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: BBC
Oct 1, 2010
A UN report into the killings of Hutu civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the 1990s says they may constitute "crimes of genocide".
It accuses Rwandan, Ugandan and Burundian forces of participating in the attacks, and recommends that the international community seeks to prosecute those responsible.
The document's publication prompted angry denials from all the countries.
But the Congolese government said the report was credible an
Source: BBC
Oct 1, 2010
Work by a Scottish artist which has remained untouched in his Edinburgh house since he died in 1922 is set to be auctioned.
More than 52 pieces of artwork by John Campbell Mitchell are set to raise £30,000 when they go under the hammer at Bonhams in Edinburgh on 14 October.
Two generations of the family have since occupied the house in the west of the city where he had his studio.
Mitchell was born in Argyll in 1862 but spent most of his life in Edinburgh.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 1, 2010
At least 10 people were killed in Abuja on Friday when two car bombs blew up during celebrations for Nigeria's 50th independence anniversary.
The unprecedented attack in the capital was carried out by The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the main militant group in the country's oil-rich southern delta. The group had threatened to attack the festivities and warned people to stay away.
While Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, is oil rich most peopl
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 1, 2010
A scholar's son used online aliases to harass and discredit his father's detractors in a heated academic debate over the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a New York court has found.
Raphael Golb, a 50-year-old Manhattan property lawyer, was convicted on Thursday of 30 counts against him, including identity theft, forgery and harassment. He was acquitted of one count of criminal impersonation.
Prosecutors said Golb used fake e-mail accounts and wrote blog posts under as
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 1, 2010
Druidry has been recognised as an official religion in Britain for the first time, thousands of years after its adherents first worshipped in the country.
The Druid Network has been given charitable status by the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the quango that decides what counts as a genuine faith as well as regulating fundraising bodies.
It guarantees the modern group, set up in 2003, valuable tax breaks but also grants the ancient religion equal status to
Source: CNN
Oct 1, 2010
Blood letting, tobacco smoke blown into the lungs, rum rubs and even the sight of Australia were some of the treatments used – with varying degrees of success – by surgeons of Britain’s Royal Navy to treat patients from the late 1700s to the late 1800s, government records released Friday show.
Britain’s National Archives has cataloged and made available to the public journals and diaries from surgeons who served on ships and in shore installations from 1793 to 1880. The archive repr
Source: Reuters
Oct 1, 2010
The United States apologized on Friday for an experiment conducted in the 1940s in which U.S. government researchers deliberately infected Guatemalan prison inmates, women and mental patients with syphilis.
In the experiment, aimed at testing the then-new drug penicillin, inmates were infected by prostitutes and later treated with the antibiotic.
"The sexually transmitted disease inoculation study conducted from 1946-1948 in Guatemala was clearly unethical," S
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 1, 2010
The Flintstones is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Here is a round-up of other classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
1) Yogi Bear
The fictional bear got his own show in 1961 after appearing in The Huckleberry Hound show in 1958. Yogi, together with collar hat, and girlfriend Cindy, is one of the pair's most popular and long-running animated characters.
Yogi gets up to most of his escapades in the fictional Jellystone Park along with his ever-present friend Boo-Boo Be
Source: Fox News
Oct 1, 2010
An Israeli high school principal has been summoned for a hearing by the country's Education Ministry for using a textbook that presents the Palestinian narrative about events surrounding Israel's creation in 1948, officials said Friday.
The controversy at the school in southern Israel reflects how charged the events surrounding the Jewish state's birth remain more than six decades later. Israeli Jews celebrate 1948 as the year of their independence, while Palestinians and Israel's A
Source: BBC News
Oct 1, 2010
Turkish nationalists have said Muslim prayers inside the ruins of a historic Christian cathedral in a move likely to cause friction with Armenians.
Hundreds of nationalists travelled to the ruins of the 11th Century cathedral at Ani in eastern Turkey to commemorate a Muslim victory there.
The action is being seen as a response to the reopening of another historic Armenian church last month in Turkey.
Armenians from across the world came to hear Mass at the
Source: BBC News
Oct 1, 2010
A computer game set in the Cold War which allows people to play East German border guards who shoot political fugitives has caused controversy in Germany.
