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)
Jan 29, 2010
Lieutenant-Colonel Lee Archer, who died on January 27 aged 90, was a member of America's segregated "Tuskegee" air corps and recognised as the only black fighter "ace" during the Second World War; subjected to racial discrimination and prejudice, both within and outside the Army, he and his comrades none the less served their country with great distinction.
Strict racial segregation existed when Archer volunteered to be a pilot. He and like-minded African-America
Source: AFP
Jan 29, 2010
A thousand-year-old stone sarcophagus discovered in southern Mexico could provide clues to the reason for decline of Mayan culture, the archaeologist responsible for the find has said.
The tomb was discovered in November by specialists from the National Institute of Archaeology and History, known as INAH, in the Mayan city of Tonina in Chiapas state on the border with Guatemala.
The stone sarcophagus and the gravestone accompanying it dates to a period from 840 to 900 A
Source: AP
Jan 29, 2010
The last young backpackers flew away from Machu Picchu as clouds closed in again Friday, leaving Peru to grapple with flood damage that will close its top tourist site for weeks, or even months.
Torrential rains caused mudslides and swelled the Urubamba River on Sunday, stripping away long sections of the railway that is the only transportation in and out of the area around the Inca citadel. The road to the ruins from this village at the end of the train line also washed away.
Source: AP
Jan 29, 2010
The last young backpackers flew away from Machu Picchu as clouds closed in again Friday, leaving Peru to grapple with flood damage that will close its top tourist site for weeks, or even months.
Torrential rains caused mudslides and swelled the Urubamba River on Sunday, stripping away long sections of the railway that is the only transportation in and out of the area around the Inca citadel. The road to the ruins from this village at the end of the train line also washed away.
Source: BBC
Jan 29, 2010
The first of the remains of 250 World War I soldiers found in France are being reburied with military honours after painstaking efforts to identify them. How do you put the right name on a headstone after so long?
Boots, purses, toothbrushes and other personal artefacts lay amongst the twisted skeletons at Pheasant Wood, offering partial clues about the men's identities.
But it is the unique genetic codes within these remains that offer the best chance of putting names
Source: Washington Post
Jan 29, 2010
Culpeper County public school officials have decided to stop assigning a version of Anne Frank's diary, one of the most enduring symbols of the atrocities of the Nazi regime, after a parent complained that the book includes sexually explicit material and homosexual themes.
"The Diary of a Young Girl: the Definitive Edition," which was published on the 50th anniversary of Frank's death in a concentration camp, will not be used in the future, said James Allen, director of in
Source: CNN
Jan 29, 2010
It's now apparent that among the earthquake's widespread destruction were museums, galleries and other places that contained Haiti's artistic treasures, including Exil's work.
The earthquake's blow to Haitian art is staggering: The Centre d'Art, which launched the Haitian arts movement in the 1940s, is severely damaged.
The Musee d'Art Nader, which housed more than 12,000 pieces from the largest private collection in Haiti, collapsed. Murals in the Trinity Cathedral,
Source: BBC News
Jan 29, 2010
The Islamic movement Hamas claims that the death of one its senior commanders, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, is the latest in Israel's history of assassinating individuals it believes to have been behind attacks on its citizens....
Among the best documented of Israel's assassinations were a wave of killings of pro-Palestinian militants in Paris, Nicosia, Beirut and Athens, carried out in response to the hostage crisis at the Munich Olympics in 1972 which resulted in the deaths of 11 Israelis.
Source: AP
Jan 29, 2010
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko once commanded such respect that hundreds of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Kiev when he lost a fraudulent election.
But the former hero of the Orange Revolution could hardly have sunk any lower. In his bid for re-election this month, he drew just 5 percent of the vote. And now his posthumous honor for a nationalist leader - who was also, according to some, a Nazi collaborator - has led many to say Yushchenko has disgraced hi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 29, 2010
Tudor theatregoers enjoyed walnuts, peaches and figs and even the odd oyster, according to the most detailed ever study of a playhouse from the age.
A rich variety of seafood was on offer to peckish audience members, including crabs, cockles, mussels, periwinkles and whelks.
