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: CBS News
Dec 14, 2010
In his final words before emergency heart surgery, Richard Holbrooke, the influential U.S. diplomat who died on Monday following complications from the surgery, apparently urged an end to America's nine-year old Afghanistan conflict.
"You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan," Holbrooke apparently told doctors before entering into surgery, according to family members' accounts originally reported by Washington Post.
Later reports note that Holbrooke made t
Source: Newsweek
Dec 14, 2010
...Last January, four dozen gay and lesbian activists gathered for a center retreat overlooking the Smoky Mountains to get inspiration on how they could show—not just tell—America that their rights are being violated.
But how? There are no “heterosexuals only” Woolworth counters where gays and lesbians can protest segregation; even Woolworth itself is long gone from the U.S. “We needed to create the urgency and critical mass to stop the injustice towards our community,” says Robin M
Source: Shalom Life (Canada)
Dec 14, 2010
On Sunday, Israel, along with other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean, got a taste of the region’s winter weather, as parts of the ancient archeological port of Caesarea were damaged in the storm.
A more modern sea wall that had been built around Caesarea fell in the storm, leaving the rest of the site exposed to the harsh waves.
Archeologists had actually predicted the area would eventually suffer damage at the hands of the sea, unless substantial restoration work cou
Source: BBC News
Dec 14, 2010
Alderney is celebrating 65 years of freedom since it was used for German concentration camps during World War II.
A Homecoming Day community service is being held at 1100 GMT at Braye Harbour involving all the island's churches and St Anne's School choir.
Co-ordinator Barbara Benfield said it would end with Charlie Greenslade playing the same cornet he played to welcome islanders home in 1945.
"[It's] very emotional," she said.
In Jun
Source: BBC News
Dec 14, 2010
The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire is the youngest and last surviving of the six aristocratic Mitford sisters who were famed for their high profile relationships and political affiliations.
She talks to Newsnight's Kirsty Wark about her extraordinary life - including joining her sister Unity for tea with Adolf Hitler when he was leader of Germany....
Source: WaPo
Dec 14, 2010
LONDON -- After nine months of tests, researchers in France have identified the head of France's King Henry IV, who was assassinated in 1610 aged 57. The scientific tests helped identify the late monarch's embalmed head, which was shuffled between private collections ever since it disappeared during the French Revolution in 1793.
The results of the research identifying Henry IV's head were published online Wednesday in the medical journal, BMJ.
Henry IV was buried in th
Source: WaPo
Dec 14, 2010
IOTO, Japan -- In a rare visit to Iwo Jima, Japan's prime minister offered prayers at two recently discovered mass graves and vowed to find remains of 12,000 fallen soldiers still missing on the remote island after some of World War II's fiercest fighting.
Kneeling in a deep pit with dozens of remains spread out before him, Naoto Kan clasped his hands in prayer Tuesday and then helped searchers exhume a badly decayed set of bones swathed in a faded green body bag. Workers said it wa
Source: WaPo
Dec 14, 2010
Twelve years ago, the U.S. Agency for International Development turned its lobby in the Ronald Reagan Building into a shrine to then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Its centerpiece was an 800-pound bronze plaque, 6 feet wide by about 9 feet high, bolted to a marble wall.
The plaque, which cost $27,388, plus tens of thousands more for shipping and installation, had an engraved excerpt from a speech she gave about "expanding the circle of human dignity."
Then
Source: NYT
Dec 14, 2010
MARIEHAMN, Finland — When Christian Ekstrom, a local diver, finally got to explore a sunken two-masted schooner he had known about for years, he found bottles, lots of bottles, so he brought one to the surface.
“I said, ‘Let’s taste some sea water,’ ” he said with a laugh, over coffee recently. “So I tasted it straight from the bottle. It was then that I noticed, ‘This is not sea water.’ ”
Mr. Ekstrom, 31, a compact man with a shock of blond hair, brought the bottle to
Source: Jewish Telegraph Agency
Dec 14, 2010
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- It should have been ancient, if unsavory, news: A cavalier reference to gassing Jews, an aside in a conversation nearly 40 years old.
But the aside was pronounced by Henry Kissinger, a German-born Jew who fled Nazi horrors as a child and who has been honored by multiple Jewish organizations as one of Israel’s saviors during its darkest days, when he was secretary of state to President Nixon.