The game 1378 awards medals to "guards" if they shoot a high number of East Germans trying to escape to the West.
23-year-old Jens Stober created the game as part of his university degree.
It was due to be released this Sunday, the 20th anniversary of German reunification.
However,
Source: BBC News
Oct 1, 2010
The fossil of a giant penguin that lived 36 million years ago has been discovered in Peru.
Scientists say the find shows that key features of the plumage were present quite early on in penguin evolution.
The team told Science magazine that the animal's feathers were brown and grey, distinct from the black "tuxedo" look of modern penguins.
It was about 1.5m (5ft) tall and nearly twice as heavy as an Emperor Penguin, the largest living species.
Source: Sify News (India)
Sep 30, 2010
A collection of 16 watercolours attributed to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler sold for 104,800 pounds ($164,800) at an auction in Britain Thursday, and were snapped up by buyers from emerging economies.
Richard Westwood-Brookes of Mullock's Auctioneers in Shropshire, northwest of London, said it was an 'interesting trend' that the works had been bought exclusively by overseas buyers from China, India and Russia.
'This shows that it has nothing to do with an obsession with the
Source: Cosmos
Sep 30, 2010
Cranial features distinctive to Australian Aborigines are present in hundreds of skulls that have been uncovered in Central and South America, some dating back to over 11,000 years ago.
Evolutionary biologist Walter Neves of the University of São Paulo, whose findings are reported in a cover story in the latest issue of Cosmos magazine, has examined these skeletons and recovered others, and argues that there is now a mass of evidence indicating that at least two different population
Source: BBC
Sep 30, 2010
North Korea has released video footage and a photograph which appear to show the heir apparent Kim Jong-un.
It is the world's first up-to-date glimpse of the young man who appears set to succeed his father, Kim Jong-il, in a gradual transfer of power.
He is pictured sitting in the front row in a group shot of senior leaders.
The TV footage shows him at this week's rare meeting of the ruling Workers' Party, where he was promoted to top political and military
Source: BBC
Sep 30, 2010
The fossil of a giant penguin that lived 36 million years ago has been discovered in Peru.
Scientists say the find shows that key features of the plumage were present quite early on in penguin evolution.
The team told Science magazine that the animal's feathers were brown and grey, distinct from the black "tuxedo" look of modern penguins.
It was about 1.5m (5ft) tall and nearly twice as heavy as an Emperor Penguin, the largest living species.
Source: CNN
Sep 30, 2010
Now, a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, entitled "The Legend of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty," is bringing that world to life with exhibits including lavish costumes, stunning paintings and priceless jewels.
The Yuan period, which began in 1215 with the birth of Khubilai, grandson of feared Mongolian warlord Genghis, is one of the most famous in history.
Few people know what Khubilai's world was really like, however.
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sep 30, 2010
Appearances can deceive, local historian Tim McCown said.
What looks like a brick second-story addition to the William Smith House -- where the first armed opposition to British rule by colonists was planned -- actually is a wooden frame covered with shingles, he said. That 20th-century upper floor is one of the things that so far has kept the building off state and federal registers of historic structures.
The modern renovations, which include porches and a summer kitc
Source: Science News
Sep 30, 2010
Excavations in Papua New Guinea’s western highlands have turned up the oldest well-documented evidence of people in Sahul, a land mass that once joined the island to Australia.
Stone tools and plant remains indicate that, as early as 49,000 years ago, people lived 2,000 meters, or 1.2 miles, above sea level in Papua New Guinea’s Ivane Valley, say archaeologist Glenn Summerhayes of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and his colleagues.
By at least 50,000 ye
Source: DPA
Sep 30, 2010
A collection of 16 watercolours attributed to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler sold for 104,800 pounds ($164,800) at an auction in Britain Thursday, and were snapped up by buyers from emerging economies.
Richard Westwood-Brookes of Mullock's Auctioneers in Shropshire, northwest of London, said it was an 'interesting trend' that the works had been bought exclusively by overseas buyers from China, India and Russia.
'This shows that it has nothing to do with an obsession with the
