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
Mar 19, 2011
Warren M. Christopher, the secretary of state in President Bill Clinton’s first term and the chief negotiator for the 1981 release of American hostages in Iran, died Friday night in Los Angeles. He was 85.
A spokeswoman for O’Melveny & Myers, the law firm where Mr. Christopher was a senior partner, confirmed his death, according to The Associated Press. He had been ill with kidney and bladder cancer.
Methodical and self-effacing, Mr. Christopher alternated for nearl
Source: CNN
Mar 19, 2011
Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher died Friday from complications of kidney and bladder cancer, his family said. He was 85.
As America's chief diplomat for four years during President Bill Clinton's administration, Christopher "eschewed confrontation in favor of negotiation with friend and foe alike," according to a profile posted on the State Department website.
In 1981, Christopher received the Medal of Freedom -- the nation's highest civilian awar
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 18, 2011
Mexico's pyramids are at risk of being damaged by thousands of people who will gather at them for the Spring Equinox, the country's heritage protection body has warned.
Large numbers of tourists and Mexicans are expected to descend on historic sites such as Chichen-Itza and the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan this Sunday.
But the National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH), the government agency entrusted with protecting Mexico's rich cultural heritage, takes
Source: Deutsche Welle (Germany)
Mar 18, 2011
Jewish organisations and the US government have raised objections to Poland's decision to suspend work on the restitution of Jewish property confiscated by the Nazis during WWII and under communism.
Jewish organizations and the US administration have both raised objections to Poland's decision to suspend work on the restitution of Jewish property confiscated by the Nazis during World War II and under communism.
The Polish government suspended work on the restitution pac
Source: NYT
Mar 18, 2011
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Get people talking about civil rights-era buses and it’s all Rosa Parks all the time.
Museums are dedicated to her role in the boycott in the mid-1950s that forced Montgomery to stop banishing African-Americans to the back of city buses. Schools and stamps bear her name. There is a Rosa Parks cookie jar and a Rosa Parks app.
But no one talks much about Worcy Crawford, who died in July at age 90, leaving a graveyard of decaying buses behind his h
Source: NYT
Mar 18, 2011
In 1973, vexed by an Arab oil embargo and soaring fuel prices, President Richard M. Nixon championed a long-term solution: to have 1,000 nuclear reactors in place in America by the year 2000 as part of a national energy independence plan.
That never came to pass: 104 nuclear reactors operate today, compared with 40 then. The last permit for construction of what became a fully operational nuclear plant was issued in 1978.
The main obstacles to the industry’s growth were
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 18, 2011
The famous Stalin-era park on the banks of the Moskva River in central Moscow has fallen into serious disrepair since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and is in urgent need of a revamp.
People familiar with the matter said that the 44-year-old oligarch, who Forbes magazine rated as Russia's ninth richest person earlier this year, was likely to help bankroll its redevelopment and that talks were in progress.
A close associate of Mr Abramovich's, MP Sergey Kapkov,
Source: CNN
Mar 18, 2011
The cities flattened by last week's earthquake look eerily similar to the decimated buildings Shigeko Sasamori saw after an atomic bomb was dropped on her hometown in 1945.
The floodwaters from the tsunami -- the waves of debris and bodies -- remind her of the rivers in Hiroshima, Japan, swamped with corpses.
And the struggle to contain radioactive emissions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant makes Sasamori, 78, wonder if the crisis there will plague a new generatio
Source: Discovery News
Mar 18, 2011
God's wife, Asherah, was a powerful fertility goddess, according to a theologian.
God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshiped alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel, according to an Oxford scholar.
In 1967, Raphael Patai was the first historian to mention that the ancient Israelites worshiped both Yahweh and Asherah. The theory has gained new prominence due to the research of Francesca Stavrakopoulou, who began her work at Oxford and is now
Source: BBC
Mar 18, 2011
A festival of silent films is being held at Scotland's oldest surviving cinema.
The restored Hippodrome cinema in Bo'ness, near Falkirk, will screen a series of "rare and classic films" over the three-day event.
Silent film A-listers such as Clara Bow, Laurel and Hardy, and Buster Keaton will all be making an appearance on screen, Falkirk Council said.
Audience members have been encouraged to come dressed in 20s style.