“If they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it
Source: AFP
Dec 14, 2010
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A massive storm that battered the eastern Mediterranean caused the collapse of a cliff in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, revealing a rare Roman-era marble statue, officials said on Tuesday.
"The big storm earlier this week caused the cliff to collapse and a statue from Roman times was found by a passer-by," said Yoli Schwartz, spokeswoman for the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The white marble statue of a woman, which weighs about 200
Source: China Post/Asia News
Dec 14, 2010
BEIJING, China - More than 30 archaeological shipwreck sites have been discovered off China's shoreline, the national oceanic body has reportedly said.
The shipwrecks were discovered during a research project called 908, China News Service quoted an unidentified official with the State Oceanic Administration's department of science and technology as saying.
The findings were released during a seminar on the project in Xiamen, Fujian province....
Source: Faded Tribune
Dec 14, 2010
A line of clothing aimed at teenagers has been banned from schools in America over allegations its logo resembles Nazi insignia.
The ‘Metal Mulisha’ range includes T-shirts, shirts, caps and hats and has become massively popular with teen ‘Goths’ and young bikers.
But critics say the clothes’ logo has Nazi-style helmets and a lightning bolt ‘S’ - similar to those worn by Third Reich military forces.
The label has now been banned in a series of schools where
Source: Irish Times
Dec 14, 2010
EVIDENCE THAT the burning of Cork city during the War of Independence was carried out by members of an Auxiliary Division of the RIC has been uncovered by a historian of the force.
Jim Herlihy has found letters from a member of K Company of the Auxiliaries that confirm the 55-strong contingent led the burning on December 11th, 1920.
According to Mr Herlihy, Temporary Cadet Charlie Schulze wrote two letters on December 16th, 1920, in which he confirmed that he and his co
Source: Discovery News
Dec 13, 2010
The bones of a Roman man, who was stabbed to death and left to rot with the rubbish, have revealed gruesome details of what appears to be a gladiator combat, according to British researchers who have examined the skeletal remains.
Unearthed in January only 12 inches under the grass the Yorkshire Museum’s gardens, in York, England, the bones show that the man, most likely a disgraced gladiator, met a violent and bloody death.
Analysis by experts from York Osteoarchaeolog
Source: Reuters
Dec 13, 2010
Pompeii mayor Claudio D'Alessio does not want to go down in history linked with Pliny the Younger, the Roman who chronicled the destruction of the ancient city nearly 2,000 ago in an eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
D'Alessio is worried not only because he loves culture. He knows that the economy of his modern city of 25,000 people relies heavily on tourists who come from all over the world to see the famed archaeological site.
The collapses sparked charges of official negle
Source: Andina (Peru)
Dec 13, 2010
Rangers at the Cordillera de Colan Reserved Zone in Amazonas, northern Peru, have found what is believed to be an Inca citadel as well as some stone and metal artifacts during a routine patrolling in the Cajaruro district.
Biologist Leyda Gueiler said the metal artifact (pictured) seems to be a war shield while the stone ornaments were carved into the shape of leaves.
"This well preserved artifact is strong evidence that the ancient cultures in Amazonas did develop metal
Source: MSNBC
Dec 13, 2010
Prehistoric humans, along with Neanderthals and Homo antecessor, made meals of each other, suggests new research on probable human teeth marks found on prehistoric human bones.
The findings, which will be published in the January issue of The Journal of Human Evolution, support prior theories that the first humans to re-colonize Britain after the last ice age practiced nutritional cannibalism 12,000 years ago at a site called Gough's Cave in what is now Somerset, England.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Dec 13, 2010
A 1,400-year-old monastery in the United Arab Emirates that is the only pre-Islamic Christian site in the region has opened to the public.
The site at Sir Bani Yas island in Abu Dhabi dates back to around 600AD. It was built by a community of 30 to 40 monks and is understood to have been established by pilgrims travelling from India.
The remains, which also include a church, chapel and tower, were unearthed in 1992 during an archaeological study. Excavations will contin
Source: WaPo
Dec 13, 2010
The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and the
Stonewall Jackson House Foundation are close to finalizing an agreement that would transfer the Lexington, Va., house museum where VMI professor Thomas Jackson lived for two years to the institute, according to officials involved in the transaction.
In May, the foundation approached VMI about acquiring the historic house as a way to protect the building and its collections, which the foundation purchased in 1994. Foundation execut
