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
Nov 29, 2010
TOKYO — Voters on the southern Japanese islands of Okinawa re-elected a governor on Sunday who campaigned for the removal of an American Marine base there, throwing a wrench into a deal between Japan and the United States to relocate the base and posing a challenge for the United States as it grapples with a response to North Korean aggression.
Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima, 71, had once supported the plan to transfer the base to a less populated part of Okinawa, but he reversed himself aft
Source: WaPo
Nov 29, 2010
Is this a great country or what?
"American exceptionalism" is a phrase that, until recently, was rarely heard outside the confines of think tanks, opinion journals and university history departments.
But with Republicans and tea party activists accusing President Obama and the Democrats of turning the country toward socialism, the idea that the United States is inherently superior to the world's other nations has become the battle cry from a new front in the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 29, 2010
Libya is not an easy country to visit, but the magnificent Roman site of Leptis Magna makes it well worth the effort, says Annabel Simms.
A majestic but forgotten Roman city overlooking the Mediterranean in North Africa? It sounded too good to be true when I first read about Leptis Magna in an article by Geoff Dyer in Prospect magazine 10 years ago. He had been haunted by it after seeing a background of columns by the sea on an old photo and the name acted on him like a summons.
Source: BBC News
Nov 29, 2010
A retired electrician in southern France who worked for Pablo Picasso says he has hundreds of previously unknown works by the artist.
The treasure trove of 271 pieces includes lithographs, cubist paintings, notebooks and a watercolour and is said to be worth about 60m euros (£50.6m).
Pierre Le Guennec, 71, reportedly says Picasso gave him the works as gifts.
But the estate's administrators have filed a case for alleged illegal receipt of the works of art.
Source: AP
Nov 28, 2010
During the last Ice Age, shaggy mammoths, woolly rhinos and bison lumbered across northern Siberia. Then, about 10,000 years ago — in the span of a geological heartbeat, or a few hundred years — the last of them disappeared.
Many scientists believe a dramatic shift in climate drove these giant grazers to extinction.
But two scientists who live year-round in the frigid Siberian plains say that man _either for food, fuel or fun — hunted the animals to extinction....
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Nov 28, 2010
Hundreds of never-seen-before photographs of Adolf Hitler are expected to fetch a six-figure sum when they go under the hammer, an auctioneer said on Sunday.
The photographs, along with negatives, were taken by the Nazi leader's personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann during the party's rise to power in the early 1930s.
Believed to have been passed on by the photographer himself, they will go under the hammer at a sale in January.
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Source: Politico
Nov 28, 2010
For Democrats in the South, the most ominous part of a disastrous year may not be what happened on Election Day but what has happened in the weeks since.
After suffering a historic rout — in which nearly every white Deep South Democrat in the U.S. House was defeated and Republicans took over or gained seats in legislatures across the region — the party’s ranks in Dixie have thinned even further.
In Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama, Democratic state legislators have become
Source: Fox News
Nov 28, 2010
A key senator in the issue of terrorism trials said Sunday he will do whatever he can to prevent alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from seeing the inside of a civilian courtroom.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he has the votes to block Justice Department moves to get civilian trials for the alleged Sept. 11 conspirators and a better place for the Sept. 11 leadership is in a military court at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"I think
Source: Portsmouth News (UK)
Nov 27, 2010
A MULTI-MILLION pound project to restore HMS Alliance has been given the go-ahead.
Work to repair the vessel, which is the UK's only remaining Second World War submarine, is set to begin in May, at a cost of £7m. It will be Alliance's biggest restoration since the 1960s.
Under the plans, which were passed by a regulatory meeting at Gosport Borough Council, the project will involve new mechanical and electrical plants being installed to help conserve Alliance, and the construc
Source: NYT
Nov 27, 2010
...The ferocity of the attack and the deaths of the civilians appear to have started a shift in South Koreans’ conflicted emotions about their countrymen in the North, and not just among those who were shot at.
After years of backing food aid and other help for the North despite a series of provocations that included two nuclear tests, many South Koreans now say they feel betrayed and angry.
“I think we should respond strongly toward North Korea for once instead of bein
Source: NYT
Nov 27, 2010
WASHINGTON — In 1976, just six months after he joined the Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens voted to reinstate capital punishment after a four-year moratorium. With the right procedures, he wrote, it is possible to ensure “evenhanded, rational and consistent imposition of death sentences under law.”
