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: BBC News
October 14, 2010
International human rights groups have refused to appear before a Sri Lankan inquiry into the end of the country's civil war, saying the procedure is flawed and lacks credibility.
They say the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) does not meet international standards.
But the commission, appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, says it is a credible attempt for reconciliation.
Correspondents say the panel has no real mandate to investigate t
Source: BBC News
October 14, 2010
Greek police have fired tear gas and charged at workers who had occupied the Acropolis in Athens in a protest over unpaid wages and lay-offs.
TV images showed police chasing the culture ministry workers around the ancient monument.
Dozens of workers had shut down the Acropolis on Wednesday morning, demanding two years of back pay.
They had barricaded themselves inside, padlocked the entrance gates and refused to allow in tourists.
The protester
Source: CS Monitor
October 14, 2010
When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tours Lebanon’s border with Israel today, he may pause a moment to consider that Iran owes its existence as a Shiite nation to the ancestors of those living in these rural hilltop villages.
The links between the Shiites of Lebanon and Iran stretch back 500 years. They endure today in the ideological and material relationship between the Islamic Republic and Hezbollah.Iran wasn't always the center of Shiite scholarship
Source: NYT
October 13, 2010
ROME — The case against Marion True, the former curator of antiquities at the J.Paul Getty Museum, ended abruptly on Wednesday, after a court here ruled that the statute of limitations on her alleged crimes — receiving artifacts stolen from Italy and conspiring to deal in them — had expired.
The trial had dragged on intermittently for five years. Numerous witnesses testified for the prosecution, which argued that Ms. True knowingly bought ancient artifacts of dubious provenance for
Source: NYT
October 13, 2010
MOLLET DE VALLÈS, Spain — Belly Meneses Díaz and John Felipe Romero Moreno have a special shelf in their living room. It holds a Spanish flag, war medals and a polished wooden box with the ashes of their youngest son. He was 21 when he was killed in northern Afghanistan earlier this year.
In the larger history of the Afghan war, the death of John Felipe Romero Meneses may be a footnote, but it is a poignant one. Like many soldiers in the Spanish Army — and a number of its casualties
Source: AP
October 13, 2010
Egypt's chief archaeologist says the United States will return a number of sarcophagi smuggled out of the country 50 years ago.
Zahi Hawass says U.S. authorities seized the sarcophagi on American soil and will return them to Egypt in the next two weeks. He didn't provide any further details about the antiquities or say what sites they were taken from.
Thousands of antiquities were spirited out of Egypt during the colonial period and afterward by archaeologists, adventu
Source: BBC
October 13, 2010
The future of archaeology across the country could be severely compromised according to experts in the West Country.
Archaeologists from Wiltshire and Bristol are amongst those protesting at new restrictions on their freedom to study bones and skulls from ancient graves....
Source: BBC
October 13, 2010
An ancient cremation urn has been found by archaeologists surveying a site earmarked for a housing project.
The team from Headland Archaeology believe the object uncovered at Fortrose dates from the Bronze Age.
Developer Tulloch Homes, which has planning consent to build 156 properties on the land, commissioned the survey.
Further excavations will be done under the supervision of Highland Council's archaeology officer....
Source: BBC
October 13, 2010
A new project aims to use old Royal Navy logbooks to help build a more accurate picture of how our climate has changed over the last century.
The public are being called upon to re-trace the routes taken by some 280 Royal Navy ships including historic vessels.
We volunteers will transcribe information about weather, and other events, from images of ships' logbooks.
This will help provide invaluable information about the past climate.
The projec
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 13, 2010
Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are 10th cousins through a common ancestor, John Smith, a 17th century pastor, according to genealogists.
Ancestry.com found that the two politicians, who could face each other in the 2012 race for the White House, are both related to Mr Smith, a Protestant pastor who was an early settler in Massachusetts.
