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: AFP
Sep 19, 2009
Three people suspected of stealing valuable artefacts dating as far back as the Sumerian period, were arrested near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Saturday, the army said.
"A specialist army and intelligence unit arrested three people involved in the theft and trafficking of Iraqi antiquities" in the region of Abassi, west of Kirkuk, General Abdel Amir al-Zaidi told journalists.
He said eight pieces were recovered during the arrests, including the head o
Source: Little About
Sep 19, 2009
A team of archaeologists has discovered a 2000-year-old Roman amphitheatre near Tiberias in Israel.
According to a report in the Haaretz newspaper, Archeologist, Doctor Valid Atrash, from the Israel Antiquities Authority, said that the remnants of the Roman amphitheatre peaks from 15 meters below ground.
The 1990 findings came as a surprise to the archeologists digging near Mount Berniki in the Tiberias hills as there are no references to such a place anywhere in script
Source: nvdaily.com
Sep 19, 2009
WINCHESTER -- One of the region's most significant Civil War battlefields has been preserved through a cooperative effort of government and the private sector.
The Huntsberry Farm, a large part of the Middle Field of the Third Battle of Winchester, has been purchased and made part of a 567-acre battlefield park just outside Winchester.
Federal, state and local officials along with nonprofit agencies gathered on the site Friday to officially recognize the purchase of the
Source: NYT
Sep 19, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A message on Saturday attributed to the Taliban’s reclusive leader, Mullah Omar, said that the United States and NATO should study Afghanistan’s long history of war, a pointed reminder that foreign forces have had limited military success in the country.
The message for the approaching holiday of Id al-Fitr, which ends the fasting month of Ramadan, said Western nations should study the military history of Afghanistan, starting with Pashtun tribesmen’s thwar
Source: Google News
Sep 19, 2009
BAGHDAD — Authorities in northern Iraq have arrested three men on charges they were trying to traffic stolen antiquities, including the bust of a Sumerian king, a local army commander said Saturday.
The three were arrested in a sting operation after attempting to sell one of the artifacts for $160,000 to an undercover intelligence officer of the Iraqi Army's 12th division in a village southwest of Kirkuk, division commander Maj. Gen. Abdul Amir al-Zaidi told reporters.
Source: Yahoo News
Sep 19, 2009
WAUSAU, Wis. – The buyer of a scenic property in northern Wisconsin will get more than just its bar and restaurant: They'll have a former hideout of Chicago mobster Al Capone.
The 407-acre wooded site, complete with guard towers and a stone house with 18-inch-thick walls, will soon go on the auction block at a starting bid of $2.6 million.
The bank that foreclosed on the land near Couderay, about 140 miles northeast of Minneapolis, said Capone owned it in the late 1920s
Source: AP
Sep 19, 2009
The Taliban's reclusive leader said in a Muslim holiday message Saturday that the U.S. and NATO should study Afghanistan's long history of war, in a pointed reminder that foreign forces have had limited military success in the country.
The message from Mullah Omar comes less than a month before the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban for hosting Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden.
This year has been the deadliest of the conflict f
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 19, 2009
Historic cathedrals will struggle to carry out vital repair work when English Heritage withdraws a £3 million-a-year conservation grant.
An alarming number of cathedrals are crumbling, with masonry falling from the walls, water leaking through roofs, and pillars being held together with duct tape, church authorities have warned. The Sunday Telegraph revealed last week that parts of Canterbury cathedral have been fenced off as unsafe.
Simon Thurley, the chief executive
Source: Fox News
Sep 19, 2009
House Republican leader John Boehner says nationwide protests known as "tea parties" are the result of pushback against Democrats' spending.
Speaking to the Values Voter Summit, an annual gathering of the religious conservatives in Washington, Boehner blasted the Democrats for "bankrupting" the country. He said people are demonstrating and attending town hall meetings because "we're in the midst of a political rebellion in America."
Boehne
Source: AP
Sep 19, 2009
The buyer of a scenic property in northern Wisconsin will get more than just its bar and restaurant — they'll have the former hideout of Chicago mobster Al Capone.
The 407-acre wooded site, complete with guard towers and a stone house with 18-inch-thick walls, will soon go on the auction block at a starting bid of $2.6 million.
