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: Deutsche Welle
Dec 29, 2009
The resignation was not a surprise as Rasim Ljajic had vowed to step down if he failed to bring Serbia's most high profile war crimes suspect to justice this year.
"This is to inform you that for reasons well known to everybody ... I resign from my post" (as head of the unit), Ljajic said in the letter submitted to Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic.
But this does not mean Ljajic is giving up completely. He will remain head of the National Council for Coo
Source: BBC
Dec 29, 2009
The city of Bath is playing a key role in a new website which features the south west's four unique UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The World Heritage South West website aims to make travel between them easier and more environmentally friendly.
The four sites are the City of Bath, the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, the Jurassic Coast and Stonehenge and Avebury.
A key feature of the website is an interactive sustainable transport map.
Source: Discovery News
Dec 29, 2009
Experts are studying the first Mayan hieroglyphic script dealing with the life of a high priest, his blood sacrifices and acts of penance, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said.
The text consists of 260 glyphs carved into a series of seashell earrings and manta ray stingers found inside a burial urn.
The urn, which also contained the remains of an important Maya priest, wrapped in bright red cloth, was uncovered during excavations 11 years
Source: Medieval News
Dec 29, 2009
A new article is examining the theory that Greenland's medieval Norse settlements were ruined by the collapse of the trade in walrus tusks, after ivory from elephants became more easily accessible for artisans in Europe.
In her article, "Desirable teeth: the medieval trade in Arctic and African ivory," Kirsten Seaver criticizes that idea, and puts forward her own theory about why the Norse settlers mysteriously vanished from Greenland sometime during the 15th century.
Source: BBC
Dec 29, 2009
In 2009 the US not only inaugurated its first black president - it also honoured the president who paved Barack Obama's way to the country's highest post.
Events across the nation marked the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth, celebrating a man widely seen as the greatest US president - the secular saint who redeemed America's original sin of slavery.
Mr Obama has been compared to Lincoln - the lanky junior politician from Illinois who captured the presidency on t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 29, 2009
The Chinese embassy referred to the controversial role Britain played in supplying opium to China following the execution of British citizen Akmal Shaikh, according to a leading historian.
The official statement from the Chinese embassy said the "strong resentment" felt by the Chinese public to drug traffickers was in part based on "the bitter memory of history".
Jonathan Fenby, the author of The Penguin History of Modern China, said it was a refer
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 29, 2009
Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab defended the 9/11 terror attacks on New York, saying they were justified by American military activity.
The 23-year-old suspect in the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253 is reported to have shocked friends with his hardline views as far back as 2001.
He is said to have justified the plane attacks by saying that US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia since the 1991 Gulf War had "humiliated" Muslims.
Source: AP
Dec 29, 2009
Poland will formally seek Sweden's help in investigating the theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign from the Auschwitz memorial, confirming that Polish authorities suspect a Swedish link in the crime.
Boguslawa Marcinkowska, a spokeswoman for Krakow prosecutors, says her office will send a formal request for help Wednesday to the Swedish Justice Ministry in Stockholm.
Polish media have been reporting that the theft was commissioned by a collector living in Swed
Source: AP
Dec 29, 2009
U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Johann Gokool lost his left foot when a bomb ripped a hole in the side of the USS Cole nearly a decade ago, but the injury was nothing compared with the mental torment that ravaged him almost daily.
He returned home to Florida suffering severe post-traumatic stress disorder and frequent panic attacks so violent he would launch into seizures and even fractured his own wrist several times as he flailed, sister Natala Gokool said Tuesday.
Source: BBC News
Dec 29, 2009
A Turkish archaeologist has called on his government to demand that Italy return the bones of St Nicholas to their original resting place.
The 3rd Century saint - on whom Santa Claus was modelled - was buried in the modern-day town of Demre in Turkey.
But in the Middle Ages his bones were taken by Italian sailors and re-interred in the port of Bari.
The Turkish government said it was considering making a request to Rome for the return of the saint's remains
Source: Discovery News
Dec 28, 2009
Shuo Cao Cao, Cao Cao jiu dao, says a Chinese proverb. It means: "Speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao will be there."
It's the equivalent of the English phrase "speak of the devil."
