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: Guardian (UK)
Jan 11, 2011
I am sitting on the verandah of the Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince, sipping coffee and looking out over its tranquil gardens. So idyllic is the scene, you could easily imagine that nothing much has changed here for a century – or at least not since the 1960s, when this white-painted landmark was known as "the Greenwich Village of the tropics" and hosted the likes of Truman Capote, Mick Jagger and Graham Greene. The Oloffson even inspired the hotel that appears in Greene's 1966 novel
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jan 11, 2011
Paris boasts so many historic monuments it has been called a living museum. But now Nicolas Sarkozy is under attack for seeking to sell the capital's heritage to luxury hotel chains.
Historians are outraged at government plans to rent out one of France's most important palaces, L'hôtel de la Marine on Place de La Concorde.
A symbol of the nation's bloody history, the palace was the site of the first riots that led to the French revolution in 1789. King Louis XVI and Mar
Source: Yahoo News
Jan 11, 2011
Some U.S. lawmakers want an Arlington National Cemetery burial for the controversial Laotian Hmong ex-general of a secret CIA-backed army that fought communism during the Vietnam War.
Vang Pao, who died in California last week at age 81, commanded thousands of Hmong fighters in a covert U.S.-backed war against North Vietnamese and Laotian communists during the 1960s and '70s. His legendary skills at guerrilla warfare led some followers to see him as a minor deity.
Reps.
Source: Epoch Times
Jan 11, 2011
F. Lee Bailey, one of the former lawyers for OJ Simpson during his much-hyped murder trial in the mid-1990s, has posted a document on his website saying that evidence of Simpson’s innocence was held back.
The defense didn't call four witnesses who could have testified to clear Simpson, who was on trial for the murders of his ex-wife and friend, Bailey wrote in the 20,000-word document, according to Salon.
Even though Simpson was found not guilty, he was found guilty dur
Source: Fox News
Jan 11, 2011
MUNICH – John Demjanjuk's defense attorney said Tuesday that transcripts of testimony by a former guard at a Nazi death camp, who acknowledged that he was tortured by the Soviets into confessing to committing war crimes, show that all such confessions should be considered suspect.
In the transcript of the 1951 trial in the Soviet Union, read into the record as evidence Tuesday at the Munich state court, a former Red Army soldier who was captured by the Nazis and then served as a gu
Source: Fredericksburg.com
Jan 11, 2011
Just in time for the sesquicentennial of its namesake, America's largest battlefield preservation organization has a new name--the Civil War Trust--and a new graphical identity.
Until now, the group--which has deep roots in Fredericksburg--had been called the Civil War Preservation Trust. Its new moniker is shorter and simpler, as is the new logo that the Washington-based nonprofit rolled out yesterday.
The design features the silhouettes of two soldiers, Union and Conf
Source: Physorg.com
Jan 11, 2011
Samuel Belknap III, a graduate research assistant working under the direction of Kristin Sobolik in UMaine’s Department of Anthropology and Climate Change Institute, found a 9,400-year-old skull fragment of a domestic dog during analysis of an intact human paleofecal sample.
The fact that the bone was found in human waste provides the earliest proof that humans in the New World used domesticated dogs as food sources.
“This is an important scientific discovery that can t
Source: BBC News
Jan 11, 2011
On the last weekend of January in 1974, as Australians marked their national day, an already abnormally wet summer saw new, near-record rainfall that swept floodwater through the city of Brisbane.
Car parks were submerged, boats broke loose and jammed under bridges, and roads collapsed. Debris was strewn along the river courses.
When the devastation was collated, 14 people had lost their lives and the cost of the damage at the time was put at A$200m.
It was
Source: WaPo
Jan 11, 2011
IN RALEIGH, N.C. The sprawling Wake County School District has long been a rarity. Some of its best, most diverse schools are in the poorest sections of this capital city. And its suburban schools, rather than being exclusive enclaves, include children whose parents cannot afford a house in the neighborhood.
But over the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives has set the district on a strikingly different course. Pledging to &quo
Source: UN News Centre
Jan 11, 2011
An international team of archaeologists has begun a three-year survey, coordinated by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), of the archaeological ruins of Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha in Nepal.
Lumbini is a world-renowned Buddhist pilgrimage destination and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1997.
