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
Jul 8, 2009
The Hague tribunal has rejected the argument by former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic that he should not be prosecuted because of an immunity deal.
Mr Karadzic said the former US peace envoy Richard Holbrooke had promised him immunity from prosecution if he gave up politics.
Mr Holbrooke has repeatedly denied there was any such deal.
The UN court said even if there was, it did not have legal standing, and that Mr Karadzic's trial should go ahead.
Source: BBC
Jul 8, 2009
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has made a rare public appearance for commemorations of the 15th anniversary of his father's death.
Observers said he looked gaunt and limped slightly while entering the crammed auditorium where the ceremony was held in the capital Pyongyang.
It was the second major state event the 67-year-old has attended since suffering a suspected stroke in August.
His poor health has led to concerns of a power struggle if he dies sudden
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 8, 2009
A few minutes into our conversation, Buzz Aldrin makes it clear that we won't be spending much time reliving the day that began a new chapter in the history of the human race and made him one of the most famous people on – and off – the planet. It's not that the Second Man on the Moon doesn't want to talk about his space odyssey; it's just that he thinks he should be suitably rewarded for doing so.
Surprisingly, Aldrin's reservations about describing what it's like to kick up moon
Source: Reuters
Jul 8, 2009
A FORMER fighter for the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s told a Cambodian court today how he was suspected of turning against the Pol Pot regime, arrested and beaten unconscious, waking up beneath bodies in a burial pit.
Phork Khan, 57, was testifying at the trial of Duch, head of the Khmer Rouge's S-21 interrogation center in Phnom Penh, who faces life in prison if convicted on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and homicide.
As the regime purged suspec
Source: Times (UK)
Jul 8, 2009
Al Gore invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill yesterday when he urged political leaders to follow the example of Britain’s wartime leader in the battle against climate change.
The former US Vice-President accused governments around the world of exploiting ignorance about the dangers of global warming to avoid taking difficult decisions.
Speaking in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by The Times, Mr Gore said: “Winsto
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jul 8, 2009
Two titans of the British museum world, Sir Nicholas Serota and Neil MacGregor, last night sketched out their visions for the museum of the future.
Both said that the relationship between institutions and their audiences would be transformed by the internet. Museums, they said, would become more like multimedia organisations.
"The future has to be, without question, the museum as a publisher and broadcaster," said MacGregor, director of the British Museum.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jul 8, 2009
With its smooth and elegant lines, this could be a prototype for some future successor to the stealth bomber.
But this flying wing was actually designed by the Nazis 30 years before the Americans successfully developed radar-invisible technology.
Now an engineering team has reconstructed the Horten Ho 2-29 from blueprints, with startling results.
It was faster and more efficient than any other plane of the period and its stealth powers did work against ra
Source: BBC
Jul 8, 2009
Howard Manoian, 84, had been awarded the prestigious French award the Legion d'honneur for bravery.
He claimed he had landed in Sainte-Mere-Eglise in France - the setting of a fierce battle immortalised in the John Wayne film The Longest Day.
But his military records reveal he spent the war behind the front line.
Source: BBC
Jul 8, 2009
Mr Karadzic said the former US peace envoy Richard Holbrooke had promised him immunity from prosecution if he gave up politics.
Mr Holbrooke has repeatedly denied there was any such deal.
The UN court said even if there was, it did not have legal standing, and that Mr Karadzic's trial should go ahead.
Mr Karadzic, 64, faces 11 charges including genocide.
Source: The Times (UK)
Jul 8, 2009
The Royal Agricultural Show, for years Britain’s leading farming event, was consigned to the history books yesterday, without a single member of the Royal family present.
Instead of the promised grand finale, the showground at Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, was more akin to a ghost town, with the dark clouds and sporadic showers only adding to the gloom.