The website, based in Provo, Utah, also discovered that Mr Obama was a 10th cousin once removed from Rush Limbaugh, the conservative tal
Source: AP
October 13, 2010
Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal has moved its five Khmer Rouge prisoners out of the custom-built jail in Phnom Penh where they have been held because it is at risk of flooding after heavy rains this week, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen did not disclose where they were moved to Tuesday. The five are among the former leaders of ultra-communist regime during whose 1975-79 rule an estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died from overwork, dise
Source: NYT
October 12, 2010
HANOI, Vietnam — A visit to Vietnam this week by Robert M. Gates, the United States defense secretary, is just the latest step in a bilateral relationship that is at its warmest since diplomatic ties were established 15 years ago.
A steady progression of careful gestures has eroded the enmities of the Vietnam War, built a basis of increasing trust and turned the two nations’ attention, in large part, from issues of the past to the present....
It is an issue with some hi
Source: Guardian (UK)
October 10, 2010
Severe restrictions on scientists' freedom to study bones and skulls from ancient graves are putting archaeological research in Britain at risk, according to experts.
The growing dispute relates to controversial legislation introduced by the Ministry of Justice in 2008, which decreed that all human remains found during digs in Britain must be reburied within two years.
The decision means that scientists have insufficient time to carry out proper studies of any pieces of
Source: The New Republic
October 12, 2010
The Senate recently held its third in a series of hearings on for-profit schools, many of which stand accused of mismanaging federal dollars and employing sketchy recruitment tactics, only to have less than half of their students graduate. Among those under scrutiny are big-name proprietary schools like the University of Phoenix and Kaplan. When undercover investigators applied at 15 for-profit colleges, they found recruiters misleading applicants and encouraging fraud so the would-be students—a
Source: Duluth News-Tribune
October 10, 2010
HIBBING — Item No. 8 on the official Bob Dylan Walk tour is a white building with four golden stained-glass windows and a three-color circle with the Star of David at the south peak.
What was once Agudath Achim Synagogue, at 2320 W. Second St., was the site of 13-year-old Bobby Zimmerman’s bar mitzvah. Bobby Zimmerman grew up to be Bob Dylan, and current owners Brenda Shafer-Pellinen and her husband, Eric, are hoping this bit of history piques the interest of one of Dylan’s hardcore
Source: Discovery News
October 12, 2010
Early humans appear to have occupied a much lower link of the food chain than their modern counterparts.
Early humans may have evolved as prey animals rather than as predators, suggest the remains of our prehistoric primate ancestors that were devoured by hungry birds and carnivorous mammals.
The discovery of multiple de-fleshed, chomped and gnawed bones from the extinct primates, which lived 16 to 20 million years ago on Rusinga Island, Kenya, was announced today at th
Source: Discovery News
October 8, 2010
A rare, first-person account of the ordeal of one of the survivors of the Titanic disaster will soon hit the auction block.
The letter is a signed affidavit from Laura Francatelli (second from the right in the above photo), a passenger aboard the Titanic as well as the secretary to two controversial figures in the oceanliner's saga, Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon.
Following the disaster, Sir Cosmo is thought to have paid crewmen for access to a lifeboat. When the ship w
Source: BBC
October 12, 2010
The eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il says he opposes a dynastic succession that would see his younger half-brother take power.
Kim Jong-un, the youngest son, has been unveiled as the nation's heir apparent, appearing alongside his father at a series of recent high-profile events.
His elder brother, Kim Jong-nam, 39, lives overseas in China and Macau.
His comments are highly unusual in the secretive North. But he is not thought to have influence
Source: BBC
October 12, 2010
A copy of the 1,200-year-old book which the Pope gave to the Queen on his visit to the UK has gone on display at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.
The manuscript, known as the Lorsch Gospels, contains more than 400 pages written entirely in gold ink on vellum.
The facsimile edition which Benedict XVI presented to the Queen featured reproductions of the ivory covers.
During the visit the Queen presented the Pontiff with a facsimile of drawings by Han
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 12, 2010
New Zealand's national museum has sparked outrage by telling pregnant women to stay away from a tour of sacred Maori artefacts, or risk incurring a curse.
The Wellington-based museum, known as Te Papa - a Maori name that translates as "Our Place" - said it was imposing the rule as a condition demanded by tribes that had provided some of the items.
The "stay away" warning went out to staff from regional museums who have been invited to a behind-the-s
