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: National Security Archive
January 7, 2009
The Central Intelligence Agency did provide a copy of intelligence files relating to the Bay of Pigs to President Nixon in response to his request, an official of the National Archives and Records Administration said yesterday. He said that the statement to the contrary in Secrecy News on January 5, citing the new book "Family of Secrets," was in error.
"The CIA did not refuse the Nixon administration's request for records on the Bay of Pigs and other topics," J
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 7, 2009
A new analysis of archaeological remains could explain why evidence of ancient Greek bar rooms is so elusive.
In classical Greek plays there are many descriptions of lively drinking dens, but no remains have ever been discovered.
Clare Kelly Blazeby, from the University of Leeds, believes the reason is that ancient Greek homes doubled as pubs.
Several houses dotted around ancient Greece dating from 475 to 323BC have yielded the remains of numerous drinking
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 7, 2009
A remarkable model of a Lancaster Bomber made by a captured British pilot from blocks of wood, matches and bits of tin can has been discovered in a house clearance.
The pilot, known only as E Taylor, made the Second World War model while being held prisoner at the Stalag Luft III camp in Poland, immortalised in the film The Great Escape.
It is being auctioned together with a diary of Taylor's time in the camp, in which detailed his arrival.
Source: Foxnews
January 7, 2009
President Bush on Wednesday hosted a lunch for the incoming president and the three living former presidents: Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter.
President-elect Barack Obama hailed a rare Oval Office gathering of all U.S. presidents as an extraordinary event on Wednesday as the current occupant, President Bush, reminded his predecessors and successor that the office "transcends the individual."
The last White House event to draw the former presi
Source: Foxnews
January 7, 2009
The attorney for Nazi hit man Heinrich Boere says a German court has ruled that his client is medically unfit for trial.
Maass brought charges in April against the 86-year-old Boere for the World War II murders of three men in the Netherlands when he was a member of a Waffen SS death squad that targeted civilians in reprisal killings for resistance attacks.
Though Boere was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dutch court in 1949 — later commuted to life imprisonment — G
Source: Radio Netherlands
January 5, 2009
The province of North Holland has agreed to partially fund a new investigation into the Velzer Affair, a murky World War II case involving the betrayal of communist resistance fighters and collaboration with the Nazi occupiers.
So far there have been 12 investigations into the case as well as dozens of books, including the best-selling novel The Scandal by Conny Braam, along with several films, including The Girl with Red Hair. But despite all that, the truth has not yet surfaced.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
January 7, 2009
This perfectly preserved corpse is one six that were unearthed during construction work in Turfan, farwest China’s Xinjiang region.
The bodies are believed to be officials from the Qing Dynasty – the final imperial reign from 1644, which lasted until the founding of the Republic of China in 1911.
The male corpses have long hair – measuring up to 1.7metres in length – worn in a style known as a queue.
The hairstyle was introduced to China in the early 17th
Source: BBC
January 7, 2009
Tens of thousands of Cambodians have packed into a stadium in Phnom Penh to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the murderous Khmer Rouge.
Senate President Chea Sim lauded "those who sacrificed their lives to save us from genocide", when Vietnamese-led forces ousted the regime in 1979.
Up to two million people died over the four years of Khmer Rouge rule.
But none of its surviving leaders have yet faced justice, triggering criticism of foo
Source: IHT
January 7, 2009
This time, Israeli military commanders are leading from the front, not trying to direct the infantry from television screens. This time, the military has clear plans, in stages, drawn up with a year's preparation. This time there is no illusion about winning a war only from the air. This time, the military chief of staff has kept his silence in public, all cellphones have been confiscated from Israeli soldiers and the international press has been kept out of the battlefield.
In thes
Source: CNN
January 6, 2009
Talk about a power lunch. President Bush, President-elect Barack Obama and three living former presidents will meet in the Oval Office for a private gathering on Wednesday afternoon.
Former presidents Jimmy Carter, George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton will join Obama and Bush at the White House for lunch. Obama initially came up with the idea that all of the men get together after meeting with President Bush last month.
Perino speculated that they will discuss wh
Source: CNN
January 6, 2009
As a candidate, Barack Obama promoted hybrid cars. As president, he'll be handed the keys to one. Sort of.
