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: Today's Zaman (Turkey)
June 24, 2010
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has urged the Turkish government to preserve critical archeological sites located in two cities, İzmir and İstanbul, saying cultural heritage should not be sacrificed for large-scale economic development projects.
In a report released by PACE during their summer session, the Council of Europe cited dam construction projects in Allianoi, near Bergama in İzmir province, that would risk flooding what
Source: The Independent (UK)
June 23, 2010
A 4,600-year-old burial has been discovered in a remote corner of northern Canada – and could hold the key to how ancient Canadians lived. The remarkable find has been made at the mouth of the Bug River, near Big Trout Lake, Ontario. Today the region is home to the Kitchenuhmaykoosik Inninuwug First Nation, an indigenous tribe numbering around 1,200.
The discovery was made by First Nation fishermen as water levels fell at the lake, exposing the burial. The site is currently being ha
Source: Der Spiegel (Germany)
June 23, 2010
New historical documents show that Adolf Hitler wanted for nothing during his short incarceration at Landsberg Prison in 1924. He was able to hold court and maintain his political contacts -- all with the consent of the prison management.
A personnel manager couldn't have been more well-meaning in his description. "He was always reasonable, frugal, modest and polite to everyone, especially the officials at the facility," prison warden Otto Leybold wrote about the inmate on
Source: BBC News
June 24, 2010
A US appeals court has been told to look again at the convictions of Conrad Black - the newspaper tycoon currently serving a prison sentence for fraud.
The US Supreme Court has set aside an earlier ruling upholding Black's convictions, saying that the government had not used the law correctly.
Conrad Black was convicted of defrauding shareholders in Hollinger International in 2007.
He is serving a six-and-a-half-year sentence.
Source: Fox News
June 23, 2010
A ground-breaking ceremony for the Korean War National Museum in Springfield, Ill., will no longer be taking place this summer – because the museum doesn’t have enough money even to start construction.
According to the museum website, the museum is “well short of financial and operational goals to break ground” due to “the recent economic downturn,” as well as leaders it says were “too optimistic” about their ability to raise funds.
Organizers are now desperately trying
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 23, 2010
Adolf Hitler wrote a begging letter to a Mercedes dealership asking for a loan for a limousine until his royalties for Mein Kampf came through.
The letter, was written in 1924 from his jail cell at Landsberg Fortress prison where he was imprisoned that year for his role in the "Bierkeller Putsch" when his nascent Nazi party tried, and failed, to seize power in Munich.
In jail he wrote Mein Kampf, the blueprint for power that would make him rich. However, when
Source: AP
June 23, 2010
Army Gens. Stanley McChrystal and Douglas MacArthur met the same fate -- sacked by their commander in chief. In 1951, President Harry Truman stripped MacArthur of his command after disagreements over Korean War strategy. On Wednesday, President Barack Obama fired McChrystal after his disparaging comments about the president and several members of the administration.
Here is what the presidents said:
------
Obama: "Today I accepted Gen. Stanley McChryst
Source: AP
June 23, 2010
An auction of a trove of author John Steinbeck's letters, manuscripts and photographs from his New York City apartment produced lackluster bidding on Wednesday, with half of the items failing to sell or fetching prices below their pre-sale estimates.
The "Grapes of Wrath" author's archive brought a total of $73,950 at Bloomsbury Auction. The auctioneer had predicted that the material would bring $200,000 to $250,000.
Among the highlights that did not sell was
Source: AFP
June 22, 2010
A senior Western archaeologist in Afghanistan says he is struggling to protect a vast wealth of cultural treasures from being stolen and smuggled to wealthier countries, or worse, destroyed altogether.
"I think there is absolutely no site in this country which is unaffected," Philippe Marquis, the director of a team of French government-funded archaeologists operating in Afghanistan, told AFP in a recent interview.
"The illegal trade in antiquities is ver
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
June 23, 2010
Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini hid a set of secret diaries in an Italian hillside and ordered them not to be opened until 2025, the son of the man who buried them has revealed.
