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: IHT
Mar 17, 2009
The Italian government has successfully brokered deals with American museums and private collectors for the return of what it says are looted antiquities. But it is finding the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, an art museum in Copenhagen, harder to crack.
Talks with the Glyptotek have dragged on for months, even though "the presuppositions for the negotiations are identical to those that were carried out with the Americans," said Maurizio Fiorilli, a lawyer for the Italian state in
Source: Spiegel Online
Mar 17, 2009
Some 300 Latvian veterans of the Waffen SS and their supporters marched through Riga on Monday to commemorate their comrades who fought the Soviet Union in Adolf Hitler's fanatical combat unit during World War II.
Supporters regard the Latvians who fought in the Waffen SS as liberators from the Soviet occupation in the war. Russia and many ethnic Russians in Latvia regard the annual commemorative marches as a glorification of fascism.
The demonstration went ahead in de
Source: Spiegel Online
Mar 17, 2009
No issue divides Turks more than the country's alleged creeping Islamization. Early last week, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Tubitak) sparked an international controversy after it prevented the publication of a cover story about Charles Darwin's evolution theory in Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology), one of the country's leading science journals. The publication's editor-in-chief, 41-year-old Cigdem Atakuman, claims she was fired as a result of the incident.
Source: Deutsche Welle
Mar 17, 2009
The DuMont Media Group in Cologne has become the first newspaper consortium to publish a historical account of its own activities in the Third Reich. The work is a portrait of a dark age for freedom of the press. The study was written by historian Manfred Pohl and entitled M. DuMont Schauberg: A Newspaper Publisher's Fight for Independence Under the Nazi Dictatorship.
Commissioned by Dumont itself, the study was officially launched in Berlin on Monday, March 16.
Th
Source: History Today
Mar 17, 2009
Susan Hibbert is believed to have been the last British witness to the signing of the German surrender in Reims, in May 1945. She died at the beginning of last month, on February 2nd, aged 84. An obituary was notably published on the website of The Telegraph. The surrender was signed in the temporary headquarters of General Dwight Eisenhower, commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces, in a room in what was Reims’ technical college. At the time, Hibbert was a British staff sergeant in the Auxiliary
Source: National Security Archive
Mar 17, 2009
Following a stunning breakthrough in a 25-year-old case of political terror in Guatemala, the National Security Archive today is posting declassified U.S. documents about the disappearance of Edgar Fernando García, a student leader and trade union activist captured by Guatemalan security forces in 1984. The documents show that García's capture was an organized political abduction orchestrated at the highest levels of the Guatemalan government.
The dormant case was brought back to li
Source: Politico.com
Mar 17, 2009
Vice President Joe Biden’s discussed the economy in stark terms at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser Monday night, in contrast with the upbeat tone coming from the White House over the past few days.
In a 20-minute speech in the lobby of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Biden said President Obama "has inherited the most difficult first 100 days of any president, I would argue, including Franklin Roosevelt."
“Let me explain what I mean by that," he ad
Source: Politico (Mike Allen)
Mar 17, 2009
The National Constitution Center, the site of the speech, announced it will mark the anniversary 'by launching a virtual exhibit online. The interactive website and supplemental educational materials will provide users with a deeper understanding of this important speech. The interactive webpage [launches tomorrow] will ... contain full video of President Obama's speech, A More Perfect Union, with a chapter index and a scrolling tra
Source: AP
Mar 17, 2009
Executed in a coup 30 years ago, buried hastily in a mass grave along with a small golden Quran, the man who turned Afghanistan from a monarchy into a republic returned on Tuesday in a flag-draped coffin to the same palace where he met his death.
The body of President Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan was unearthed after a former Afghan general involved in the secret burial pointed the way last year to two mass graves. In July 2008, graves were opened that held the bodies of the former lead
Source: Independent (UK)
Mar 17, 2009
Britain is locked in a court battle with an American treasure-hunting company over ownership of the wreck of a cruise liner with its valuable cargo of bullion, torpedoed in the First World War by a German U-boat in the Atlantic. The 18,000-tonne Royal Mail Ship Laconia, which had been commandeered by the British government, was attacked with the loss of 13 passengers, including three Americans, en route from New York to Liverpool on 25 February 1917.
