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 21, 2010
The decision by an Israeli court to issue the order has raised hopes among Kafka scholars that the papers will cast new light on the life and work of the great Czech writer.
The court order marks the end of the first chapter in a battle for control of his literary legacy, whose absurd twists could have ended up in one of his angst-ridden works.
Kafka scholars hope that unseen original work by the author of The Trial, perhaps even an unfinished novel, might be buried a
Source: BBC
Jan 21, 2010
A Rwandan doctor wanted on charges of genocide and war crimes has been arrested in France, police say.
Sosthene Munyemana, 45, who had been working in a hospital in Bordeaux for eight years, denies the charges.
His arrest on an extradition warrant from Rwanda comes weeks after France and Rwanda restored diplomatic ties.
France had rejected an asylum bid by him in 2008, saying there were "serious reasons" to suspect his involvement in war crimes
Source: BBC
Jan 21, 2010
The infamous Arbeit Macht Frei sign at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland - stolen last month and quickly recovered - has been returned.
Police handed the damaged wrought iron sign to officials at the camp's museum and they will now try to restore it.
The museum said it was not yet clear if the sign, which thieves cut into three pieces, will be put back in place.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 21, 2010
An Israeli exhibition celebrating antiquities which have been recovered from thieves has been robbed of artefacts including a silver ring once worn by Alexander the Great.
Organisers of the "Antiquities Theft in Israel" in Jerusalem could not have chosen a more fitting name for their exhibition.
On Wednesday burglars broke into the a museum in Ashdod where hundreds of artefacts recovered from the black market were on show and snatched several valuable items,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 21, 2010
Iran has threatened to cut cultural ties with the UK after the British Museum refused to hand over a 23cm clay cylinder inscribed by Cyrus the Great, the Persian king.
The museum had promised to lend Iran the cylinder, thought to be inscribed with the first declaration of human rights, after borrowing several key works form Iranian museums for its exhibition oon Shah Abbas, the Iranian emperor, last year.
But researchers are now insisting on keeping the Cyrus Cylinder
Source: AP
Jan 21, 2010
The effort to help Haiti recover from its devastating earthquake can draw on lessons learned in other large-scale tragedies, particularly the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed at least 230,000 people across a dozen countries, rescue officials say.
The same scenes of bodies littering the ground or stacked along roadways in Haiti are flashbacks to the tsunami devastation, but Bakri Beck, who headed relief activities in Indonesia's devastated Banda Aceh province — where 167,000 peo
Source: The Times (UK)
Jan 21, 2010
Usama bin Laden is worth more to the United States alive than dead because his death could unleash "very, very nasty" attacks by militants, his son Omar Ossama bin Laden claims.
In an at times rambling interview with Rolling Stone magazine, which was conducted in part in a Damascus strip club, the terror leader's fourth eldest son said his father had already won the war on terror because he had achieved his aim of humbling the United States, and would probably not feel the
Source: Truthout
Jan 21, 2010
In a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that portends massive changes in campaign finance, corporations will no longer be banned from spending money on presidential or Congressional elections.
The conservative wing of the court, with Anthony Kennedy joining, overruled two long-held precedents in reaching the decision, which said that corporations have the same right to use their own money to fund campaign ads as individuals do.
Kennedy, in his opinion for the majority, wrote th
Source: AFP
Jan 21, 2010
Britain was keen to avoid the 2003 war in Iraq, its foreign secretary at the time said Thursday, insisting ministers made the "best judgements" possible in the run-up to the invasion.
Jack Straw, the first serving Cabinet minister to give evidence to the public inquiry into the conflict, added that backing the war was "the most difficult decision I have ever faced in my life".
Straw, currently justice secretary in Prime Minister Gordon Brown's govern
Source: National Parks Traveler
Jan 21, 2010
From time to time there are cases of folks digging in remote areas of national parks, either for fossils, archaeological artifacts, or whatever. It's seldom that you hear of instances in which treasures were buried at a park site, but that's exactly what seems to have occurred nearly 18 years ago after a theft at San Juan National Historic Site.