The project, funded by the Japanese Government and coordinated by the UNESCO office in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, aims to identify the
Source: BBC
Jan 11, 2011
Excavations for the new Tattoo stands on Edinburgh Castle esplanade have revealed the remains of a boundary wall dating back to the 17th Century.
CFA Archaeology will now look at the surrounding area to gain a clearer understanding of what it was part of.
A trench dug for one of more than 100 concrete pad foundations for the new stands revealed the remains of a wall around 1m (3.3ft) wide.
The works are part of a Scheduled Monument Consent granted by minist
Source: BBC
Jan 11, 2011
"Liberte!" - That was the last word spoken by the heroine of Churchill's elite spy network before being executed by her Nazi captors.
On 13 September 1944, the glamorous British agent, code named "Madeline," was shot dead at Dachau concentration camp.
Despite being tortured by the Gestapo during 10 months of imprisonment, she had revealed nothing of use to her interrogators.
Noor's bravery has long been recognised in France, where the
Source: AP
Jan 11, 2011
The earliest known winery has been uncovered in a cave in the mountains of Armenia.
A vat to press the grapes, fermentation jars and even a cup and drinking bowl dating to about 6,000 years ago were discovered in the cave complex by an international team of researchers.
While older evidence of wine drinking has been found, this is the earliest example of complete wine production, according to Gregory Areshian of the University of California, Los Angeles, co-director of
Source: NYT
Jan 11, 2011
Scientists have reported finding the oldest known winemaking operation, about 6,100 years old, complete with a vat for fermenting, a press, storage jars, a clay bowl and a drinking cup made from an animal horn. Grape seeds, dried pressed grapes, stems, shriveled grapevines and residue were also found, and chemical analyses indicate red wine was produced there.
The discovery, published online Tuesday in The Journal of Archaeological Science, occurred in a cave in Armenia where the te
Source: NYT
Jan 11, 2011
Longevity in early modern humans and in Neanderthals was about the same, according to a new study, suggesting that long life was not what helped the population of early modern humans increase.
Erik Trinkaus, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis and the study’s author, reported his findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“There must have been something else happening because the populations of early modern humans were expanding
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 11, 2011
The ace in Christie’s pack next month is an elusive Warhol self-portrait which has never been reproduced before.
Little-known masterpieces, unseen for generations, are stealing the headlines as the contents of next month’s contemporary art sales in London begin to unfold. Last week, the Telegraph announced that a Francis Bacon portrait triptych of Lucian Freud, hidden in a private collection for 45 years, was to lead the Sotheby’s sale. Today we can reveal that Christie’s ace in the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 11, 2011
A low-cost, low-carbon airship makes sound economic sense says Michael Stewart.
One of the most intriguing predictions in the usual end-of-year rush was that we could soon be taking holidays thousands of feet in the air. By 2030, claimed a report for Thomson Holidays, giant, eco-powered airships, containing entire resorts, will be floating through the skies. It seems fantastical, but you don't need to look 20 years into the future to see the airship making a comeback. In fact, these
Source: BBC News
Jan 11, 2011
The last known survivor from the Lusitania ocean liner that was sunk by a German U-boat in 1915 has died.
Audrey Lawson-Johnston from Melchbourne in Bedfordshire died in the early hours of Tuesday aged 95.
She was three months old when the liner bound for Liverpool from New York sank off the Irish coast on 7 May.
Mrs Lawson-Johnston's family had been emigrating to England when the boat was hit in an attack that killed hundreds, including her sisters.
Source: Ynet News
Jan 10, 2011
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is urging Germany's Federal Intelligence Service to release all files on Nazi war criminals following a recent report the agency knew Adolf Eichmann was hiding in Buenos Aires as early as 1952....
Source: The State (SC)
Jan 10, 2011
HILTON HEAD ISLAND - — Coastal waters uncovered a potential piece of Civil War-era history discovered last week by a visiting diplomat on a Hilton Head Island beach.
Sea Pines resident Sally Peterson was walking on the beach in Sea Pines with her brother, Peter Thomson, and his family, who were visiting for the holidays. Thomson is a Fiji diplomat and the South Pacific island nation’s permanent representative to the United Nations.
During their walk, Thomson discovered