That changed the course of the
Source: Tehran Times
Mar 17, 2009
Dating back to the Saffarid Dynasty, one of Iran’s oldest mosques, located in the city, is currently being excavated during this season, team director Hamideh Chubak told the Persian service of CHN on Monday.
Saffarids were an Iranian dynasty of lower class origins that ruled a large area of eastern Iran during the 9th century CE.
The team also has been scheduled to demarcate the city of Decius and to study industrial workshops located in the site, she added.
Source: BBC
Mar 17, 2009
Flags flew at half mast as the political elite joined family members and supporters to pay their respects at a ceremony at the presidential palace.
Mr Khan was killed in a communist-inspired coup in 1978. His remains were found in a mass grave last year.
He ousted his cousin, King Zahir Shah, in a coup in 1973 to become president.
Source: VOA
Mar 16, 2009
The two Koreas differ in more than just political ideology. Since the Korean Peninsula was divided more than 60 years ago, the way North and South Koreans speak has gone separate ways. And, for thousands of North Korean refugees, the language divide is one of their biggest challenges to adjusting to life in South Korea.
When you listen to South Korean and North Korean newscast you might not hear much of a difference, but for many of the 15,000 North Koreans who have defected to Sout
Source: Brown University press release
Mar 16, 2009
A commission established by Brown University in cooperation with the City of Providence and the State of Rhode Island has released a report recommending how the history of slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade in Rhode Island should be commemorated in Rhode Island, Providence, and on College Hill. Topping the group’s six recommendations is a proposal that the Public Arts Committee of Brown be asked to commission a memorial about how slavery was intertwined with the University’s early benefa
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 16, 2009
Britain's most ancient fishing trap has been discovered off the coastline of Wales after research carried out on Google Earth.
The 853ft (260m) long construction is thought to have been built 1,000 years ago, around the time of the Domesday Book, using large rocks placed on a river bed.
Source: AP
Mar 16, 2009
Officials are investigating vandalism at Appomattox Courthouse National Historic Park, where the curtain was lowered on the Civil War.
The vandalism occurred at the Peers House, an 1850s structure now used primarily by park workers as housing.
Park Superintendent Reed Johnson said intruders entered the structure and cut water lines, which flooded the house. He said the vandals did not take anything.
Source: Slate
Mar 16, 2009
In an effort to educate the public on the state of the economy and his plans for improving it, President Obama is considering a series of short televised addresses similar to Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats. Press secretary Robert Gibbs has told the television networks that the administration may request more time than usual for a president. Gibbs did not provide a schedule but described the addresses as lasting about 10 minutes each.
You may think you've heard all this before.
Source: Andean Air Mail & Peruvian Times (South America)
Mar 16, 2009
More than 10,000 cave paintings — dating back to more than 6,000 years — were discovered by Peruvian archaeologist Quirino Olivera in the Andean country’s jungle department of Amazonas, daily El Comercio reported.
Hidden by the region’s lush vegetation for centuries, the paintings were discovered in caves located near the village of Tambolic, in the district of Jamalca, province of Utcubamba.
“Over the past two years,” said Olivera, “we have found 6,000-year old cave pa
Source: IHT
Mar 16, 2009
Sir Nicholas Henderson, a former British ambassador to the U.S. who helped build support for Britain's war effort in the Falkland Islands, died in his sleep Monday morning in London, his family said. He was 89.
Henderson also served as ambassador to Poland, Spain, Germany and France, and as private secretary to Britain's foreign minister.
Alexandra Drogheda, his daughter, said Henderson played an instrumental role in building support in the U.S. for Britain's decision t
Source: History Today
Mar 16, 2009
The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) announced, today, its latest project to research and make public information about the management of the Imperial Court in Vienna. The project, entitled ‘At Your Majesty’s Service!’, is based on the study of the ‘instruction manuals’ of the Viennese court by Institute for Austrian Historical Research at the University of Vienna. The manuals notably provided the court staff with details about the manner in which specific tasks were to be carried out and by whom. Th
