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: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 8, 2010
Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the leader of Iran's opposition green movement was involved in the massacre of more than 10,000 political prisoners in 1988, according to a report.
Mr Mousavi, the defeated candidate in last June's presidential election, served as Iran's prime minister when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the regime's spiritual leader, issued a fatwa that sentenced thousands of political prisoners to death without trial, according to the report by one of Britain's leading human ri
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jun 8, 2010
He is a stalwart of Indian cinema who once played Gandhi on the small screen, while she is a former Miss India best known for her romantic comedy roles. Together, Anupam Kher and Neha Dhupia are to play Adolf Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun in a new Bollywood film set in the last days of the Third Reich.
According to reports, the curiously titled Dear Friend Hitler will centre on the relationships between the Nazi dictator and those who were close to him, including Braun, his long
Source: AP
Jun 8, 2010
Massachusetts teacher cleaning up her classroom in preparation for a move has discovered a Colonial-era document buried in a pile of outdated textbooks and dusty scraps of papers.
Michelle Eugenio, a fourth-grade teacher in Peabody, Mass., found the yellowed sheet of paper two weeks ago. Dated April 1792 and protected by plastic, it appears to document the payment of a debt by a Vermont man named Jonathan Bates.
Peabody Historical Society President Bill Power verified t
Source: AOL News
Jun 8, 2010
President Barack Obama joined a long line of chief executives who have used profanity and tough words when he told Matt Lauer this morning on the "Today" show that he was talking to experts on the BP oil spill "so I know whose ass to kick."
Still, Obama's words were relatively mild compared with Vice President Joseph Biden gleefully dropping the F-word at the signing of health care reform, or his predecessor, Dick Cheney, who unrepentantly told a Democratic lawm
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 8, 2010
A judge in Rwanda has refused bail to a US lawyer charged with denying the 1994 genocide and publishing articles threatening Rwanda's security.
Peter Erlinder arrived in Rwanda last month to help defend opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza on charges of promoting genocide ideology.
The US has called on the Rwandan authorities to release Mr Erlinder, who has denied all the charges....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 8, 2010
Rare photos have emerged of Kim Jong-un, the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il who seems certain to inherit power in the communist state's second dynastic succession.
Larking about with classmates and making playful V-signs for the camera, the boy who is now tipped to be the next leader of the hermit dictatorship of North Korea appears not to have a care in the world.
These photographs purportedly of Kim Jong-un, the reclusive third son of North Korea's
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 8, 2010
A stellar line up of musical stars are used to entertain astronauts while they are on space missions, Nasa has revealed.
The US space agency plays an array of different music to its spacemen to keep them cheerful during the lonely days and weeks on a mission.
The usually serious ground control play them everything from The Beatles' Here Comes the Sun as the spacemen wake up to Sinatra's Fly Me To The Moon as they set off.
They have also played Wa
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 8, 2010
A dress which catapulted the Princess of Wales on to the world stage when she wore it just weeks after becoming engaged has sold for £192,000.
The 19-year-old, then Lady Diana Spencer, wore the black taffeta dress to a black-tie benefit event at Goldsmiths' Hall in the City in March 1981 - her first official engagement with her fiance the Prince of Wales.
The dress, which had been expected to sell for around £50,000, was bought at an auction in London today by a fashi
Source: AP
Jun 8, 2010
A cave complex boasting prized prehistoric paintings will reopen after eight years of closure, despite scientists' warnings that heat and moisture from human visitors damage the site known as the Sistine Chapel of Paleolithic Art.
The Culture Ministry and the site's board of directors said Tuesday that visits to the Caves of Altamira in the northern Cantabria region will resume next year, although on a still-unspecified, restricted basis.
The main chamber at Altamira fe
Source: AP
Jun 8, 2010
Rabbi Jacob Milgrom, considered by many as the world's foremost authority on the biblical book of Leviticus, has died. He was 87.
Milgrom wrote a three-volume series on Leviticus, interpreting Jewish dietary and purification rituals as well as the Bible's position on homosexuality. He concluded the ban on homosexuality applies only to Jewish men.
Relatives say he died on Sunday at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem of a brain hemorrhage after a fall....
