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: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 20, 2011
An alleged war criminal is working in a care home in a seaside resort.
Celestin Ugirashebuja is wanted for war crimes in Rwanda, where he accused of organising attacks during the genocide in 1994.
Mr Ugirashebuja, who passed a Criminal Records Bureau check, works at the Anna Victoria Nursing Home in Frinton-on-Sea, Essex.
Nearly half a million Rwandans died in the genocide, and Mr Ugirashebuja, 60, is accused of organising roadblocks and urging Hutus to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 20, 2011
A “macabre” short story written by Daphne du Maurier and lost for more than 70 years has been unearthed by an enthusiast.
The Doll, billed as “a dark story of obsession and jealousy”, is the peculiar tale of a man who becomes infatuated with a woman he meets at a party. He visits her home only to discover the real object of her affection: a life-size, mechanical male doll.
The story was written around 1928 and the female character was called Rebecca, a name du Maurier
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 20, 2011
History will become the preserve of the rich if the coalition continues to cut arts and humanities in favour of sciences, Simon Schama the historian has warned.
The Government's new history tsar who was called in by Education Secretary Michael Gove to advise the Government on the history curriculum in schools, also berated academic snobbery among some fellow historians who have worked solely in higher education.
Broadcaster Schama, 66, who is Professor of Art History
Source: AP
Feb 20, 2011
Japan is starting to excavate the site of a former medical school that may reveal grisly secrets from World War II.
The investigation begins Monday at the former school linked to Unit 731, a germ and biological warfare outfit during the war. Shadowy experiments conducted by the unit on war prisoners have never been officially acknowledged by the government but have been documented by historians and participants.
It is the first government probe of the Tokyo site, and fo
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Feb 19, 2011
When it was founded in 1653, it aimed to rival the college libraries of Oxbridge and provide a place for independent study in the north of England.
Today, Chetham's Library is the oldest surviving public library in Britain, housed in the centre of Manchester in a medieval sandstone building which used to be a prison and arsenal.
It was created at the behest of Humphrey Chetham, a successful cloth merchant, whose will stipulated that the Library should be 'for the use of
Source: NYT
Feb 19, 2011
ATLANTA — Over the years, the public radio show “This American Life” has done some ambitious work. It was the first media outlet in the country to broadcast lengthy interviews with Guantánamo Bay prisoners. It sent reporters to Iraq for a month. And it exposed the misdeeds of a hedge fund.
So what other topic could be so weighty, so captivating that it would cause the radio show’s Web site to crash under a stampede of visitors?
A soft-drink recipe.
The host
Source: CNN
Feb 19, 2011
Helena Hicks remembers it vividly. It was a cold January day back in 1955. The 20-year-old Morgan State College student was at a bus stop with her friends at Lexington and Howard streets on the west side of Baltimore. Hicks said she and her friends were cold, hungry, tired -- fed up.
With that mindset, Hicks and her friends went into Read's drug store and took a seat at the lunch counter. The problem: the retail chain had a policy of not serving African-Americans.
So th
Source: AP
Feb 19, 2011
A prosecutor says a court has told Pakistani authorities to trace the address of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf to arrest him in connection with the Benazir Bhutto assassination.
Musharraf left Pakistan for London after quitting the presidency in 2008.
Bhutto, a former prime minister, died in a gun and suicide bomb attack in late 2007. Prosecutors allege Musharraf was part of the conspiracy to kill her because he did not do enough to protect her....
Source: AP
Feb 19, 2011
A steady stream of people gathered to mourn the apparent imminent demise of the poisoned oak trees at Toomer's Corner, where Auburn fans traditionally celebrate wins.
The crowd of old and young alike, many clad in orange and blue, began arriving early Saturday morning for the rally dubbed "Toomer's Tree Hug" and carried on well into the afternoon.
A fan of rival Alabama -- Harvey Updyke Jr., 62 -- has been charged with first-degree criminal mischief for allege
Source: Researchsea.org
Feb 18, 2011
The discovery of evidence in Bukit Bunuh has made it one of the most important Palaeolithic sites in the world because it has revealed a 4 km square Palaeolithic complex dating back more than 1.83 million years; 40,000; and 30,000 years.