The bank that foreclosed on the land near Couderay, about 140 miles northeast of Minneapolis, said Capone owned it in the late 1920s and early 1
Source: Times Online
Sep 19, 2009
Archaeologists working in Orkney have pieced together the most complete picture to date of life in Neolithic Britain. Excavation of a settlement on the island of Westray points to a people that farmed and fished together and probably had their own village hall.
Archaeologists believe that the Links of Noltland settlement could become as significant as Skara Brae, the Unesco World Heritage Site on Orkney’s mainland.
Graeme Wilson, who is leading the excavation of the sit
Source: Digit Journal
Sep 19, 2009
Seven former heads of the CIA have written to U.S. President Barack Obama to urge him to halt the inquiry in to abuse allegedly suffered by suspected terrorists whilst they were being detained by the agency.
The letter, which has yet to draw a response from the White House, was written in light of the decision last month by Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a prosecutor to investigate claims that officers of the Central Intelligence Agency and contractors working for the agenc
Source: The Salt Lake Tribune
Sep 19, 2009
What a story a 4-inch bronze cap planted under the pavement of State Route 121 has to tell.
From this spot, the U.S. government drew the boundaries of the 2-million acre Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation, and later sold half the land to white settlers for $1.25 an acre.
So much of the Uintah Basin's bittersweet pioneer history emanated from this point five miles east of the farm village of Neola, and it infused a rededication ceremony here Friday...
... I
Source: BBC
Sep 19, 2009
Thousands of Poles fled their homeland, many never to return, when their country was invaded by the Germans and the Russians during World War II. The Polish Armed Forces Memorial being unveiled later aims to commemorate their heroism.
It stands at the end of a broad, grassy avenue, and with every step you take, the giant bronze figures on top of a block of polished granite come more sharply into focus.
They each represent a specific branch of the Polish armed forces. A
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 19, 2009
Scotland's Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini has fiercely criticised a move by Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Mohmed al-Megrahi to proclaim his innocence.
Hundreds of pages of documents relating to the abandoned appeal by recently-freed Megrahi have been published on a new website.
But Elish Angiolini said she "deplored" his attempt to challenge his conviction though "selective publication of his view of the evidence in the media" after he had abandoned hi
Source: The Times (UK)
Sep 19, 2009
The year was 1968 and as revolutionary fervour spread around the world a group of students stormed the president’s office at Columbia University in New York.
Fortunately these were sensible Ivy League radicals and their iconoclasm had its limits. Before things got out of hand they allowed two police officers in to remove the magnificent Rembrandt portrait hanging on the wall.
It disappeared into storage and a few years later was sold privately to a collector who never
Source: National Geographic News
Sep 18, 2009
In an "unexpected" discovery, a rattle-wielding elite male has been found buried among powerful priestesses of the pre-Inca Moche society in Peru, archaeologists announced Monday.
Surrounded by early "smoke machines" as well as human and llama bones, the body was among several buried inside a unique double-chambered tomb that dates back to A.D. 850, said archaeologist Luis Jaime Castillo Butters, of the Catholic University of Peru in Lima.
The tomb
Source: GQ
Sep 18, 2009
Matt Latimer worked as one of Dubya’s speechwriters during the president’s final twenty-two months in office. He was there to help sell the surge to a skeptical public. He was there as we pretended that the fundamentals of the economy were strong. And he was there to see a president who failed to grasp his own $700 billion bailout package—even as he was pitching it to the American public on live TV. A disillusioned insider reveals for the first time just how messy things got.
Source: NYT
Sep 18, 2009
FOR many of his 85 years, Franklin W. Hobbs III has managed to distill good fortune from bad luck. Orphaned at 10, he wound up in the care of loving — and wealthy — grandparents. After World War II snatched him from Harvard, the G. I. Bill sent him back for a master’s in business administration. Rocky moments in his career often led to lucrative, fulfilling opportunities.
And so it was on Iwo Jima in the winter of 1945.
Mr. Hobbs, an untested corporal in the Army Signal
Source: BBC
Sep 18, 2009
The Iranian president's latest denial of the Nazi Holocaust has drawn strong condemnation from Western powers.
Speaking in the capital, Tehran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust was "a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim".
Germany said the comments were a "disgrace to his country" while the US said they would "isolate Iran further".
In reaction, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs cited President