Festival direct
Source: AP
Mar 18, 2011
The arrest of a Croatian woman in small-town Kentucky for alleged war crimes two decades ago in the former Yugoslavia "brings her long run from justice to an end," a U.S. marshal said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert E. Wier appointed Azra Basic, 52, a lawyer Thursday and ordered her held without bond pending an April 1 status hearing. Prosecutors argued that no bail amount would guarantee Basic's presence in court.
This week, acquaintances were shocked to hear t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 18, 2011
Neil Tweedie meets Denis Avey and hears his astonishing tale of breaking into the Nazi's most feared concentration camp - for a dare.
The music came from an orchestra hidden just out of sight: Wagner, wafting across the blasted ground. Denis Avey was 25 and a prisoner of war for more than two years. It was 1943 and this was the latest in a long line of PoW camps since his capture in North Africa, a collection of huts in the shadow of an enormous industrial complex in southern Polan
Source: Discovery News
Mar 17, 2011
Italy never saw so many national flags waving in the air as on March 17, 2011.
Posted across windows and balconies all over the country, thousands of green, white and red flags celebrated the 150th anniversary of the country’s unification.
As a nation-state, Italy is younger than the United States. The home of the ancient Roman empire became a nation as a whole just 150 years ago, on March 17, 1861.
On that day, Victor Emmanuel II became the first king of a
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 17, 2011
Haiti's ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was heading home on Thursday, ending his exile despite a warning from US President Barack Obama on his "destabilising" return ahead of a crucial election.
Mr Aristide was set to depart late Thursday from a small airport outside Johannesburg after living seven years in South Africa, ignoring intense US lobbying to prevent his return before Sunday's presidential run-off in the Caribbean nation.
Mr Obama personally ca
Source: The Northwestern (WI)
Mar 17, 2011
It's called the "Flying Fortress" and there's good reason for the nickname.
The rock solid B-17 bomber — an airplane that in many cases could take a hit and keep on going — played an integral role in World War II in helping defeat Nazi Germany and its Axis partners. The famed bomber is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.
Retired Col. Harold "Hal" Weekley, who flew the B-17 as a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces, said its durability helped mak
Source: Ynet News (Israel)
Mar 17, 2011
The Israeli Tax Authority arrested a 41-year-old man from the northern town of Hatzor Haglilit on Thursday on suspicion he imported Nazi souvenirs, which is illegal in Israel.
The man is also accused of not paying taxes for other memorabilia he received dating back to WWI and WWII. Police suspected the man sold the items to collectors around the world, including a top soccer player in Britain.
A package sent from Germany arrived at Haifa's customs offices a few days ag
Source: Korea Herald
Mar 17, 2011
Almost 300 royal books from the Joseon Dynasty, looted during the 19th century French invasion of Korea, will make their official return to Seoul on a permanent lease starting March 28, the National Museum of Korea said Wednesday.
Officials of the National Museum signed an official pact on the return of 297 royal book with the National Library of France in Paris, where they are currently located.
The French library agreed to return the books in four installments from Ma
Source: Ahram Online (Egypt)
Mar 17, 2011
Sixteen of 54 missing artefacts from the Egyptian Museum were found yesterday, with arrests made.
With the help of Egypt’s military forces, the antiquities police succeeded in catching three of the thieves who broke into the Egyptian Museum on 29 January, finding with them 12 of the museum’s missing pieces.
Museum Director Tarek El-Awadi told Ahram Online that the recovered objects include seven statues, five made of bronze, the sixth of limestone. Five collars made of
Source: BBC News
Mar 17, 2011
Haiti's former leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide has left South Africa to return to his home country after seven years in exile, officials say.
He is expected in Port-au-Prince early on Friday, two days before Haiti's presidential run-off vote.
The US is deeply concerned that his return could destabilise the country.
But Mr Aristide, a populist left-winger who was forced to flee in 2004 amid a rebellion, has said he will not seek an active role in politics.
Source: BBC
Mar 17, 2011
Two rare, carved altar stones found in East Lothian could shed new light about the Roman period in Scotland, it has been claimed.
The Roman stones were found during the redevelopment of a cricket pavilion in Lewisvale Park, Musselburgh.
Experts said they may help re-write the history books on the Roman occupation of Inveresk.
Although they were found in March 2010, it has only now become safe to fully inspect them.
Archaeologists said the ston
