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: JoongAng Daily (Korea)
Apr 29, 2009
The Korean military said yesterday it has excavated the remains of scores of soldiers who likely fell in South Korea’s southeastern coastal region during the Korean War nearly six decades ago.
“They are believed to be either North or South Korean troops,” an official in the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, adding that the remains of four South Korean marines were among the 79 discovered on a mountain in Pohang, a port city about 370 kilometers (230 miles) southeast of Seoul.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 29, 2009
Barack Obama's election as president produced a surge in the number of students applying for degree courses in American studies, an academic has said.
George Lewis, director of the Centre for American Studies and a reader in American History at the University of Leicester, said there had been an "Obama bounce" in applications for the subject in Britain this year.
A 22 per cent rise in the number of applicants nationally and a 60 per cent increase at Leicester
Source: LAT
Apr 28, 2009
When a Senate Republican left his party in 2001, elevating the Democrats to majority status, one member of the GOP was especially vocal about his displeasure: Arlen Specter.
Specter said then- Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords' decision to become an independent was disruptive to the functioning of Congress. He proposed a rule forbidding party switches that had the effect of vaulting the minority to majority status in the middle of a congressional session.
"If somebody want
Source: UPenn.edu
Apr 28, 2009
PUM II and Hapi-Men, two of the ancient Egyptian mummies on display at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, have had their share of medical scrutiny: PUM II was both x-rayed and autopsied in 1973, while Hapi-Men underwent an x-ray in 1980.
Early Sunday morning, April 19, they traveled to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, for yet another medical procedure, and the chance for researchers to find out more about these 2000-plus year old mu
Source: AP
Apr 28, 2009
The coin world is abuzz over the auction of a rare silver dollar, one of the most valuable in the world and one of only 15 known to exist from a never-circulated group made for the likes of the King of Siam and the Sultan of Muscat.
The 1804 Adams-Carter silver dollar fetched more than $2 million in a private sale two years ago and is expected to top that again this week. The coin has been owned by a Boston banker, a Texas publishing mogul and by a collector who sold everything to h
Source: BBC
Apr 28, 2009
An exhibition celebrating the life and times of Belfast's dockers has opened at the Dockers Club in the city.
Former dockers and their families collated their memorabilia to celebrate the centenary of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union.
The exhibition is part of the Shared Heritage Interpretive Project (SHIP).
SHIP launched in 2006 with aims to celebrate dockers' lives. Former dockers have worked wi
Source: Deutsche Welle
Apr 28, 2009
Notorious Austrian holocaust denier Gerd Honsik was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday, as a Vienna court found him guilty of spreading National Socialist ideology. While living in Spain from the early 1990s to evade a previous Austrian prison sentence, the neo-Nazi had continued to publish National Socialist ideology in a magazine and other mediums.
"He is one of the ideological leaders of the neo-Nazi scene," prosecutor Stefan Apostol said Friday, alleging th
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Apr 28, 2009
Graduates of Oberlin College -- a cradle of social justice movements like abolitionism -- have never had to look very far for activist opportunities. Indeed, the college's commencement ceremonies actually seem tailored toward students who want to make a political stand. The processional has traditionally run beneath Oberlin's Memorial Arch, a controversial structure that either symbolizes the sacrifice of missionaries killed in China or the repression wrought by American imperialism, depending o
Source: CNN
Apr 28, 2009
After Hurricane Ike slammed into Galveston, Texas, in September, the 12-block Strand Historic District, with its 19th-century buildings and their elaborate cast-iron storefronts, was awash in 13 feet of saltwater, oil and debris.
The water "permeated the columns and arches, weakening the interior brick support and greatly accelerating rust," said Peter Brink, vice president for programs at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In other words, the forces of nature p
Source: CNN
Apr 28, 2009
After a nearly decade-long effort, the National Congress of Black Women on Tuesday honored Sojourner Truth by making her the first African-American woman to have a memorial bust in the U.S. Capitol.
Truth, whose given name was Isabella Baumfree, was a slave who became one of the most respected abolitionists and women's rights activists.
"One could only imagine what Sojourner Truth, an outspoken, tell-it-like-it-is kind of woman ... what she would have to say about
Source: CNN blog
Apr 28, 2009
When was the last time there was a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate?
