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: Chronicle of Higher Ed
Mar 24, 2009
Ward Churchill acknowledged some flaws in his scholarship, but strenuously denied that any merited his 2007 dismissal by the University of Colorado, in testimony delivered today in a trial in which he is attempting to prove that his firing violated his First Amendment rights.
Throughout his second day on the witness stand, the controversial ethnic-studies scholar expressed defiance toward his accusers at the university, according to reports on the courtroom proceedings published in
Source: Independent (UK)
Mar 24, 2009
Greece has returned to Italy two murals smuggled from an Italian church more than 20 years ago, the Culture Ministry said today.
The frescoes dating to the 13th century were seized from the church in the southern region of Campania, in 1982. Greek police found them in 2006 on a small island in the southern Aegean during an anti-smuggling mission.
"This is one step further in our cooperation with the Italians," Culture Minister Antonis Samaras said in a state
Source: Deutsche Welle
Mar 24, 2009
Solemn ceremonies were held at Belgrade monuments to children and journalists killed in the NATO sorties as the sirens were sounded across the ex-Yugoslav republic for 60 seconds from midday (1200 CET).
Ministers gathered at the same time to lay wreaths at spots where people were killed during the air war -- at the time the biggest military operation in NATO history.
"The attack on our country was illegal, contrary to international law, without a decision by the Un
Source: AP
Mar 24, 2009
During World War II, the best brains in Britain cracked Germany's encrypted secrets but never broke their own code of silence.
Now gray-haired and using walking sticks and at least one wheelchair, the legendary code breakers returned for a reunion Tuesday at Bletchley Park, where they labored in the grim, blacked-out rooms and played a key role in defeating the Nazis.
The code breakers who worked here in anonymity helped alter history, frustrating Adolf Hitler's ambiti
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 24, 2009
The achievements of eccentric inventor Harry Grindell Matthews' who came up with a prototype mobile telephone and a 'death ray' are being revived by a science teacher.
Author Jonathan Foster said Matthews' contribution to science had been largely overlooked despite his many inventions.
Lauded as 'Death Ray Matthews' in the press in the 1920s, he claimed his contraption could stop a motorbike engine, explode gunpowder or kill a mouse.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 24, 2009
A kind-hearted homeowner kept a baby elephant in her back yard for months during the Second World War because zookeepers feared the animal would be killed in a bombing raid, it has been revealed.
Sheila lived at Belfast Zoo until she was moved to her unusual home in 1941 as the city underwent the so-called Belfast Blitz.
She was one of the lucky ones at the zoo, in the north of the city.
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Mar 24, 2009
The British foreign intelligence service MI-6 and the British domestic security service MI-5 will both mark their 100-year anniversary this year. Their exploits are the subject of the new book "Secret Wars: One Hundred Years of British Intelligence Inside MI5 and MI6" by Gordon Thomas, published this month by St. Martin's Press.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Mar 24, 2009
Tsutomu Yamaguchi must be the luckiest man in the world - or unluckiest, depending on your view.
The 93-year-old appears to be the only person in history to have survived not one, but two atomic bomb blasts.
Today he became the first person to be officially recognised for surviving both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks at the end of World War Two.
Yamaguchi had already been a certified 'hibakusha,' or radiation survivor, of the August 9, 1945, atomic bom
Source: Times (UK)
Mar 24, 2009
Austria has set free a former Nazi concentration camp guard who was extradited by the US for allegedly participating in the massacre of more 8,000 civilians, including 400 children.
Josias Kumpf, a former member of the SS, participated in the Nazi operation Harvest Festival in November 1943 when more than 42,000 Jews were murdered over two days.
According to the US Justice Department, Mr Kumpf, 83, who immigrated to America from Austria in 1956, helped to kill about 8
Source: Times (UK)
Mar 24, 2009
It began with British betrayal after the Second World War and has stubbornly outlived every other conflict. But now, as it marks it diamond jubilee, the world’s longest-running war is nearing its endgame.
