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: NYT
May 13, 2009
No one would mistake the Stone Age ivory carving for a Venus de Milo. The voluptuous woman depicted is, to say the least, earthier, with huge, projecting breasts and sexually explicit genitalia.
Nicholas J. Conard, an archaeologist at Tubingen University in Germany, who found the small carving in a cave last year, says it is at least 35,000 years old, “one of the oldest known examples of figurative art” in the world. It is about 5,000 years older than some other so-called Venus arti
Source: Guardian (UK)
May 13, 2009
A prominent former student leader of the 1989 pro-democracy protests is under arrest on charges of fraud, his family said today, weeks before the 20th anniversary of the crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
Relatives said Chinese authorities had secretly detained Zhou Yongjun for more than six months. He has permanent residence in the United States but had returned to China to see his parents.
"At first he was accused of spying and political crimes, but now they have swi
Source: Times (UK)
May 13, 2009
A Soviet mole who recruited a network of communist spies at Oxford before and during the war has been unmasked as Arthur Wynn, a distinguished former civil servant who was also “Agent Scott” of the KGB.
Historians have speculated for years about the true identity of “Scott”, a British spy known to have recruited the Oxford Ring of spies and informants in parallel to the better-known Cambridge Ring of Soviet agents.
Agent Scott first came to light when the KGB briefly pe
Source: Times (UK)
May 13, 2009
David Miliband hailed President Obama’s efforts to kick-start the Middle East peace process yesterday as a once in a generation opportunity to resolve the 60-year conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.
The Foreign Secretary, speaking before talks in Washington with Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, said that this was the first US Administration since that of Jimmy Carter in the Camp David talks of 1978 to have “thrown itself into the peace process from day one”. He also
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 13, 2009
On the third day of his visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, he crossed into the West Bank to visit Bethlehem.
While acknowledging the suffering of Palestinian people following the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Pope nevertheless urged moderation, telling Palestinians they should not use violence and extremism.
In his most sensitive speech yet of his tour of the Holy Land, the Pope sent a message of solidarity with moderate Palestinians such as Mahmoud
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 13, 2009
As a nation, we are used to watching Hollywood distort history to suggest that some of Britain's finest moments of the Second World War were achieved by Americans.
However, a US science writer has now claimed that Britain's two most famous aircraft were not as significant in defeating the Luftwaffe as we might like to believe.
Tim Palucka asserts that the British fighters were able to outmanoeuvre their German opponents because they were running on a special high-octane
Source: Deutsche Welle
May 13, 2009
Thomas Blatt was one of the few to survive the Sobibor extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. The 82-year-old is now a key witness in the Munich trial of John Demjanjuk, who is alleged to have been a guard at Sobibor.
Deutsche Welle: Why did you decide to come to Germany for this trial?
Thomas Blatt: Because when I escaped from Sobibor, I promised myself that if I survived, I will do everything to tell the story of Sobibor. And that's what I'm d
Source: BBC
May 13, 2009
Officials in the former communist Czechoslovakia had planned to build an underground rail link under Austria to the Adriatic, a Czech newspaper says. The 410km-long (255 miles) tunnel would have drastically shortened the journey to the seaside for the landlocked country, Lidove Noviny reports.
The earth from the excavation would be dumped in the sea to form an artificial Czechoslovak island - Adriaport.
But the 1975 plan never got off - or under - the ground, the n
Source: BBC
May 13, 2009
Mr Demjanjuk, 89, was flown to Germany on Tuesday from the United States, where he waged a long battle against deportation, partly on health grounds.
But a spokesman for Stadelheim jail in Munich said "doctors have determined he is fit to remain in custody".
He faces charges of being an accessory to the deaths of 29,000 Jews.
Source: BBC News
May 12, 2009
A letter written by the first US President, George Washington, has sold at auction for $3.2m (£1.9m).
The sale, at Christie's in New York, was a record for a letter written by Washington.
The four-page letter was written in 1787 to the president's nephew, Bushrod Washington, and urges adoption of the country's new constitution.
A partially written poem by Edgar Allan Poe sold for $830,500 - a record for a 19th Century literary manuscript.