This has made Bukit Bunuh the oldest site in the world outside Africa and which has been chronometrically dated. With this discovery in Bukit Bunuh, the evidence of prehistoric presence in Lembah Lenggong (Lenggong Valley)has been strengthened,
Source: WaPo
Feb 18, 2011
There's not much left of the oldest synagogue in the Americas: just a pile of crumbling bricks covered with moss and inhabited by a handful of speedy brown lizards that scamper into the underbrush as I walk around the remnants of Beracha ve Shalom, established on a hill along the Suriname River in 1685.
The only other visitors on this day, besides my guide and me, are some local Amerindian teenagers, who perch on a corner of the ruins, laughing, flirting and snapping digital photos
Source: Yahoo News
Feb 18, 2011
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Faithful attending the beatification of Pope John Paul in Rome will be able to pray before his coffin, which will be exhumed for the event, the Vatican said on Friday.
The Vatican also warned the faithful around the world not to fall prey to fraudsters, particularly on the Internet, who are selling tickets to the beatification ceremony on May 1.
"For the beatification Mass of Pope John Paul II, as made clear from the outset, no tickets are
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Feb 18, 2011
It was the logical way to take out targets that were essentially massive balloons filled with flammable gas.
When British First World War pilots were asked to destroy German Zeppelins, they did not turn to guns - but a giant exploding dart.
Now one of the foot-long steel-tipped darts is being sold at auction, without the explosives, and is expected to fetch £1,200.
British biplane pilots would fly above the giant airships - filled with highly flammable hyd
Source: CNN
Feb 18, 2011
The hard-won fight for civil rights could go down as one of the most thoroughly archived periods in American history, largely because participants kept photos and objects that would later tell their stories.
The revolution demanded it, even if the keepers of history at the time didn't.
At the height of the movement, there was no market for historic African-American artifacts. Mainstream museums weren't interested in documenting it, and "if you look at how museums a
Source: National Geographic
Feb 18, 2011
Explorers have discovered what might be the oldest evidence of humans in the Americas.
Alex Alvarez, Franco Attolini, and Alberto (Beto) Nava are members of PET (Projecto Espeleológico de Tulum), an organization that specializes in the exploration and survey of underwater caves on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
Alex, Franco and Beto have surveyed tens of thousands of feet of mazelike cave passages in the state of Quintana Roo. The team's relatively recent explorations
Source: Physorg
Feb 18, 2011
One of Europe’s best preserved medieval fishing structures located on the Fergus Estuary in County Clare, Ireland, will be washed away by tidal flows before archaeologists can reveal its secrets.
A team of University College Dublin archaeologists who have been visiting the remote 700 year old fishing site will no longer be able to conduct their scientific recording and analysis, due to recent budget cuts experienced by the Irish Heritage Council.
Located about 1.5km fro
Source: BBC
Feb 18, 2011
Four hundred years after his death, Caravaggio is a 21st Century superstar among old master painters. His stark, dramatically lit, super-realistic paintings strike a modern chord - but his police record is more shocking than any modern bad boy rock star's.
An exhibition of documents at Rome's State Archives throws vivid light on his tumultuous life here at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries.
Caravaggio's friendships, daily life and frequent braw
Source: BBC
Feb 18, 2011
On Saturday, a group will gather in Alabama to mark the 150th anniversary of the inauguration of the first president of the Confederacy, 11 Southern slave states that left the US in 1860 and 1861. They say they are honouring their ancestors and their heritage but, as the BBC's Daniel Nasaw reports, critics view the group as celebrating slavery.
Under a bright Southern sky on Saturday, the Sons of Confederate Veterans will dress in period costume, including replica grey uniforms of t
Source: WaPo
Feb 18, 2011
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A longtime Murray State University professor has decided to retire after referring to slavery while making a point about tardiness to two black students last semester, the school said Friday.
Political science professor Mark Wattier has filed his retirement application with the state, with an effective date of March 1, university spokeswoman Catherine Sivills said.
One of the students filed a complaint with the university, and Wattier was suspended wi
Source: WaPo
Feb 18, 2011
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Months after the University of Alabama dedicated a plaza and clock tower to its earliest black students, the school has been swamped with unwelcome attention over the past two weeks because of racial slurs used on campus.
First, a white student was disciplined for yelling epithets at a black student early this month. Days after that incident, insulting messages about several racial and ethnic groups were written on campus sidewalks in chalk.
The flap
