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
June 19, 2010
A British World War II veteran who led a team of Commandos that seized a key German port, allowing the Allies to then secure Denmark, has been honoured.
Germany has bestowed the Great Seal of Kiel on Maj Tony Hibbert, who lives in Cornwall, for leading the 500-strong team in capturing the port of Kiel.
In May 1945, Operation Eclipse led to the surrender of a large German garrison and all the Nazis in Denmark.
The award is for his role in preventing Kiel
Source: BBC
June 19, 2010
The 65th birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's detained opposition leader, is being recognised by supporters both at home and abroad.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US President Barack Obama and the UK have marked the occasion by reiterating calls for the Nobel laureate's release.
Ms Suu Kyi has spent most of the last two decades in some form of detention.
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, she is one of the world's best known political prisoners,
Source: BBC
June 18, 2010
The remains of chess champion Bobby Fischer are to be exhumed in order to settle a paternity claim, an Icelandic court has ruled.
The Supreme Court in Reykjavik said a tissue sample was needed to prove whether nine-year-old Jinky Young was Fischer's daughter.
Fischer, who died in Iceland in 2008, left no will.
His estate, estimated to be worth $2 million (£1.4m), has been at the heart of several inheritance claims....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 18, 2010
A postcard sent home by a Bosnian soldier in the First World War has finally reached his family after 95 years, thanks to an antique collector who delivered it personally to the man's grandson after buying it at a fair in California.
For Nihad Eric Dzinovic, a 63-year-old retired jeweller living in California, it was as if one of the 200,000 old postcards he collected over the decades had come alive: In front of him stood someone who greatly resembled a face on the card mailed near
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 19, 2010
JD Salinger always insisted The Catcher in the Rye was "unactable" and refused to let Hollywood anywhere near his masterpiece.
But six months after his death, producers believe their chances of landing film rights to The Catcher in The Rye, considered the "holy grail" of scripts, are improving and a movie could be on the horizon.
Salinger maintained an intractable grip over the book during his lifetime and his publishers have insisted the rights are
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 18, 2010
John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to 'A Day in the Life', have sold for $1.2 million (£810,000) at auction, double their pre-sale high estimate.
Lennon's handwritten lyrics to the song, the final number on the Beatles album "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", had been expected to fetch between $500,000 to $700,000 (£338,000 to £473,000) at the Sotheby's New York auction.
The most amount ever paid for Beatles lyrics at auction was $1.25 million in 2005 for
Source: AP
June 19, 2010
Renowned Mexican journalist, critic and political activist Carlos Monsivais died Saturday at 72.
Examining his own country like a pop anthropologist, Monsivais chronicled Mexico's historic upheavals, social trends, and literature for over 50 years. He was also known as a tireless and ubiquitous activist for leftist causes.
He was an early and enthusiastic defender of the leftist Zapatista rebels who staged a brief armed uprising in Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas
Source: CNN
June 18, 2010
A conservative magazine suggests Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is "hostile" to gun owners, based on notes she wrote in the Clinton White House in 1996.
The notes were released last week by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library. Kagan worked in the White House Counsel's office in 1995 and 1996. Kagan, 50, was nominated to the high court May 10 by President Obama, and her confirmation hearings begin June 28.
The disclosure coincided with the release Fr
Source: Science Now
June 17, 2010
Just when did Egyptian pharaohs such as King Tut and Rameses II rule? Historians have heatedly debated the exact dates. Now a radiocarbon study concludes that much of the assumed chronology was right, though it corrects some controversial dates and may overturn a few pet theories.
"This is an extremely important piece of research that shows clearly that historical dating methods and radiocarbon dates are compatible for ancient Egypt," says Kate Spence, an archaeologist at
Source: Global Post
June 17, 2010
A young boy ducks under a barricade to have his photo taken next to an Israeli tank. A father puts his baby daughter’s hand on the trigger of a piece of artillery. A Shiite sheikh, in full religious dress, strolls past a map of “Occupied Palestine.” Two women silently sob at the site where former Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Musawi, now dead, was said to have prayed.
It’s opening day at Hezbollah’s war museum in the southern Lebanese town of Mlita.
