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: BBC
Sep 25, 2009
After almost a century on the sea bed a priceless World War One relic has finally been restored and put on display.
The ten-ton deck gun from the SS Laurentic was raised from the sea last year by a team of divers from Downings in County Donegal.
They have now restored the weapon and put it on show at the local pier.
The gun was one of eight guns on the Laurentic and the second to be recovered from the sea bed. The divers spent t
Source: BBC
Sep 25, 2009
Two million people are now recognised as being descendants of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, more than tripling the number in the last count.
The announcement was made as the fifth update to Confucius' family tree was unveiled on the 2,560th anniversary of his birth, say Chinese state media.
Last updated in 1937, the book lists all 83 generations of descendents.
For the first time women, ethnic minorities and descendants living overseas have been incl
Source: BBC
Sep 25, 2009
An Egyptian man has received a $250,000 payout from the FBI because of the way he was treated following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Abdallah Higazy, 38, sued the bureau, saying he had been unjustly criminally charged and imprisoned for 34 days.
He had been accused of lying to investigators about an aviation radio found in his hotel room in New York.
Source: Yahoo News
Sep 25, 2009
PARIS – The French official choked on the words he read to a room of Defense Ministry recruits and swallowed back tears as he tried to kick off an unusual program aimed at teaching about the Holocaust.
The reading, from a young girl whose parents were arrested under the Nazi occupation, went straight to the heart of Friday's seminar on French officialdom's role in the Nazi terror.
"There were only French gendarmes. There were no Germans," read Eric Lucas, dire
Source: CNN
Sep 25, 2009
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Two sentences inscribed above the refurbished entrance hall of Moscow's Kurskaya metro station are causing great agitation for survivors of Russian labor camps.Yuri Fidelgoldsh, who had five ribs removed after imprisonment six decades ago, is one of the offended survivors.
"Stalin reared us on loyalty to the people," says the inscription above the pristine marble floors of the metro station. "He inspired us to labor and to heroism."
Source: ABC News
Sep 25, 2009
In 2001, high school history teacher Matt Rozell began an oral history project. He and his students interviewed family members in the small town of Hudson Falls, N.Y., to capture fading stories of World War II. The students ended up unearthing a forgotten chapter in history.
Near the very end of World War II, on April 13, 1945, the American 30th Infantry Division was pushing its way into central Germany. They found a train carrying nearly 2,500 emaciated Jewish prisoners -- many of
Source: The Daily Beast
Sep 25, 2009
Five new fossils from northeastern China were found which add weight to the idea that birds descended from dinosaurs. According to The Guardian, the fossils are older than previous discoveries, and date from 151 to 164 million years ago. The specimens all show feathers or feather-like structures, including one fossil that has four wings, lots of plumage, and feathered feet. The discoveries suggest that there may have been a four-wing transition stage between dinos and birds, and will shed light
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Sep 25, 2009
SEOUL -- For the first time in two years, South and North Korean relatives will meet this weekend in government-arranged reunions, restarting a humanitarian program that underscores the differences between the two Koreas even as it tries to bridge them.
The two sets of three-day reunions, involving several hundred people from both countries, will take place from Saturday to Thursday at a South Korea-built resort at Mount Kumgang, just inside North Korea on the east coast of the two
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Sep 25, 2009
The figure at the center of Wall Street's latest insider-trading scandal also played a key role in another drama: the daring 1979 rescue of two American hostages held in Iran that was financed and orchestrated by H. Ross Perot.
Reza Saleh, a longtime employee of Mr. Perot's businesses who has lived quietly in Texas for 30 years, was accused by federal regulators Wednesday of making $8.6 million in illicit profits from Dell Inc.'s proposed purchase of Perot Systems Corp.
Source: TwinCities.com
Sep 24, 2009
Brett Potas is so angry the University of North Dakota may drop its Fighting Sioux nickname that he canceled his season hockey tickets and says he won't give his alma mater another dime...
... Lucy Ganje, an art professor who led protests against the name, said the school should not only drop its nickname and Indian head logo, but also apologize to Sioux tribes and the school's American Indian students.