More than 1,700 years after his death, Cao Cao, warlord and ruler of northern China during the Three Kingdoms period, has indeed appeared, according to China Daily.
According to the report, Chinese archaeologists might have found the body of the legendary general
Source: Stuff (New Zealand)
Dec 28, 2009
Sven Hedin was one of Sweden's most famous scientists. Back in the early 1900s he explored Central Asia and Mongolia, and became an international cartographer, hydrographer, photographer and author of popular travel books such as A Conquest of Tibet and Across the Gobi Desert.
Among the 150-odd books he wrote were multi-volume atlases of Central Asia.
In 1905 Hedin was appointed one of 18 judges on the Nobel Prize Committee. He continued voting on nominees until 1949.
Source: Time Magazine
Dec 28, 2009
Failed Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis once suggested that elections should be about competence, not ideology. A year after winning the White House with a combination of ideological jousting and forceful technique, Barack Obama has been tested on both fronts.
His approval ratings have fallen, and ideologically, liberals seem almost as unhappy with Barack Obama as do conservatives. Those on the right think Obama has revealed himself to be a flaming liberal (the word
Source: BBC
Dec 28, 2009
Work to preserve a 15th Century letter from the Pope founding the University of St Andrews has been completed.
The Bull of Foundation is one of a series of six letters from the Pope, sent in 1413, which brought the institution into existence.
It took experts three weeks to restore the Papal Bull, including surface cleaning, repairing edge tears and the realignment of the document's silk tag.
The document will now be able to be displayed to the public.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 28, 2009
A pocket watch given to Edward VIII by Wallis Simpson is expected to fetch £60,000 at auction.
The onyx Cartier pocket watch is inscribed "Easter 12/4/36" and is one of four items being auctioned off in the sale.
Other items belonging to the Duchess of Windsor include a silver-gilt seal box, which has a guide price of £50,000 pounds, an 18ct pencil holder which is expected to fetch £12,000 pounds and a 14ct pocket magnifying glass with a guide of £8,000 pound
Source: Smoking Gun
Dec 28, 2009
-In a colossal screw-up, the gossip web site TMZ today published a photo purporting to show John F. Kennedy frolicking on a yacht with a harem of naked women--except that the image actually appeared as part of a November 1967 Playboy photo spread, The Smoking Gun has learned. The TMZ hoax was billed as an"exclusive" featuring a photo that" could have altered world events" had it surfaced prior to JFK's presidential campaign."It could have torpedoed his run, and changed world history," the site a
Source: CNN
Dec 27, 2009
Civil rights attorney Percy Sutton, who represented Malcolm X and became an influential New York politician and broadcaster, has died at age 89, associates said Sunday.
As a businessman, Sutton was credited with leading the revitalization of Harlem, including the restoration of the famous Apollo Theater. In a statement issued after Sutton's death Saturday night, New York Gov. David Paterson called the former Manhattan borough president "a friend and mentor."
Source: Times (UK)
Dec 27, 2009
Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was saved from Hitler’s persecution of the Jews by a long-standing Nazi who was fascinated with his work, a new book reveals.
The fate of Freud and his family in Vienna hung in the balance after Hitler’s forces took over Austria in 1938. The psychoanalyst was first protected, then helped to escape to Britain, by Anton Sauerwald, a Nazi who had been put in charge of his assets.
In twists of Freudian complexity, Sauerwald was p
Source: BBC News
Dec 27, 2009
For two decades, the world has been living with the consequences of events in 1989. As well as the changes in Eastern Europe, the Cold War was winding down. BBC Diplomatic Editor Brian Hanrahan, who has spent the year assessing 1989's legacy, looks at what happened next.
The hard men of the KGB were glued to the TV screen. Upstairs, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev were dealing with great power confrontation.
But down in the basement, M
Source: CBS
Dec 27, 2009
They are photos of iconic moments but whether certain pictures are true snapshots or false images has overshadowed many of them for decades, reports CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller.
That's the mystery surrounding Robert Capa's "Falling Soldier." An analysis of the photo conducted earlier this year has reignited a decades-long debate about whether the image - supposedly of a man being shot during the Spanish Civil War - was staged. Director of the International Cent
