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: CNN
Oct 19, 2009
A slight majority of Americans think that the war in Afghanistan is turning into another Vietnam, according to a new national poll which also indicates that nearly six in 10 oppose sending more U.S. troops to the conflict.
Fifty-two percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday say the eight year long conflict has turned into a situation like the U.S. faced in the Vietnam War, with 46 percent disagreeing.
According to the poll
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 19, 2009
An Italian art expert says he is on the verge of discovering a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece hidden in a secret cavity behind a palace wall.
Maurizio Seracini, a university professor, claims a cryptic message in a huge artwork in Florence's historic Palazzo Vecchio suggests Leonardo's The Battle of Anghiari is hidden behind.
He believes it was painted over with the fresco which can be seen today – The Battle of Marciano in the Chiana Valley – by another Rena
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 19, 2009
"It was curiosity born of great innocence," recalled Kurt Starke, 70, a sociologist and sex expert in Leipzig, eastern Germany.
"Couples went to sex shops, sometimes with grandmothers holding a child by the hand. We wanted to discover everything the West had to offer."
Under the totalitarian state in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), as Communist East Germany was known, pornography and prostitution were serious taboos.
"The s
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 19, 2009
In his most outspoken comments since he resigned as the last Soviet leader in 1991, Mr Gorbachev fiercely criticised the ruling United Russia party led by Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, and said that genuine political debate was now confined to Russia's tiny liberal press.
"In the eyes of everybody, elections have been turned into a mockery of people and a symbol of disrespect for their choices," he said.
"The electoral system has been maimed."
Source: Independent (UK)
Oct 19, 2009
The family of Jean Charles de Menezes have accused the former Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Ian Blair of "trying to rewrite history" with his autobiography, in which he praises the actions of the two armed officers who shot dead the Brazilian electrician.
Extracts from Sir Ian's book, Policing Controversy, appeared in a Sunday newspaper yesterday. In passages referring to the day Mr de Menezes was killed in Stockwell Tube station in south London, Sir Ian said the de
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 19, 2009
The five boys from Auckland Grammar School face disciplinary action over the pictures, taken during an outing to a museum display that commemorated the 70th anniversary of the start of the Second World War.
The pictures, in which the boys were wearing school uniform, appeared on the Facebook website but were taken down when the school became aware of them at the weekend.
Robin Klitscher, president of the Returned Services Association, which represents former members of
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 19, 2009
More than 150 items that had belonged to the former president of the Elvis Presley fan club went on the block at Chicago's Leslie Hindman auctioneers.
The most expensive items included a red ultrasuede shirt worn by Presley, which was sold for $34,000, and a monogrammed cream-colored shirt that sold for $62,000, according to the auction house's listing of post-auction sale prices.
Two concert-worn scarves sold for a combined $2,318. A set of concert-used handkerchiefs
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 19, 2009
The image, which was accompanied by the words "Hitler is not dead", had been condemned by foreign diplomats as "utterly tasteless".
Somporn Naksuetrong, the manager of the Louis Tussaud's Waxworks in Pattaya, apologised on Sunday. "We did not mean to cause any offence," he said. "We think he is an important historical figure, but in a horrible way."
The billboard had been up for several weeks on the main road from the capital Bang
Source: Spiegel Online
Oct 19, 2009
Denying the Holocaust can be expensive. That, at least, could be the lesson facing Bishop Richard Williamson, the ultra-conservative Catholic cleric who plunged the Vatican into crisis in January by telling Swedish television that he believed "there were no gas chambers."
Last week, public prosecutors in the southern German city of Regensburg, where Williamson was when he filmed the interview, have formally requested that the bishop be fined €12,000 ($17,860) for incitem
Source: BBC
Oct 19, 2009
The teams will be looking for precious items stolen from Beijing's former Summer Palace nearly 150 years ago.
Chinese experts believe 1.5 million items could have been taken from the site, which was destroyed by British and French troops.
Over recent years, China has become increasingly active in its efforts to raise the issue of stolen treasures.
Source: BBC
Oct 19, 2009
The Science Museum is investigating the 450-year-old portrait, thought to be of Cosimo I de Medici, Duke of Florence, holding a golden timepiece.