In 2008, two years before he announced his retirement, Justice Stevens reversed course and in a concurrence said that he now believed the death penalty to be unconstitutional.
Source: NYT
Nov 27, 2010
Earlier this month, Sarah Palin showed up in Bucks County, Pa., with “dozens and dozens” of cookies, suggesting that the state’s schoolchildren risked losing the right to the occasional classroom treat because of a high-minded anti-sugar edict from the board of education. Pretty much everything about the setup was wrong. Pennsylvania wasn’t, as Palin tweeted, in the midst of a “school cookie ban” debate. And the school she turned into a photo op wouldn’t have been subject to such a ban had one e
Source: CNN
Nov 26, 2010
Remains of a ship likely from the 1600s were discovered as workers renovated a hotel in central Stockholm, the Maritime Museum said.
As workers were renovating part of Stockholm's Grand Hotel, not far from the royal palace, a worker found something interesting – the discovery turned out to be excavated parts of a ship.
So archaeologists from the Maritime Museum came in to check things out – and it turns out they had quite an interesting find.
According to S
Source: The Vancouver Sun
Nov 26, 2010
It's a genuine treasure of American history, with a price tag to match: a rare, 195-year-old printing of the original sheet music for the Star-Spangled Banner is expected to sell for up to $300,000 at an auction next week in New York.
But as U.S. history buffs lined up for a look at the patriotic relic this week during Christie's pre-sale exhibition, Canadian archeologists were planning their next Arctic Ocean search for one of the very War of 1812 ships — the last in existence — re
Source: BBC
Nov 26, 2010
Archaeologists believe they may have unearthed the remains of a Neolithic farm on the site where the new Forth road bridge is to be built.
Trial trenches have been dug in a field on the outskirts of South Queensferry on land reserved for the planned Forth Replacement Crossing (FRC).
Archaeologists plan further excavations to confirm what they believe is an early version of a croft or small farm.
The discovery is not expected to affect construction of the n
Source: BBC
Nov 26, 2010
It was the early 1900s and American Percival Farquhar was a man with a mission, determined to succeed where others before him had failed.
The wealthy entrepreneur from Pennsylvania had been granted the concession by the Brazilian government to build a railway to help transport rubber from Brazil and landlocked Bolivia to the outside world.
It would be the third attempt to lay rail tracks in this part of the Amazon rainforest, where treacherous rapids made sections of
Source: WaPo
Nov 26, 2010
BELGRADE, Serbia -- Serbia is seeking extradition from the U.S. of a naturalized American citizen who is suspected of serving in a Nazi unit that killed around 17,000 Jewish and other civilians during World War II, the justice minister said Friday.
Snezana Malovic told the Associated Press that Serbia sent its formal request for the extradition of Peter Egner earlier Friday.
Belgrade has worked closely with the U.S. on the case of 88-year-old Egner, who was born in Yugo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 26, 2010
Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, will launch a new "de-Stalinisation" drive by reminding Russians of the crimes ordered by the Soviet dictator, according to reports.
Stalin's role in Russia's history will be addressed in January when Mr Medvedev meets with his new human rights envoy Mikhail Fedotov and rights activists, the Vedomosti business paper said.
The campaign will be based on declassifying all secret Soviet archives and the millions of case fil
Source: The Irrawaddy (SE Asia)
Nov 26, 2010
The on-going construction of the Sittwe-Amm-Minbu railroad is damaging important cultural heritage sites in Mrauk U, a well-known site of ancient pagodas and buildings in Arakan State, according to concerned local residents.
"Although we have called for an end to this project, they haven't complied,” a Mrauk U resident told The Irrawaddy. He said damage to some pagodas has been covered over with earth. The railroad construction started on Nov. 7.
The construction p
Source: San Francisco Appeal
Nov 26, 2010
A gathering is planned in San Francisco today to celebrate the repatriation of a pre-Columbian figurine seized from a passenger at Oakland International Airport earlier this year.
The 2.5-inch figurine was confiscated on Feb. 10 from the luggage of a man arriving in Oakland from Mexico, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman JoAnn Winks said.
The passenger claimed he found the artifact in Ameca, a city in the state of Jalisco in western Mexico, but there were so
