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: Haaretz
Jan 19, 2011
Berlin rejected Wednesday a demand to unlock an intelligence agency file on Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was caught by Israeli agents in Argentina, tried and hanged in 1962.
The mass-circulation newspaper Bild this month published a 1952 record from the West German intelligence agency saying Eichmann was in Argentina and his residence was known to an ex-Nazi group there.
At the time, Germany was saying his whereabouts were unknown.
Manfred Grund,
Source: Science Daily
Jan 19, 2011
Researchers at the Centre for the Studies of Archaeological and Prehistoric Heritage (CEPAP) of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have implemented an innovative system to register archaeological artifacts which eliminates problems in manual markings, such as errors in writing or erosion of data. The system, based on direct labelling using bi-dimensional data matrix (DM) codes, has been used by the CEPAP team during two years, in which numerous artifacts and bone remains from sites in Spain
Source: USA Today
Jan 19, 2011
In wine there is truth, in vino veritas, as the ancient Romans put it. And the truth is that people first cultivated grapes for vino about 8,000 years ago, finds a genetics study.
In the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by Sean Myles of Cornell, looked at "1,000 samples of the domesticated grape, Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera, and its wild relative, V. vinifera subsp. sylvestris." Comparing the gene maps across the grapes, the team concl
Source: BBC
Jan 19, 2011
Tom, Dick and Harry famously had their stories told in the film The Great Escape, but more is soon to be learned about a little-known fourth tunnel.
This spring, a British team is due to excavate "George", at the site of the Stalag Luft III camp in Zagan, Poland.
The tunnel was built after the March 1944 escape by 76 Allied prisoners that is portrayed in the film starring Steve McQueen, but never used for an escape.
It was a "contingency tunn
Source: CNN.com
Jan 19, 2011
How appropriate for the creator of the mystery novel.
The shadowy visitor who left roses and a half-full bottle of cognac at Edgar Allan Poe's Baltimore grave on the writer's birthday, every year for 60 years, has failed to appear for the second year in a row. And no one knows why.
The tradition began on January 19, 1949, according to the Edgar Allan Poe Society. The last visitation came two years ago, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Poe, the author of such dar
Source: Fox News
Jan 19, 2011
The NAACP's South Carolina office chose to cover a statue of George Washington during its annual rally honoring Martin Luther King Jr., drawing complaints from conservatives that the group was offending the legacy of the nation's Founding Father.
The state chapter of the civil rights group claims it meant no disrespect and only covered up the statue to provide a more suitable backdrop for speakers at Monday's event. Pictures taken at the event show the statue was completely covered
Source: Life Site News
Jan 19, 2011
BBC Radio 4 has marked the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible by claiming that King David, the Jewish king of the Old Testament who slew the giant Philistine Goliath, was in the Bible’s “only gay relationship.”
On a literary program, one of a series on the historic Bible translation, aired on Sunday, January 9th, playwright Howard Brenton claimed that David had been in love with Jonathan, the son of King Saul.
Brenton said, “To a secular reader
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 19, 2011
Mr Sarkozy made the slip during a speech in the Alsatian town of Truchtersheim, less than 20 miles from the German border.
Speaking to representatives of the agricultural industry, Mr Sarkozy said he could accepted unfair competition between China and India, but not between Germany and France.
"I'm not saying that simply because I'm in Germany," he said, before correcting himself to say: "I'm in Alsace."
The crowd immediately began jeeri
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 19, 2011
January 1941: the Battle of Britain, so long in the balance during the summer and autumn of the previous year, is lost. The Germans, despite heavy casualties sustained during four months of desperate fighting following their landings near Dover, Folkestone and Eastbourne, have broken through the British line at Ashford and are preparing a thrust towards London. It is time to institute Black Move.
In the dead of night, a company of the Coldstream Guards, known as the Co
Source: AP
Jan 19, 2011
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Haitian authorities moved toward trying Jean-Claude Duvalier for alleged corruption and embezzlement during his brutal 15-year rule, opening an investigation against the former dictator whose unexpected return from exile took an already tense nation by surprise.
The former strongman known as "Baby Doc" was questioned by judges for hours behind closed doors in a court in Haiti's capital Tuesday, defense attorney Gervais Charles said. The case is now
Source: CS Monitor
Jan 19, 2011
Nearly 10,000 years ago, man's best friend provided protection and companionship — and an occasional meal.