The two views illustrate the passionately fought debate over the ni
Source: AFP
Sep 24, 2009
French archaeologists have discovered the oldest known place of worship dedicated to the dugong, or sea cow, on an island just north of Dubai, two research centres said Thursday.
The sanctuary believed to date back to 3,500 to 3,200 years BC was discovered on Akab island in the United Arab Emirates, 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Dubai.
The French archaeological mission in the Emirates and the Umm al-Quwain museum there said in the specialist magazine Antiquity that
Source: The Boston Channel
Sep 24, 2009
New Hampshire officials have banned the sale of human remains and items buried with a person after an auction house put the skeletal remains of a Civil War soldier up for sale.
Earlier this month, Granite State officials changed the law that allowed human remains and grave goods to be sold on the open market in the state.
Human remains include not only the remains of the person, but also jewelry, clothing, memorabilia and other personal items that were buried with a per
Source: EurekAlert
Sep 24, 2009
Today's Scandinavians are not descended from the people who came to Scandinavia at the conclusion of the last ice age but, apparently, from a population that arrived later, concurrently with the introduction of agriculture. This is one conclusion of a new study straddling the borderline between genetics and archaeology, which involved Swedish researchers and which has now been published in the journal Current Biology.
"The hunter-gatherers who inhabited Scandinavia more than 4,
Source: Yahoo News
Sep 24, 2009
PARIS (AFP) – French archaeologists have discovered the oldest known place of worship dedicated to the dugong, or sea cow, on an island just north of Dubai, two research centres said Thursday.
The sanctuary believed to date back to 3,500 to 3,200 years BC was discovered on Akab island in the United Arab Emirates, 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Dubai.
The French archaeological mission in the Emirates and the Umm al-Quwain museum there said in the specialist magazine A
Source: northdevon.co.uk
Sep 24, 2009
MORE than 2,200 previously unknown archaeological sites have been discovered on Exmoor.
And significant new information has been added to a further 800 sites, thanks to painstaking research over the last two years.
Two archaeologists from Exmoor National Park Authority looked through more than 12,000 aerial photographs as part of the Exmoor National Mapping Programme.
The time consuming exercise was designed to help build up a more detailed picture of Exmoo
Source: BBC
Sep 24, 2009
Exceptionally well preserved dinosaur fossils uncovered in north-eastern China display the earliest known feathers.
The creatures are all more than 150 million years old.
The new finds are indisputably older than Archaeopteryx, the "oldest bird" recognised by science. Professor Xu Xing and colleagues tell the journal Nature that this represents the final proof that dinosaurs were ancestral to birds.
The theory th
Source: San Fransisco Gate
Sep 24, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO -- After years of wrangling over legal procedures, the lawyer for a defunct Islamic charity laid out his case Wednesday that former President George W. Bush's secret wiretapping program was illegal - an argument that an Obama administration attorney refused to discuss.
"May the president of the United States break the law in the name of national security? ... We're asking this court to say, 'no,' " Jon Eisenberg, lawyer for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation,
Source: KansasCity.com
Sep 24, 2009
Gustavo Mestas walked 57 blocks a day to medical school because he didn't have the money for the bus. He still saved up enough money to buy his daughter a Barbie doll, however, to replace the roomful of dolls she'd left behind in Cuba.
Recounting the story in Georgetown, Del., his daughter, Ileana Smith, chokes up.
"I want you to know that you have had the greatest influence in my life of anyone, and I love you and I respect you and admire you," she tells him,
Source: CNN
Sep 24, 2009
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Drawing on 2006 remarks in which he compared former U.S. President George Bush to the devil, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking at the United Nations Thursday, said, "It doesn't smell like sulfur anymore."
In a rambling speech at the U.N. General Assembly, Chavez spoke highly of current President Obama, saying he is an "intelligent man" and comparing him to President John F. Kennedy.
"I hope God will protect Obam
Source: Yahoo News
Sep 24, 2009
MIAMI – Juanita Castro, the exiled sister of Cuban leaders Fidel and Raul Castro, is set to release a first-person memoir in which she talks at length about her brothers.
The more than 400-page book titled: "My Brothers Fidel and Raul. The Secret Story," is set for release Oct. 26. It is co-written by Spanish-language journalist Maria Antoineta Collins and will be published by Santillana USA.