Source: NYT
May 12, 2009
The Vatican has opened its Secret Archives, the repository of centuries worth of documents pertaining to the Holy See, to let the world get a closer look at a document presaging England’s split from the Church of Rome. Dated July 13, 1530 and addressed to Pope Clement VII, the letter asks for the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon and includes the seals of dozens of peers of England who concurred with the request. A facsimile of the document will go on sale next month for abou
Source: Reuters
May 12, 2009
BERLIN – A German court fined an unemployed man 900 euros ($1,227) Tuesday for knocking the head off a waxwork figure of Adolf Hitler in a Berlin museum.
Minutes after the Madame Tussauds museum opened in the German capital in July, the 42-year-old pushed past security staff ripped off its head. The man, an ex-policeman, said he found it inappropriate to display an exhibit showing the Nazi leader only some 500 meters from Berlin's Holocaust memorial.
The waxwork of a gl
Source: Chuck Jones at IraqiCrisis
May 12, 2009
I just got news that a few days ago Dr Amira Edan received a telephone call threatening that if she
does not resign her post as director of the Iraq Museum her house will be blown up.
This is a very serious threat.
Yesterday morning morning the employees of State Board of Antiquities and Heritage staged a walkout
in protest.
Source: Times (UK)
May 12, 2009
The big lesson out of all this stuff is: don’t do it again.” That is, don’t invade countries in pursuit of a few Islamic terrorists and turn the whole population against you.
That is the message from David Kilcullen, an Australian academic turned military strategist and one of the most influential advisers to General David Petraeus. Kilcullen, the author of a thoughtful new book on lessons from fighting radical Islamists, is blunt about the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan — and
Source: Times (UK)
May 12, 2009
The American journalist Roxana Saberi was jailed for espionage in Tehran after obtaining a confidential Iranian document about the American invasion of Iraq, it was claimed today.
Saleh Nikbakht, one of Ms Saberi's Iranian lawyers, revealed that a document Ms Saberi had obtained while working as a translator for a powerful clerical lobby had been used as evidence to convict her on charges of espionage.
Ms Saberi, 32, was released on Monday after an appeal court dismis
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 12, 2009
The territorial dispute between the two countries now extends beneath the South Atlantic itself and to the submerged boundaries of continental plates.
The application has gone to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. But Argentina, which lodged its claim over the same area of seabed last month, denounced Britain's move.
"The British insistence in assuming extended competence over the Malvinas [Falkland Islands], South Georgia and Southern Sandwich Is
Source: Spiegel Online
May 12, 2009
James Mitchell's new life begins with the same ritual every morning: He goes jogging, wearing Adidas shorts and a black tank top, his iPod in his ear. Then he gets into his luxury SUV and drives back to luxury home on Lake Vienna Drive in Pasco County, Florida.
The hacienda-style house, with a natural stone façade, columned walkways and palm trees in front of the door is brand-new. Mitchell has just had it built, in the midst of an upscale, gated community.
The freestan
Source: BBC
May 12, 2009
Frank Lachner, 42, damaged the model after pushing past guards when it was displayed at a Berlin museum last year.
Mr Lachner, an ex-policeman, said he had been protesting against the presence of the waxwork 500m (500yds) from a Holocaust memorial.
The museum said the waxwork portrayed a key historical figure.
Source: PC World
May 12, 2009
Facebook Boots Holocaust Denial Groups Facebook has removed two Holocaust denial groups claiming they violated Facebook's Terms of Service by promoting hate. The two groups in question, "Holocaust is a Holohoax" and "Based on the facts...there was no Holocaust," were removed from the site because messages from members posted on the group's Walls were found to be promoting hate speech.
Despite Facebook's decision to eliminate two Holocaust denial groups, numerous
Source: Politico.com
May 12, 2009
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will be publishing a memoir in spring 2010 that chronicles both her political and personal life, publishing sources said.
Palin has continued to fascinate the public even after her rocky run as last year’s Republican vice presidential candidate, on a ticket with Sen. John McCain.
The book will include her reflections on balancing her time as a working mother, recognizing the war’s impact with her son serving combat in Iraq, having a child with