In keeping with recent tradition, the Secret Service will place a brand-new presidential limousine into service January 20 to drive the new president on the 2-mile jaunt down Pennsylvania Avenue during the inaugural parade.
In the post-Lincoln horse-and-buggy era, it was customary for a security detail to closely trail the president, according to a Secret Service h
Source: BBC
January 5, 2009
An Estonian court has acquitted four ethnic Russians accused of leading riots that shook the capital, Tallinn.
The riots started after the government decided in 2007 to relocate a Soviet-era war memorial, considered a reminder of Soviet occupation by many Estonians.
More than one-third of Estonians are ethnic Russians, who viewed the move to a military cemetery as an insult to Soviet troops killed fighting in WWII.
Russia, and many ethnic Russians in Est
Source: BBC
January 6, 2009
Turkey says it is to restore the citizenship of one of its most illustrious poets and playwrights.
Nazim Hikmet was stripped of his citizenship for his Marxist beliefs in the 1950s after he fled the country, having spent years in Turkish prisons.
Hikmet, who died in exile in Moscow in 1963, revolutionised Turkish poetry during the 1930s and has had his work translated into some 50 languages.
Deputy PM Cemil Cicek said it was time for the government to ch
Source: AP
January 6, 2009
The year ahead will challenge Chinese security officials increasingly nervous about social stability, the nation's top police officer said Tuesday, amid concerns about gang violence, separatism and dissident plans to mark the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests.
Leaders are particularly anxious about how the cooling economy, and the accompanying loss of jobs, will affect social order.
"The present situation of maintaining national security and social stabil
Source: ESPN
January 6, 2009
The legal fight over exhuming the remains of Notre Dame football great George Gipp may have ended.
The Michigan Court of Appeals last month refused to hear an appeal of a decision to reject a lawsuit filed by two men who say they are Gipp's distant cousins. Ron Gipp and Karl Gipp live near George Gipp's boyhood home in the Upper Peninsula and sued in November 2007.
The previous month, his body had been removed from a cemetery near Laurium to determine if he had fathered
Source: Christian Science Monitor
December 29, 2008
Wendy Martinez Canelones grew up Catholic and Seventh-day Adventist. But she always felt drawn to Judaism. She once had a vivid dream of herself embracing a blue volume of the Torah. She tears up recalling the dream.
Eventually, she found out why. While studying her family history, she found that she is a descendant of Jews who were killed during the Spanish Inquisition.
"It's been in my heart so many years that for me, it was not a surprise," says Ms. Canelon
Source: CNN
January 4, 2009
Archaeologists have found more than 600 relics from a huge battle between a Roman army and Barbarians in the third century, long after historians believed Rome had given up control of northern Germany."We have to write our history books new, because what we thought was that the activities of the Romans ended at nine or 10 (years) after Christ," said Lutz Stratmann, science minister for the German state of Lower Saxony."Now we know that it must be 200 or 250 after that."
Source: Politico.com
January 5, 2009
On inauguration night, Barack and Michelle will make their first stop – and dance their first dance – at a ball that will be Webcast to living rooms and community centers around the country as part of the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s plan to make this the most accessible swearing-in in history.
Some of the tickets will go free to District of Columbia residents, and some will be offered to grassroots supporters around the country.
Planners are borrowing from the h
Source: Politico.com
January 5, 2009
Laura Bush has signed with Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, to write her memoirs for publication in the spring of 2010.
The first lady plans to write about her experiences in the White House and Texas governor’s mansion, and to touch on universally relevant themes like having a strong-willed mother-in-law, dealing with loss and raising children.
More specifically, she plans to describe what it’s like to have issues you’re passionate about described in the
Source: AFP
December 30, 2008
Amidst the rambling homes and cobble-stoned streets of the Georgian capital Tbilisi's old town, two stone churches stand side-by-side, sharing a snow-covered courtyard.
One, the Georgian Orthodox Church of Jvaris Mama, is alive with parishioners and lit candles. Its neighbour, the Norashen Church, sits lonely and locked.
Unused for nearly seven decades, the Norashen Church is at the heart of long-running dispute between the Armenian Apostolic and the Georgian Orthodox