The guerrilla army of the Karen ethnic group, which has been fighting since 1949 for independence from Burma, is facing the greatest crisis in its history. If Karen resistance collapses, as some believe is likely, it will be a triumph for the Burmese junta as it consolidates its h
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 24, 2009
"Mind your heads!" said the boiler-suited guide, grabbing a shiny horizontal bar and swinging expertly through a low porthole doorway, followed by our group of six. There was a resounding crack and an expletive as the biggest chap I've seen in a long time landed in a heap. I'm not claustrophobic, but it did occur to me that if he got stuck I really didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a 295ft-long, 26 and 1/2 ft-wide retired O-Class submarine from the Cold War.
We
Source: Deutsche Welle
Mar 24, 2009
The French government says it will pay out at least 10 million euros ($13.6 million), initially for one year, to people with health problems as a result of French nuclear tests carried out in the Algerian Sahara and in Polynesia, Defense Minister Herve Morin was quoted as saying on Tuesday, March 24.
"About 150,000 civilian and military employees are theoretically concerned, as well as the people who lived in the Sahara and Polynesia at the time of the tests," Morin said i
Source: BBC
Mar 24, 2009
Serbs will gather at sites where people were killed and government ministers will lay wreaths for the dead.
Nato bombed Serbia for 11 weeks in an effort to push Serbian forces out of the province of Kosovo, accusing them of atrocities against ethnic Albanians.
Hundreds of Serbs were killed as bombs struck military and civilian targets.
Source: Washington Post
Mar 24, 2009
KASHGAR, China -- For hundreds of years, Uighur shopkeepers have been selling bread and firewood along the edges of Kashgar's old town to families whose ancestors bought their traditional mud-brick homes with gold coin and handed them down through the generations.
Now, this labyrinth of ancient courtyard homes and narrow, winding streets is endangered by the latest government plan to modernize a way of life that officials consider dangerous and backward.
Left behind are
Source: New Times (CT)
Mar 23, 2009
Artifacts from Revolutionary War encampments are the stuff Connecticut historians dream about.
Perhaps a button from a uniform coat or a bit of flint from an infantryman's musket can be found during an archeological dig to confirm the presence of past military action at a local farm.
On Monday, a group of eight volunteers were on Ridgebury Road hoping to find just such treasures. They were part of an archeological dig on the old farm property there along Stagecoach Roa
Source: http://www.fredericknewspost.com
Mar 23, 2009
ANNAPOLIS -- A state committee will soon have the option to take up a bill that could prevent a proposed trash incinerator near the Monocacy National Battlefield.
The Senate Rules committee voted Friday to move forward the bill sponsored by Frederick County Sen. Alex Mooney.
Source: Evening Sun
Mar 23, 2009
For the first time since 2001, Gettysburg National Military Park has a budget that includes money for land acquisition - to the tune of $2.2 million.
And, if the pieces fall into place, some of those funds could potentially be used to purchase an easement to protect the Gettysburg Country Club from further development.
"At the moment our goal is to discuss an easement," said park spokeswoman Katie Lawhon. But the park might consider outright purchase if an easement
Source: AP
Mar 23, 2009
On the outskirts of Jimmy Carter's ancestral home, miles from the nearest interstate, sits a state shrine to Georgia's native president.
The Plains Visitor Information Center pays tribute to the peanut farmer-turned-president, and it also stands as a reminder that even one of the most sacred names in Georgia politics can fall victim to a budget crisis.
Despite a campaign led by leaders of Carter's hometown — and the Democrats who represent his district — the center is o
Source: NYT
Mar 23, 2009
Mexico’s former president, Carlos Salinas, used to promise that free trade and foreign investment would jump-start this country’s development, empowering a richer and more prosperous Mexico “to export goods, not people.”
Fifteen years after the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect, only the first part of that promise has been realized.
Mexico’s exports have exploded under Nafta, quintupling to $292 billion last year, but Mexico is still exporting people too,
Source: NYT
Mar 23, 2009
A former professor who has accused the University of Colorado of firing him because of a controversial essay he wrote about the Sept. 11 attacks took the stand Monday in his lawsuit against the university and offered a defense of those remarks.
Carrying a stack of books to the witness box, his long hair pulled back in a ponytail, the former professor, Ward L. Churchill, told a packed courtroom about the essay, in which he described office workers killed in the World Trade Center att
