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
December 28, 2008
A campaign to link the island of Iona and St Andrews in Fife via a new public footpath has been launched.
The SNP's Roseanna Cunningham said the so-called Pilgrim Way, following the path of St Columba's monks, would attract religious and walking tourists.
The Perth MSP said it would also offer an opportunity to support business and promote Scotland's countryside.
Source: http://www.catholicculture.org
December 24, 2008
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone on Sunday praised Pope Pius XII’s efforts for peace during World War II. Highlighting the pontiff’s efforts on behalf of the Jews, the Vatican secretary of state recalled that Pope Pius gave “refuge to Jews who fled the Nazi fury … When the persecution against the Jews was unleashed, he gave precise and urgent orders to Catholic institutions in Rome so that they would open their doors to men, women and children, who were saved thanks to the courage and sensitivity of th
Source: AP
December 28, 2008
A newspaper review of more than 1,000 pages of internal F.B.I. documents on Thomas F. Eagleton found no evidence that the agency leaked information about his treatment for depression, a revelation that ended his vice-presidential campaign.
The public disclosure of his mental illness and shock therapy forced him to withdraw as running mate of George McGovern in 1972. Some asked if the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which kept tabs on Mr. Eagleton since the ’50s, had shared his medi
Source: WaPo
December 28, 2008
The soldier was just a teenager.
Somewhere in New York state, he had signed up to fight for the Union. The band was playing on the day he marched away from home, headed South to to kill those rebels. Everyone said it would be a short war. He'd be home in no time.
All of that ended on Sept. 17, 1862 at Antietam when he and his comrades were crossing a farmer's field. A bullet or piece of shrapnel found him. He sagged to the ground and was dead.
His buddies m
Source: http://www.record-eagle.com
December 29, 2008
The state of Michigan says it has seen no additional evidence to support a
claim that a famous 17th century ship is buried in northern Lake Michigan.
Divers at the site in October found nothing besides a timber protruding
from the lake bottom, a piece of wood that was photographed in 2003 or
2004, Assistant Attorney General Louis Reinwasser said.
The disclosure was made in documents filed this week in federal court in
Grand Rapids.
A group called Great Lakes Exploration
Source: BBC
December 30, 2008
More than a dozen skeletons thought to be thousands of years old, have
been found by Oxford archaeologists working at an ancient burial site in
Dorset.
Excavations are taking place at the site in Weymouth before builders move
in to build an access road to the Olympic sailing centre for 2012.
Archaeologist David Score said they had catalogued finds from almost every
period of human life.
Source: http://macedoniaonline.eu
December 30, 2008
Uncovered are the first traces of the old Macedonian language in the
country, says"Dr. Dushko Aleksovski, paleolinguistics professor and
honorary president of the World Rock Art Academy."This is a very rare artifact, the name of the Goddess Vesta is written on
it. However, the first written name is Bsefa, which later became Vesta.
This is the oldest artifact written in the old Macedonian language
discovered on our territory." says Dr. Aleksovski.
The 4,000 year old signs written o
Source: http://www.china.org.cn
December 30, 2008
About a fifth of the Great Wall built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) has
disappeared in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, an
archaeologist said on Tuesday.
The vanished parts were 157.515 km long, said Tala, head of the Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Regional Institute of Cultural and Historical Relics
and Archaeology.
The statistics were based on newly-released survey results from the Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Regional Surveying and Mapping Bureau and the Inner
Source: International Herald Tribune
December 30, 2008
The tsunami that crashed over southern Asia on Dec. 26, 2004, and killed
230,000 people washed away nearly everything Kangasuriyam held dear.
Sixteen close relatives were killed. His seaside village was razed, his
house demolished, his business destroyed.
Four years later, with international aid and prodding from his remaining
family, the 30-year-old has rebuilt his life. He has a new family. He has
a bigger house in a resettlement village set back from the ocean.
He opened a
Source: LAT
December 30, 2008
More than 1,100 American troops died building the road in what is now
Myanmar. Today China and some in India see the long-neglected route as
their lifeline.