Museum construction isn’
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 17, 2010
Michelangelo concealed anatomical sketches in the robes and faces of the figures he painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in a coded attack on the Church's disdain for science, researchers believe.
The cleverly disguised drawing of a human brain, which has remained unnoticed for 500 years, may have been a coded reference to the clash between science and religion.
The Renaissance master, who painted the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel between 1508 and 1512, would h
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 18, 2010
French President Nicolas Sarkozy made a symbolic visit to London today to mark the 70th anniversary of General Charles de Gaulle's radio broadcast urging his nation to resist the Nazi occupation of France.
The Prince of Wales greeted Mr Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, as they arrived at Clarence House during a day of official engagements to commemorate the historic milestone.
The Prince and the president jointly laid a wreath at the statues of King George VI and his
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 18, 2010
The address he made to the British nation as it stood alone against the Nazi war machine is one of the most celebrated speeches in history.
Full of passion and Shakespearesque language, his appeal for fortitude and courage was credited with re-galvanising the country in its darkest hour.
But a new examination of his papers shows how he agonised over every famous phrase – even adding one at the last minute – and how his private secretary was secretly unimpressed by his e
Source: AP
June 17, 2010
Archaeologists found some of the richest and most unusual Aztec offerings ever in excavations under a mammoth slab depicting an earth goddess and said Wednesday they hope to uncover an emperor's tomb nearby.
The seven offerings of strange and unparalleled oddities found under the stone slab depicting the goddess Tlaltecuhtli include the skeleton of a dog or wolf dressed in turquoise ear plugs, jadeite necklaces and golden bells on its feet.
The 4-meter (13-foot) long ca
Source: AP
June 17, 2010
The United States returned seven sculptures from the great Angkorian era on Thursday that had been smuggled out of Cambodia.
Cambodian Buddhist monks blessed the artifacts during a handover ceremony at the port of Sihanoukville, said John Johnson, a U.S. embassy spokesman.
The sandstone sculptures were recovered by U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials during an 2008 raid in Los Angeles. They arrived in Cambodia aboard the hospital ship USNS Mercy on Tuesday
Source: Fox News
June 18, 2010
The Vatican newspaper has celebrated the 30th anniversary of the release of The Blues Brothers by calling it a “Catholic” film.
The John Landis film has a bit of a cult following in Italy, which may part of the reason the paper, the Osservatore Romano, decided to single it out.
The movie stars John Belushi and Dan Akryod as Jake and Elwood, both of them on a “mission from God.”
They have to get their rhythm and blues band back together for a benefit concert
Source: BBC News
June 18, 2010
One of the most decorated French soldiers, who fought in the country's wars in Algeria and French Indochina, has died.
Gen Marcel Bigeard, 94, died on Friday, his wife told news agency Agence France-Presse.
Gen Bigeard was a commanding officer during the battle of Dien Bien Phu and the Battle of Algiers.
In 2000 he caused controversy in France by telling a newspaper that torture was a "necessary evil" in Algeria.
Gen Bigeard began his
Source: BBC News
June 18, 2010
The remains of chess champion Bobby Fischer are to be exhumed in order to settle a paternity claim, an Icelandic court has ruled.
The Supreme Court in Reykjavik said a tissue sample was needed to prove whether nine-year-old Jinky Young was Fischer's daughter.
Fischer, who died in Iceland in 2008, left no will.
His estate, estimated to be worth $2 million (£1.4m), has been at the heart of several inheritance claims.
Fischer's former wife, relati
Source: BBC News
June 18, 2010
Portuguese novelist Jose Saramago, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998, has died at the age of 87, his publisher has announced.
Saramago, a communist and atheist, only began to become recognised for his work in his fifties.
One of his best-known novels is Blindness, written in 1995, which tells the story of a country whose entire population lose their sight.
He had been due to appear at Edinburgh's book festival in August.
Saramago m
Source: bbc News
June 17, 2010
Experts have used scientific dating techniques to verify the historical chronology of ancient Egypt.
Radiocarbon dating was used to show that the chronology of Egypt's Old, Middle and New Kingdoms is indeed accurate.
The researchers dated seeds found in pharaohs' tombs, including some from the tomb of the King Tutankhamun.
They write in the journal Science that some of the samples are more than 4,500 years old.
Radiocarbon dating of ancient Egy