Sturgeon steaks were also popular with 16th century audiences enjoying plays by Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. The findings come from an archaeological surve
Source: BBC
Jan 29, 2010
The remains of 250 World War I soldiers, including several Scots, who were killed in the 1916 Battle of Fromelles have now been recovered.
They will be reburied with full military honours at a new cemetery close to the site in northern France.
Relatives of Private John Smith from Forfar said it was important to give the soldiers a proper burial.
Work to recover the British and Australian soldiers buried there by German forces, began in 2008.
Source: Global Times
Jan 29, 2010
Chinese scholars reported Wednesday that a large ancient tomb they unearthed earlier in Northwest Shaanxi Province belongs to a high-ranking general that was guarded by hundreds of nude pottery figurines.
The large tomb, located in Chang'an district of Xi'an, the capital city of ancient Western Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD), belongs to Zhang Anshi.
Zhang was credited with preserving stability along the western border in the Xinjiang region, China Business View reported Thur
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 29, 2010
Official guidelines have been issued to restaurants across China instructing them how to cook Mao Tse-tung’s favourite meal, an unctuous dish of pork.
According to stringent instructions from the government's food quality supervision and testing institute, true hong shao rou can only be made with the meat of rare pigs from Ningxiang county. Officials have designated the pig, which has been bred for nearly 1,000 years, as an "agricultural treasure".
The Xiaox
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 29, 2010
The house where Rudyard Kipling was born in India is to be turned into a museum, but the author will be written out of history, failing to get a mention anywhere in the building because of “political sensitivities”.
The foundation restoring the Mumbai house has shelved plans to use it to house a Kipling museum, fearing that commemorating the author of The White Man’s Burden and chronicler of the British Raj, will lead to a political furore.
The house, instead, is like
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 29, 2010
A defiant Tony Blair has mounted a vigorous defence of the invasion of Iraq, telling the Chilcot Inquiry he had no regrets over removing Saddam Hussein and would do the same again.
In his long-awaited appearance before the Iraq Inquiry, the former prime minister denied he had taken the country to war on the basis of a "lie" over Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
He suggested the world could now be faced with the threat of a nuclear
Source: Times Online (UK)
Jan 29, 2010
A poster collection looted from a Jewish family by the Nazis can stay on display in a Berlin museum and need not be returned to its original owners, a German court has ruled.
The ruling by the Berlin court of appeals stunned relatives of Hans Sachs, and came despite Germany's signature of the Washington Principles in 1998 agreeing to the restitution of art plundered by the Nazis.
Mr Sachs took 40 years to build one of the world's largest collections of rare posters onl
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Jan 29, 2010
In November, Gov. Haley Barbour proposed merging Mississippi's three historically black universities, infuriating supporters of the institutions and black leaders in the state. But many weren't that surprised -- and they talked about the proposal as part of a larger pattern of the state's white establishment either ignoring or actively undercutting institutions on which black students rely....
But on Wednesday, The Jackson Clarion-Ledger revealed that the governor wasn't the only on
Source: AP
Jan 29, 2010
It was bad enough that President Obama lost his filibuster-proof margin in the U.S. Senate to a Republican. Now it turns out he also lost it to a relative.
Genealogists said Friday the Democratic president and the newly elected Massachusetts senator, Scott Brown, are 10th cousins.
The New England Historic Genealogical Society said Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Brown's mother, Judith Ann Rugg, both descend from Richard Singletary of Haverhill, Mass.
Source: AP
Jan 29, 2010
Bruce Davis, a member of Charles Manson's murderous cult who participated in two killings, was recommended for parole on Thursday after nearly four decades in prison.
The decision by a two-member Board of Prison Terms panel came after the 26th parole hearing for Davis, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said.
It was just the first step in a parole process that also requires approval by the governor and other parole board members. The process could take
Source: AP
Jan 29, 2010
Retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Lee A. Archer, a Tuskegee Airman considered to be the only black ace pilot who also broke racial barriers as an executive at a major U.S. company and founder of a venture capital firm, died Wednesday in New York City. He was 90.
His son, Roy Archer, said his father died at Cornell University Medical Center in Manhattan. A cause of death was not immediately determined.
Archer was acknowledged to have shot down four planes, and he and another