That's what researchers are saying after finding a bone fragment from what they are calling the earliest confirmed domesticated dog in the Americas.
University of Maine graduate student Samuel Belknap III came across the fragment while analyzing a dried-out sample of human waste unearthed in southwest Texas in the 1970s. A carbon-dating test put the age of the bone
Source: NYT
Jan 19, 2011
WASHINGTON — As the American-led ground offensive in the first war with Iraq got under way on Feb. 24, 1991, Saddam Hussein directed his frustration at an unlikely target: the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Mr. Hussein had dispatched his foreign minister to Moscow in an 11th-hour bid to head off a ground war....
“The situation is now is getting worse,” Mr. Hussein had written the previous night in an emotional letter to the Soviet leader. “Our nation and army are confused. We a
Source: Yahoo News
Jan 19, 2011
Telltale hearts beat with anticipation during a rainy, midnight dreary and beyond, hoping the mysterious visitor to Edgar Allan Poe's grave would return after a one-year absence.
But once again, the unknown person who for decades has left three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at Poe's grave on the anniversary of the writer's birth failed to appear Wednesday, fueling speculation that he may have died.
Four impostors came and went overnight. The real o
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 19, 2011
The entrance to George has been discovered in the old theatre of the Nazi prison camp, Stalag Luft III in Zagan, which was in German-occupied Poland.
George was built by men bitter that they did not escape through Harry on the night of March 24, 1944. Only later did they learn that the Gestapo murdered 50 of the 76 escapees, made famous by the film starring Steve McQueen, Sir Richard Attenborough and Charles Bronson.
Sqn Ldr Ivor Harris, now 90, who operated the air pum
Source: BBC News
Jan 19, 2011
A collection of previously unseen photographs of Adolf Hitler has sold at auction in Northamptonshire for £30,000.
The group of hundreds of photographs went under the hammer on Tuesday night as part of a 300-lot militaria sale at JP Humbert Auctioneers in Towcester.
Hitler's personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann took the images during the Nazi party's rise to power.
Hoffmann's work was used for postage stamps, postcards and posters.
Nazi party's ri
Source: The Missoulian (Montana)
Jan 19, 2011
Ed Chlapowski survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and spent the rest of his long life making sure those who died on that infamous day would never be forgotten.
On Sunday, a little more than 69 years after notifying the world that "This is no drill - Pearl Harbor is being bombed by the Japanese - this is no drill," the 88-year-old Navy veteran died at his home in Billings.
He was one of Montana's last survivors of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack that propelle
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 19, 2011
A former Foreign Office official has told the Iraq inquiry how he warned against the publication by Tony Blair's government of the controversial dossier on Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction.
John Williams, who was director of communications at the Foreign Office at the time of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, said he had ''argued strongly'' against publication with then prime minister's communications chief, Alastair Campbell.
In a written statement to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 19, 2011
The three tunnels known as Tom, Dick and Harry were synonymous with The Great Escape, but British engineers are to excavate their lesser known cousin, George, which was dug by the remaining inmates left behind.
The entrance to George has been discovered in the old theatre of the Nazi prison camp, Stalag Luft III in Zagan, which was in German-occupied Poland.
George was built by men bitter that they did not escape through Harry on the night of March 24, 1944. Only later
Source: AP
Jan 19, 2011
The Vatican says a letter warning Irish bishops against reporting sexual abuse of children to police has been misunderstood.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said that with its 1997 letter, the Vatican wanted to ensure that Irish bishops follow church law precisely so that pedophile priests would not have any technical grounds to escape church punishment.
Lombardi issued the statement Wednesday after The Associated Press reported that the letter from t
Source: BBC News
Jan 19, 2011
A Vatican department advised Ireland's Catholic bishops in 1997 not to report priests suspected of child abuse to the police, a newly revealed letter shows.
Obtained by Irish broadcaster RTE, the letter shows Vatican officials rejected an initiative to begin the "mandatory reporting" of abuse claims.
The proposed policy "gives rise to serious reservations", it says.
The Vatican has persistently said it never instructed bishops to withhol
