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)
Feb 4, 2010
A Russian survivor of the Nazi death camp Sobibor has said that a man on trial for working at the death camp, John Demjanjuk, was definitely one of the guards.
John Demjanjuk is accused of being a guard at Sobibor camp in occupied Poland and aiding the murder of 27,900 Dutch Jews who were gassed during his alleged time there.
Mr Vaitsen, a Jewish veteran paratrooper who is seriously ill after several heart attacks, was shown a photograph of John Demjanjuk by a reporte
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 4, 2010
Adolf Hitler's autobiography "Mein Kampf" is to be republished in Germany in 2015 for the first time since being banned under the country's constitution at the end of the Second World War.
Under the post-1945 German constitution, the dissemination of Nazi philosophy has been a crime punishable by fines and imprisonment.
But the copyright, held by the state of Bavaria where the Nazi movement began life in the 1920s, expires in 2015, 70 years after the death of
Source: AP
Feb 4, 2010
Prosecutors have asked a court to officially close the case of a man accused of fatally shooting a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Museum.
James Wenneker Von Brunn, a white supremacist, died in January; a court filing Wednesday asks that the federal case against him be closed.
The filing says that a medical examiner provided Von Brunn's certificate of death and that he died naturally but as a result of a variety of medical conditions.
Source: Voice of America
Feb 4, 2010
February is Black History Month in the United States and Canada, a national observance that pays tribute to people and events that shaped the history of African-Americans and Canadians. It's also a time to educate people about the accomplishments of black people and their contributions to society. Last November, two African American astronauts soared into space while reaching new heights in the U.S. Space program.
Six astronauts rocketed toward orbit and the international space stat
Source: BBC News
Feb 4, 2010
Russian PM Vladimir Putin has invited his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, to a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre.
It is the first Russian ceremony to mark the murdering by Soviet secret police of more than 20,000 Polish prisoners of war in April 1940.
The invitation is being hailed in Poland as a breakthrough that could lead to improved bilateral ties.
Mr Putin said he understood the significance of the massacre to Poles.
H
Source: BBC News
Feb 4, 2010
At least $4.6m (£2.9m) in Swiss bank accounts must be returned to the family of Haiti's former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, a Swiss court has ruled.
A lower court had previously awarded charities the money - but that decision was overturned on 12 January and the ruling released on 3 February.
However, the Swiss government has blocked the release of the money until a law is passed to return it to Haiti.
The exile, known as Baby Doc, allegedly looted millio
Source: BBC News
Feb 4, 2010
It soon becomes clear that the giant salamander has hit Claude Gascon's enthusiasm button smack on the nose.
"This is a dinosaur, this is amazing," he enthuses.
"We're talking about salamanders that usually fit in the palm of your hand. This one will chop your hand off."
As a leader of Conservation International's (CI) scientific programmes, and co-chair of the Amphibian Specialist Group with the International Union for the Conservation
Source: WRVO
Feb 3, 2010
The governor's proposed budget cuts will likely mean that some state parks will have to close. At a legislative hearing late last week, NYS Parks Commissioner Carole Ash would not reveal which parks are on the chopping block.
During the legislative hearing, Ash said that she sees no alternative to closing some parks this summer given the 22 percent cut the governor has recommended to the Office of Parks and Historic Preservation....
Source: Politico
Feb 3, 2010
President George W. Bush and his senior aides considered — and rejected — a military response to Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, according to a new history of the conflict and interviews with former officials in the Bush administration.
With desperate Georgians begging for American help in closing down the key route through which Russian soldiers were pouring into the country, Bush’s national security aides outlined possible responses, including “the bombardment and sealing of th
Source: Discovery News
Feb 3, 2010
The remains of a 2,000-year-old skeleton found in eastern Mongolia reveal a man of multi-ethnic heritage.