Source: AP
December 29, 2008
WASHINGTON -— Hurricane Katrina not only pulverized the Gulf Coast in 2005, it knocked the bully pulpit out from under President George W. Bush, according to two former advisers who spoke candidly about the political impact of the government's poor handling of the natural disaster.
"Katrina to me was the tipping point," said Matthew Dowd, Bush's pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign. "The president broke his bond with the public. Once that b
Source: BBC
December 30, 2008
Three people listed as"disappeared" in Chile during General Augusto Pinochet's military rule have been found or died in other circumstances, it has emerged. Their names surfaced as investigators looked into a previous non-victim who has lived in Argentina for 35 years.
Gen Pinochet's supporters have long said reports of the missing, officially put at more than 1,183, are false.
President Michelle Bachelet, who was detained the 1970s, said these cases must not cast
Source: NYT
December 30, 2008
A defining moment of the cold war came in 1955 when Moscow detonated its first hydrogen bomb — a weapon roughly a thousand times more powerful than atom bombs and ideal for obliterating large cities.
The bomb ended the American monopoly and posed a lethal danger. So Washington dealt far more gingerly with Moscow, beginning a tense era dominated by fear of mutual annihilation.
Now, a new book says Moscow acquired the secret of the hydrogen bomb not from its own scientist
Source: Times (UK)
December 30, 2008
Documents detailing Government plans to rule from an underground bunker have been revealed.
At the height of the Cold War in the 1960s ministers were briefed on the location of a top-secret “check point” railway station in West London, from which they would be taken to a vast underground bunker known as Stockwell, where they would hope to sit out the onslaught if nuclear missiles were launched.
Among the confidential Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) files, released
Source: Times (UK)
December 30, 2008
The 50th anniversary of equal women’s suffrage was a cause for celebration in 1978, but James Callaghan and his allies were determined that Margaret Thatcher did not feature too strongly in the commemoration.
As Leader of the Opposition, she was the most prominent female politician of the day and there was concern that she might steal the limelight.
Michael Foot’s wife, Jill Craigie, had suggested a programme of celebration as a means of helping the beleaguered Labour
Source: Times (UK)
December 29, 2008
For millions of ordinary readers, as for conservative politicians and pundits, Samuel Huntington was the man who predicted the grand narrative of the 21st century. But long before bloggers and book groups were discussing The Clash of Civilizations (1993), Huntington had been among America’s most influential political scientists for decades. In an era when many academics were content to hoe narrow specialties, he bestrode whole disciplines; writing seminal works on international relations, compar
Source: Times (UK)
December 30, 2008
The oddest moment in the remarkable life of Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Wilson came when he discovered that he was officially dead, and thus joined the distinguished band of people prematurely consigned to the hereafter.
Colonel Wilson died last week at the age of 97, but his first “death” took place 68 years earlier, in the desert sands of East Africa.
On August 11, 1940, Colonel Wilson, then a captain commanding the Somaliland Camel Corps machinegun company, was involve
Source: International Herald Tribune
December 29, 2008
Two dozen people, including some of the most senior figures in the government of Saddam Hussein, have gone on trial for what prosecutors said was their role in the execution of thousands of members of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's political party during Saddam's rule.
Many Iraqis welcomed the action, especially relatives of victims hoping for a measure of long-awaited justice.
But critics saw the timing of the trial, which opened Sunday, as a highly politicized
Source: Deutsche Welle
December 29, 2008
The United States launched a so-called "Escapee Program" in 1952 to help resettle people who had fled Communist Eastern Europe for the West. But the program had a hidden side.
The US assessed whether refugees could be used for intelligence or propaganda purposes. Some were secretly offered money to return home and spy for the West.
A new Associated Press investigation shows that the International Tracing Service (ITS) played a role in this secret program, scr
Source: BBC
December 30, 2008
The papers paint a picture of a 1970s Britain that would have been virtually helpless in the face of a Soviet attack.
As the public were being advised on how to prepare for a three-minute warning, government briefings made it clear their efforts would have been a waste of time.
Just released by the National Archives, conversations in 1978 between the then Prime Minister James Callaghan and his defence secretary, Fred Mulley, describe the country's defences as "ou