The demise, after 170 years, reflects the difficulty the show had in keeping up with the changes in British farming: the
Source: Times Online (UK)
Jul 8, 2009
It has been 67 years since a young tree wrapped in a swastika was planted in honour of Adolf Hitler’s birthday, and it has grown into a sturdy oak that casts its shadow over a tiny Polish village. Now the mayor wants the tree axed — because it knows too much.
Maria Kurowska, the Mayor of Jaslo, now wants the tree to be chopped down. It is bad for the village’s image, she says, and is standing in the way of a potential traffic roundabout. “It’s only a tree,” she says,” and we have h
Source: BBC
Jul 7, 2009
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have appealed against the judges' decision not to indict Sudan's president for genocide.
The judges in March said there was insufficient evidence to support the three charges of genocide in Darfur.
However they issued an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The ICC chief prosecutor is in Ethiopia for talks with the African Union, which says Mr Bashir s
Source: Providence Journal
Jul 7, 2009
Kneeling in a hole, archaeologist James Garman pokes through two centuries of soil, trash and treasures. After a few hours of digging, he and other researchers find a tarnished belt buckle from the early 1800s.
“We are so close to the 18th century,” says Garman, staring at a dark line of dirt at the bottom of the pit.
For the third straight year, researchers this summer have been sifting a 15-by-20-foot pit off lower Thames Street for items owned by Thomas Richardson I
Source: Miami Herald
Jul 7, 2009
A long-forgotten cemetery may have been the final resting place for hundreds of black Miamians, but preliminary findings suggest the burial ground was not that large.
The mystery surrounding a long-forgotten cemetery unearthed by construction crews two months ago has only deepened with a genealogist's discovery of records suggesting hundreds of black Miamians may have been buried there more than 75 years ago.
Historian Larry Wiggins, using a database of Florida death ce
Source: LiveScience
Jul 7, 2009
At least one of our ancestors regularly ate fish 40,000 years ago, a new study finds.
Scientists analyzed chemical compositions of the protein collagen in an ancient human skeleton from Tianyuan Cave near Beijing to reach their conclusion.
Fishing at this time must have involved considerable effort, the researchers think, because fossil records suggest humans were not using sophisticated tools — beyond crude stone blades — until about 50,000 years ago.
Source: AP
Jul 7, 2009
Israeli archaeologists have uncovered an ancient quarry where they believe King Herod extracted stones for the construction of the Jewish Temple 2,000 years ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Monday.
The archaeologists believe the 1,000-square-foot quarry was part of a much larger network of quarries used by Herod in the city.
The biggest stones extracted from the quarry would have measured three yards long, two yards across, and two yards high.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 7, 2009
President Kennedy's speech to Congress in 1961, in which he unveiled the Apollo programme to an amazed public, has gone down in history. "I believe," he said, "that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." In case anyone was in any doubt about the patriotic nature of this mission, he made it crystal clear in subsequent passages: "It will not be one man going to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 7, 2009
For more than six decades, Howard Manoian revelled in his heroic reputation as one of the men who landed in Nazi-occupied France on D-Day.
The Second World War US parachutist said he was wounded in action after coming down on Sainte-Mère-Église - the scene of the ferocious battle of June 6 1944 depicted in the epic film The Longest Day, starring John Wayne.
But after Mr Manoian, 84, was awarded the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest award for bravery, at last month's 6
Source: AP
Jul 7, 2009
The justice ministry says more fugitive war criminals could be put on trial in Britain under planned changes to the law.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw says that Britain will extend laws on genocide and war crimes which currently only cover crimes committed since 2001.
It means people suspected of war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda could be put on trial in Britain.
Source: AP
Jul 7, 2009
British officials unveiled a memorial of 52 steel pillars in a London park Tuesday — one for each victim of the July 7, 2005, attacks on the city's transit system.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, London Mayor Boris Johnson and the Prince of Wales and his wife the Duchess of Cornwall attended the memorial service along with families of the victims. The stainless steel columns stand 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) tall in central London's Hyde Park.
Former Mayor Ken Livingstone, who