It was during the 95th Congress in 1977-1979, when Democrats controlled 62 seats.
The Senate's filibuster rule had just changed two years earlier in 1975, when the threshold was lowered from a two-thirds majority of senators present and voting to a flat 60 votes. At the time of the rule change, the Democratic caucus had 61 votes.
With the switch by Sen. Arlen Specter, Democrats
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 28, 2009
The Queen expressed her thanks to the Yeomen of the Guard as she honoured the founder of the famous royal bodyguards.
More than 70 Yeomen - resplendent in their distinctive red and gold tunics, large white ruffled collars, scarlet stockings and flat brimmed black Tudor hats - gathered in Westminster Abbey in tribute to King Henry VII.
Henry VII created the Queen's Body Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth.T
Source: China View
Apr 28, 2009
Chinese archaeologists say they have identified the country's earliest known carving -- a deer antler sculpted into the shape of a bird -- dating back 12,000 to 15,000 years.
The fossilized grey figurine, which is 2.1 centimeters long, 1.2 centimeters high and 0.6 centimeters thick, was found in Xuchang County in China's central Henan Province in March.
It is made from evenly-heated antler, and vividly carved with amicrolithic cutting tool.
Source: United Press International
Apr 28, 2009
Construction workers clearing the way for the expansion of a department store in Ireland's oldest city found the bones of as many as 30 people, police said.
Police were immediately called to the site in Waterford, where they determined the skulls and bones were too old to be of forensic interest, The Irish Times reported.
Jack Burchill, a Waterford historian, said the area where Egan's, a historic pub, stood until recently was once a Dominican abbey. The abbey, like man
Source: Peterborough. Net (UK)
Apr 28, 2009
Archaeologists excavating beneath Cathedral Square in Peterborough have found the remains of ancient medieval buildings.
One of the buildings, which probably stood until the 17th Century, may be part of the old Butter Cross – a building in the market place where butter, eggs and meat were sold.
Up to six archaeologists a day have been working on the site for several weeks in preparation for the main square improvement works, which are being delivered by Opportunity Pe
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 28, 2009
The Prime Minister has wanted to visit the infamous Nazi death camp, where an estimated 1.5 million people died, for some time, having taken an interest in the Holocaust since childhood. A clergyman's son, his father was involved with a church group which supported the foundation of the state of Israel.
The combined camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau saw the biggest loss of life in the Second World War, with hundreds of thousands of prisoners, the majority Jewish, killed in gas chambe
Source: WSJ
Apr 28, 2009
The Obama administration and senior national-security officials are reviewing whether to release additional Central Intelligence Agency memos on interrogation methods, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has requested that the administration declassify additional CIA memos that he said would show the tactics worked.
Mr. Gibbs said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that the review process would take about three weeks.
Source: BBC News
Apr 27, 2009
A replica 15th Century junk has sunk off Taiwan, one day short of completing an epic voyage to the US and back.
The Ming dynasty-style Princess Taiping was trying to prove that China's greatest admiral, Zheng He, could have reached North America 600 years ago.
After surviving several storms during its 10-month voyage, the junk broke in two and sank after it was rammed by a freighter just off Taiwan's coast.
All 11 crew members were rescued after being found
Source: Politifact
Apr 27, 2009
Michele Bachmann, a Republican member of Congress from Minnesota, is known for her controversial remarks. During the fall of 2008, she nearly lost her re-election campaign because she said Barack Obama "may have anti-American views." In a 2009 radio interview, she said incorrectly that six Muslim clerics who were removed from a US Airways flight in 2006 were attending a "victory celebration" for Keith Ellison, a Muslim who was elected to Congress.
So we weren't e
Source: http://austriantimes.at
Apr 27, 2009
A priest has shocked parishioners by welcoming them to church wearing a swastika armband.
Fascist Father Angelo Idi, 51 - who once saw off a charity box thief with a truncheon at his church in Vigevano, Italy - confessed: "I am proud of my right wing beliefs. But people shouldn't care about my politics, they should care about how good a priest I am."
In northern Italy where former dictator Benito Mussolini comes from the far right Italian LEGA NORD (Northern L