Consider an older gentleman whose skeleton lay in one of more than 200 tombs recently excavated at a 2,000-year-old cemetery in eastern Mongolia, near China's northern border. DNA extracted from this man's bones pegs him as a descendant of Europeans or western Asians. Yet he still assumed a prominent position in ancient Mongolia's Xiongnu Empire, say geneticist Kyung-Yong Kim of
Source: FOX News
Feb 3, 2010
He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877....
Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S.
Source: NYT
Feb 3, 2010
Some four decades after the Cultural Revolution, when many of the country’s centuries-old treasures were defaced or destroyed as a result of Mao’s command to eradicate “the four olds” — old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits — China has reversed its attitude toward antiques. Ming dynasty porcelain vases, 19th-century hardwood furniture and even early 20th-century calligraphy ink pots have become popular status symbols for an emerging middle class eager to display its new wealth and c
Source: BBC
Feb 3, 2010
Two aviation archaeologists are to come to Northern Ireland to search for a lost WWII Spitfire.
Gareth Jones and Steve Vizard have been keen to unravel the mystery of the missing aircraft.
They believe it's buried underground on the site of City of Derry Airport, the former RAF Eglinton air base.
In 1941 the air base was established to defend Londonderry from German attack.
Source: BBC
Feb 3, 2010
New documents detailing Edward Wilson's doomed march to the South Pole with Scott of the Antarctic have gone on show in his home town of Cheltenham.
Ninety-eight years ago, three men lay dying inside a lonely tent battered by howling winds on the frozen wastes of Antarctica.
Robert Falcon Scott, "Birdie" Bowers and Dr Edward Wilson were the last remaining members of the five-man party that lost the race to the South Pole. They arrived five weeks after their r
Source: BBC
Feb 3, 2010
An iPhone application that allows users to download speeches by the former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini has been withdrawn.
Its developer says he is removing it after legal threats.
But the application has also faced protests from Jewish groups and Holocaust survivors who described it as offensive.
IMussolini, as the application is known, has become the most popular iPhone download in Italy.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 3, 2010
Europe's oldest man, Stanley Lucas, has celebrated his 110th birthday in his home town in Cornwall and attributed his long life to fresh air and good country food.
Mr Lucas, who is also believed to be the world’s third oldest man, said he had never smoked, enjoys only the odd glass of sherry, and had never travelled far.
He has received seven cards from the Queen, the first when he was aged 100, and one every year from 105 to 110.
Mr Lucas, who was born o
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 3, 2010
Sudan's president faces being charged with genocide over the seven-year conflict in Darfur after a war crimes court ruling.
An appeals chamber ordered that evidence which could support a genocide indictment must be looked at again after it was discarded during earlier hearings.
The International Criminal Court charged Mr Bashir with seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes in March last year.
But prosecutors' requests that three counts of g
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 3, 2010
The director of the National Portrait Gallery seemed preoccupied with the cleanliness of his parquet flooring after a gruesome murder-suicide there in 1909, according to archive papers being put online.
Returning from lunch, James Milner was told that an elderly man had "shot himself and a woman in the East Wing," he wrote in a typed report dated 26 February 1909.
The tale is from the gallery's archive, dating back to its founding in 1856, which have until n
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 3, 2010
An Alberto Giacometti bronze sculpture has become the most expensive piece of art to sell at auction after it was sold in London for more than £65million.
The sculpture, considered to be one of the most important by the 20th century Swiss artist, was estimated to sell for between £12 million and £18 million.
The previous record was a Picasso painting, Boy with a Pipe, which was his haunting Rose Period portrait of a youngster called "Little Louis", who used
Source: AP
Feb 3, 2010
[Note: The original headline on FOX News read"British Encyclopedia Apologizes for Mangling Irish Civil War History." Encyclopaedia Britannica has been an American publication since 1901.]
Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. apologized Wednesday for mangling the history of the Irish Civil War, a longtime screw-up detected only this year when an Internet version of the reference book was supplied to Ireland's 4,000 schools.
A concise version of the Britannica first published seven years