Earlier this month some maintenance workers at the historic site were at work developing a new trail extension of the Paseo del Morro trail
Source: Bloomberg News
Jan 21, 2010
Late in the evening of Dec. 23, 1888, Vincent van Gogh mutilated his ear. That insane act is the most celebrated case of artistic temperament. But why he did he have his crisis then?
Journalist and Van Gogh scholar Martin Bailey has published an intriguing new clue.
The traditional explanation is that Van Gogh's fraught relationship with Gauguin, who had been sharing his small house in Arles, France, for the previous two months, was the trigger; in particular, Gauguin a
Source: Artdaily.org
Jan 21, 2010
From 20 January 2010, Christie’s will host a public exhibition showing masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Natalia Gonchorova that have been unseen in public for nearly 40 years, as well as an outstanding masterpiece by Yves Klein and important works by Henri Matisse, Peter Doig, Rene Magritte, Frank Auerbach, Kees van Dongen and Martin Kippenberger.
These are the leading highlights from the forthcoming series of auctions of Impressionist and Modern Art and Pos
Source: History Today
Jan 21, 2010
Two weeks ago today, we reported on the upcoming auction of Neville Chamberlain’s British Airways plane ticket to Munich. He flew out on September 29th, 1938, at 8.30am. The following day, Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain and Daladier signed the Munich Agreement. The ticket was auctioned by Mullock’s on Tuesday January 19th. It was expected to fetch between £5,000 and £7,000.
The final selling price was considerably higher than expected. The ticket sold for £9,280.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jan 21, 2010
Descendants of the leaders of the Nazi regime have spoken on camera for the first time about the feelings of pain and revulsion they have for their ancestors.
They include Bettina Goering, great niece of Adolf Hitler's second in command Hermann Goering, who says she has had herself sterilised so she would 'not pass on the blood of a monster'.
Adolf Eichmann's son Ricardo says he simply cannot find a way to explain why his father became the chief architect of the Holoc
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jan 21, 2010
Tony Blair's intelligence chief told the Iraq Inquiry that if the public had been allowed to see all the intelligence on which Britain went to war, they would have said: 'Is that it?'
In a damning assessment of the way the evidence was spun into a case for war, former Cabinet Office Intelligence and Security Co-ordinator Sir David Omand denounced Mr Blair's Downing Street dossier as a 'big mistake'.
He said the claim that Iraq could fire weapons of mass destruction in
Source: CBS News (video)
Jan 20, 2010
As some musicians prepare for the upcoming Grammy awards, it took one nominated group about 140 years to get there. Randall Pinkston has the story of one college gospel choir's journey to the Grammys.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Jan 20, 2010
The National University of Ireland, a century-old federal institution that comprises some of the country's leading universities and colleges, including University College Dublin, is facing dissolution. Ireland's education minister, Batt O'Keeffe, announced the move on Wednesday, saying that the umbrella institution had outlived its usefulness and that "the need to have a separate body undertaking what is now a limited set of functions" no longer exists.
His announcement, w
Source: Franklin Press (North Carolina)
Jan 20, 2010
A project whose aim is identify important natural and cultural places and preserve and protect Native American sites and cultural resources throughout the Southeast is hoping to see restored a section of streambank in Macon County where there once stood a Cherokee village called Tassee.
Some artifacts such as pottery shards have already been found at the Tassee site, which lies at the confluence of the Little Tennessee and Cullasaja rivers near the soccer fields along the Greenway.
Source: Chicago Tribune
Jan 20, 2010
A man accused of looting thousands of artifacts, including human bone fragments, from an Illinois national wildlife refuge has been sentenced to a month in jail and five years of probation as caretakers work out what to do with the prehistoric trove.
A federal judge this week also ordered 50-year-old Leslie Jones of Creal Springs, Ill., to perform 500 hours of community service after his 30-day jail term and pay the Cypress Creek National Wildlife Refuge in southern Illinois more t
Source: Haaretz.com
Jan 20, 2010
The Republican upset in the race for the U.S. Senate seat held for nearly half a century by liberal Edward M. Kennedy reflects a huge victory for opponents of U.S. President Barack Obama - and also for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Scott Brown defeated once-favored Martha Coakley for the Massachusetts seat even after U.S. President Barack Obama rushed to Boston on Sunday to try to save her candidacy.
Over the past nine months, Netanyahu has managed to curb pressure