Source: AP
Jun 8, 2010
A letter by 17th century French philosopher Rene Descartes that languished unnoticed in a U.S. college library for more than a century has been restored to France.
The president of Haverford College — which has had the letter since 1902 — handed over the plastic-covered missive at a ceremony Tuesday at Paris' Institut de France.
The 1641 letter had been donated to Haverford, near Philadelphia, by the widow of an alumnus and remained in the college library, unnoticed by
Source: AP
Jun 8, 2010
The widow of legendary marine explorer Jacques Cousteau said Tuesday she is trying to relaunch the commandant's iconic ship the Calypso — sunk, badly damaged and now in rehab — in time to mark the centennial of his birth.
Aboard the Calypso, Cousteau unlocked the mysteries of the sea for tens of millions of TV viewers in the 1960s and 1970s with his riveting documentary series, "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau."
Francine Cousteau and the Cousteau Societ
Source: ABC 7 News
Jun 7, 2010
If you like gambling you may not have to go to Las Vegas or Atlantic City to hit the casino. Four resorts across the state of Pennsylvania are vying for the right to have slots and table games.
But one proposed location just a half-mile from the historic Gettysburg Civil War battlefield is sparking an outcry from preservationists.
"It's incredibly disrespectful," says Susan Paddock, who lives within a mile of the park and opposes the casino being built at the
Source: USA Today
Jun 7, 2010
Waiting in line at the drive-through may be a drag, but it sure beats what our ancestors had to do for fast food. Try take-out lion. A Spanish team reports Neanderthals likely hunted and ate a big cat at a cave site.
In the current Journal of Archaeological Science, a team led by Ruth Blasco of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain, describes lion bones found at the Gran Dolina site in Sierra de Atapuerca. The cave contains hundreds of animal bones, largely red deer a
Source: Medieval News
Jun 7, 2010
A medieval system of marking stone in building work could be a cheap and effective way of ending the modern day frustration of constructing ‘flat-pack’ furniture, according to a University of Warwick academic.
Mason’s Marks refer to marks made on the blocks of walling stone and on moulded stone as part of the construction process, and have been in use for centuries. Academics studying the use of the marks at the University of Warwick claim self-assembly furniture manufacturers could
Source: BBC
Jun 7, 2010
Captain Robert Scott's legenday trip to the South Pole which claimed his life and that of four more explorers left from Cardiff 100 years ago this June.
His ship, the Terra Nova, sailed from the city's docks laden with Welsh coal, fuel, and supplies.
City business leaders got behind Scott and even helped him secure government backing for the expedition.
Now the famous masthead is at the centre of a Cardiff exhibition about the ill-fated trip.
Source: BBC
Jun 7, 2010
A Scot who is believed to be the last survivor of the "Great Escape" from a German prisoner of war camp has died, at the age of 97.
Jack Harrison took part in the famous breakout from Stalag Luft III in 1944, an event later immortalised on film.
He missed his chance to flee the camp when the German guards discovered the escape plot.
Of those who broke out of the camp only three reached safety and of the 73 recaptured, 50 were shot.
Source: BBC
Jun 7, 2010
A row has broken out over claims by Polish investigators that credit cards were stolen from one of the passengers killed when President Lech Kaczynski's plane crashed in Russia in April.
About 6,000 Polish zloty (£2,000) was withdrawn on the cards, investigators say.
Polish officials say several Russian policemen or soldiers have been arrested.
But Russia has denied that both the theft and the arrests took place.
On Monday Monika Lewandowsk
Source: BBC
Jun 7, 2010
Scientists in Argentina have begun DNA tests on the adopted heirs to a media empire to see who their natural parents are.
A judge ordered the tests to see if Marcela and Felipe Noble Herrera were taken from people killed during military rule in the 1970s and 80s.
Human rights groups say the children were then given up for adoption.
The siblings say their privacy is being violated and there is no evidence against their adoptive mother.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 7, 2010
A collection of 75 lost Hollywood film works, including the 1927 John Ford movie Upstream, have been rediscovered in a vault in New Zealand.
Only about 15 per cent of more than 60 silent-era films made by Ford are thought to survive.
The US National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF) described the find at the New Zealand Film archive as a "time capsule of American film production from the 1910s and 1920s."
The works, which are on highly volatile