Mussolini, who ruled Italy from 1922 until he was executed by partisans in 1945, has long been rumoured to have kept diaries which could detail the extent of his relationship with wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
There is even a theory among some Italian historians that he was execute
Source: BBC News
June 23, 2010
A 91-year-old who said she was the nurse photographed being kissed in Times Square in New York at the end of World War II has died.
Edith Shain said she was grabbed and kissed by an unknown American soldier on 14 August 1945.
The picture by Alfred Eisenstaedt was taken as people celebrated Japan's surrender, and it became an iconic image.
The identity of the sailor remains disputed.
Ms Shain died at her home in Los Angeles on Sunday, her family
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 23, 2010
New York City officials say a renewed search this year of debris in and around the World Trade Center site has recovered 72 human remains.
The sifting of more than 800 cubic yards (612 cubic meters) of debris recovered from ground zero and underneath roads around the lower Manhattan site began in April and ended Friday.
The greatest number of remains – 37 – were found from material underneath West Street, a highway on the west side of ground zero. The new debris was unc
Source: BBC News
June 23, 2010
The Russian government is pushing a bill through parliament that critics say would give the country's main intelligence agency, the FSB, powers similar to those once held by its Soviet predecessor, the KGB.
At the time, almost all opponents of the communist regime were ruthlessly silenced.
The bill has been described by Russia's top human rights official as one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation to be put before parliament - but the government says it is needed
Source: BBC News
June 23, 2010
Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe is to play a German soldier in a new film version of All Quiet on the Western Front, according to Variety.
The 20-year-old will play Paul Baumer, a young infantryman fighting in the trenches of France during World War I.
Shooting will begin in spring 2012, following Radcliffe's Broadway run in How to Succeed Without Really Trying.
Erich Maria Remarque's novel was first adapted for the screen in 1930, with Lew Ayres in the
Source: BBC News
June 23, 2010
The UK faces the "longest, deepest, sustained period of cuts to public services spending at least since World War II", said an economic think tank.
It is the first time that six years of consecutive spending cuts will have been endured, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said.
Some government departments may see budgets slashed by a third, it added.
The IFS also said government claims that the rich would "feel more pain" than the poo
Source: BBC News
June 23, 2010
A self portrait by French painter Edouard Manet has been sold for more than £22m - a record price for the artist's work.
Called Manet A La Palette, it shows the artist in a bowler hat, posing with a paintbrush in his hand.
It sold for £22,441,250 at Sotheby's auction house in London, towards the lower end of its £20-30m estimate.
The previous highest price for a Manet was £16m in New York in 1989.
Painted between 1878 and 1879, Sotheby's said t
Source: NYT
June 18, 2010
From the Oval Office the other night, President Obama called the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.” Senior people in the government have echoed that language....
But is the description accurate?
Scholars of environmental history, while expressing sympathy for the people of the gulf, say the assertion is debatable. They offer an intimidating list of disasters to consider: floods caused by human negligence, the destru
Source: AP
June 21, 2010
Digs in Cyprus have uncovered what may be soldiers' barracks belonging to a sprawling Phoenician fortress that was the island's largest ancient administrative hub dating back at least 2,500 years, the Cypriot Antiquities Department director said Monday.
Maria Hadjicosti said the discovery this year of the two building complexes in the ancient kingdom of Idalion, some 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of the modern-day capital Nicosia, offers more proof of the site's significance.
Source: Guardian (UK)
June 22, 2010
Letter stolen by notorious 19th-century book thief Guglielmo Libri had been gathering dust in a US college library.
The name Guglielmo Libri will mean little to anyone outside the inner circles of academia. But a mere mention of the 19th-century Tuscan noble and polymath to European scholars still has the power to provoke hand-wringing and despair.
Count Guglielmo Libri Carucci dalla Sommaja was more than a respected scientist and a decorated professor of mathematics. H
Source: 6-21-10
December 31, 2069
Jerusalem municipality on Monday said it was moving ahead with plans to build a new archaeological park that call for the demolition of 22 Arab homes, raising fears of unrest in the Holy City.
The city's planning and building committee approved the Gan Hamelech (King's Garden) project, a municipal spokesman said, using the Hebrew name for the area outside Jerusalem's Old City known as Al-Bustan to its mostly Arab residents.
In March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as