Curators have sent their findings to renaissance experts at the Uffizi gallery in Florence, and are awaiting their comments.
The painting is being shown as part of the museum's Measuring Time gallery.
The first watches appeared shortly after 1500 in Germany and horologists believe the picture, painted by renais
Source: WSJ
Oct 19, 2009
LONDON -- The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court long have been Anglophiles, routinely turning to antique English cases to help decide issues from gun rights to terrorism.
The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist had gold stripes stitched into his robe to emulate the British Lord Chancellor's costume in a Gilbert and Sullivan opera.
Now, the Mother Country is following the lead of its offspring. This month, the U.K. replaced its Law Lords -- a committee of noblemen that
Source: Boston Globe
Oct 18, 2009
It was the oddest of scenes: A neurosurgeon delicately threaded a scope up the neck and into the skull of a disembodied, 4,000-year-old mummified head. Sweating with concentration, another doctor clamped a molar and began to rock it gently back and forth.
Three hours later, the nerve-wracking operation yielded a tooth, a time capsule holding precious DNA, which might reveal the identity of the ancient Egyptian head.
The surgical team - doctors from Massachusetts General
Source: The New York Times
Oct 18, 2009
Culture lovers reveled in the reopening of the Neues Museum in the heart of Berlin on Friday, the culmination of decades of efforts to renovate the site, which was destroyed during World War II.
But the celebrations have been marred by a growing dispute between the German and Egyptian governments over the star of the show: the 3,500-year-old limestone-and-stucco bust of Queen Nefertiti, a wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten.
Nefertiti has been in Germany since 1913. But now Egypt
Source: Live Science
Oct 18, 2009
When monkeys drum, they activate brain networks linked with communication, new findings that suggest a common origin of primate vocal and nonvocal communication systems and shed light on the origins of language and music.
In the wild, monkeys known as macaques drum by shaking branches or thumping on dead logs. Similar behavior has been seen in non-human primates - for instance, gorillas beat their chests and clap their hands, while chimpanzees drum on tree buttresses.
Source: Google News
Oct 18, 2009
BAGHDAD — Iraq on Sunday accused its neighbours of stealing vast sections of its national archives, including documents dating back centuries, after the 2003 US-led invasion of the country.
Some 60 percent of the archives, amounting to tens of millions of documents, were missing or had been damaged and destroyed as a result of water leaks and a fire at a storage centre in Bab al-Muatham in Baghdad's old quarter.
"Historic documents to do with Iraq's relations with
Source: NYT
Oct 18, 2009
FRANKFURT — As China extends its economic reach, it has also increased efforts to promote its culture, or “soft power,” to counter Western influence and improve its image in the wider world.
Yet if Chinese goods are accepted everywhere, its arts and literature, embattled at home after decades of censorship and state control, are proving harder for the government to export.
After years of delicate preparations, China was the “honored guest” this past week at the Frankfu
Source: NYT
Oct 18, 2009
BERLIN — Culture lovers reveled in the reopening of the Neues Museum in the heart of Berlin on Friday, the culmination of decades of efforts to renovate the site, which was destroyed during World War II.
But the celebrations have been marred by a growing dispute between the German and Egyptian governments over the star of the show: the 3,500-year-old limestone-and-stucco bust of Queen Nefertiti, a wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten.
Nefertiti has been in Germany since 1913. But
Source: BBC
Oct 18, 2009
A Rwandan doctor suspended from his job in a French hospital last week after a nurse discovered he was wanted for genocide has protested his innocence.
Eugene Rwamucyo, who has been wanted by Interpol since 2006, said that he was a victim of injustice.
The authorities in Rwanda allege Dr Rwamucyo committed war crimes during the 1994 genocide.
The director of the hospital in the northern French town of Maubeuge said the whole community was in shock.
Source: BBC
Oct 18, 2009
Museum officials in Thailand have covered a billboard depicting Adolf Hitler saluting after complaints from the German and Israeli embassies.
The advertisement, which reads in Thai, "Hitler is not dead," was set up on a main road out of Bangkok two weeks ago.
The billboard was covered up after the museum received "a lot" of complaints, director Somporn Naksuetrong said.
The series of highway advertisements featuring famous dead people
