwright Bertolt Brecht may have died due to an undiagnosed childhood illness, new research claims.
After looking through medical records, University of Manchester professor Stephen Parker found Brecht suffered from rheumatic fever as a child.
Documents showed the illness attacked his heart and motorneural system, triggering chronic heart failure.
There has long been speculation about Brecht's sudden 1956 death, officially attributed to a heart att
Source: BBC News
November 11, 2010
Oxygen levels on Earth reached a critical threshold to enable the evolution of complex life much earlier than thought, say scientists.
The evidence is found in 1.2-billion-year-old rocks from Scotland.
These rocks retain signatures of bacterial activity known to occur when there is copious atmospheric oxygen.
The microbes' behaviour is seen 400 million years further back in time than any previous discovery, the researchers tell the journal Nature.
