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)
December 26, 2008
It was one of the most infamous episodes of the bloody French Revolution.
In early 1794 – at the height of the Reign of Terror – French soldiers
marched to the Atlantic Vendée, where peasants had risen up against the
Revolutionary government in Paris.
Twelve"infernal columns" commanded by General Louis-Marie Turreau were
ordered to kill everyone and everything they saw. Thousands of people –
including women and children – were massacred in cold blood, and farms and
villages to
Source: International Herald Tribune
December 26, 2008
The victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 were honored by thousands
of mourners who prayed, burned candles and shared meals on beaches from
Indonesia to India on Friday, the fourth anniversary of the disaster.
For many, the modest ceremonies were a time to reflect on their lives and
weigh progress in rebuilding homes and communities wiped out by the
enormous waves that proved deadly and destructive in a dozen nations.
Ibrahim Musa, a 42-year-old civil servant in the hard-
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 26, 2008
The mysterious explosion which sank a 17th century Royal warship may have
been caused by the lavatory habits of its crew, a historian believes.
HMS London sank in 1685 after exploding without warning in the Thames
Estuary near Chatham Docks in a blast which killed 300 people and was
recorded by diarist Samuel Pepys.
Naval historians have long argued about the cause, suggesting a build-up
of chemicals could have ignited the ship's supply of gunpowder.
But now one research
Source: BBC
December 26, 2008
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has marked its 40th
anniversary with a call to arms.
It outlined a strategy of confronting government and military officials,
and their relatives and friends.
Self-exiled leader Jose Maria Sison said more party members were needed,
and expected, amid financial turmoil.
The communists gained public support during the martial law years of the
1970s but lost dominance when the country returned to democracy in 1986.
Source: International Herald Tribune
December 25, 2008
Every president for more than three decades has had to talk with federal
prosecutors at one time or another. President-elect Barack Obama may have
set a land speed record by giving his first interview to investigators
even before taking the oath of office.
Obama sat down last week with four investigators looking into the alleged
attempt to sell his former Senate seat. As a witness, rather than a
target, Obama seems to have had an easier time with the experience than
some of his pred
Source: AP
December 26, 2008
The author and publisher of a disputed Holocaust memoir defended the book's story of love between two survivors, but also called it a work of memory and not of scholarship.
"This is my personal story as I remember it," Herman Rosenblat said in a statement issued Thursday through Berkley Books, which will release his "Angel at the Fence" in February.
Berkley added its own comments, noting that a leading Holocaust expert, Michael Berenbaum, had found t
Source: Times (UK)
December 24, 2008
The Afghan Government has called on Nato troops to guard an alleged war crimes site that has been plundered and as many as 2,000 bodies apparently removed.
The mass grave at Dasht-e-Leili in northern Afghanistan is thought to contain the remains of between 1,000 and 2,000 Taleban prisoners massacred by fighters loyal to the Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum in November 2001. The killings occurred in the remote Leili desert as General Dostum’s forces fought alongside US spec
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 25, 2008
Forty years after millions of students were sent to the provinces during the Cultural Revolution, the economic downturn has forced students to head for rural areas once again.
A record 5.6 million students will graduate this year, according to government figures, and jobs are scarce. They will have to compete with the 700,000 graduates from 2007 who remain jobless. Major international companies are now receiving tens of thousands of desperate applications for every available post.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 23, 2008
Olga Lepeshinskaya, who died in Moscow on December 20 aged 92, was the Bolshoi Ballet's prima ballerina in the 1930s and 1940s and Josef Stalin's favourite performer – rumoured to be her lover, he would bring red roses to her dressing room after performances, and he decorated her four times with the Stalin Prize.
Her combination of phenomenal virtuosity and irresistible exuberance made her the queen of comic ballet roles such as Kitri in Don Quixote and Swanilda in Coppelia, in whi
Source: Washington Times
December 25, 2008
They differ markedly on policies, but President Bush and President-elect Barack Obama both struck the same note in their Christmas weekend radio addresses -- right down to using the same image of Gen. George Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas night 1776.
Mr. Bush called Washington's raid on Hessian troops in Trenton, N.J., a "miracle" of the nation's birth.
"Two hundred and thirty-two years have passed since George Washington crossed the Delawa
Source: AP
December 25, 2008
The pardons President George W. Bush granted this week couldn't have been better Christmas gifts if Santa himself had delivered them.
But a Brooklyn, N.Y., man, Isaac Robert Toussie, received the legal equivalent of a lump of coal.
Toussie, convicted of making false statements to the Housing and Urban Development Department and of mail fraud, was among 19 people pardoned Tuesday.
But after learning in news reports that Toussie's father had donated tens of t
Source: Deutsche Welle
December 23, 2008
The 51-year-old Hutu man, Onesphore Rwabukombe, was arrested in the Frankfurt area on Monday, one month after Rwanda's own attempts to obtain his extradition from Germany collapsed.
He is suspected of either overseeing or calling for multiple murders in both 1990 and 1994.
"In particular, he is accused of involvement in a massacre at Nyarubuye in mid-April 1994 in the course of which several thousand people were killed," said a statement in Karlsruhe, where t
Source: Deutsche Welle
December 24, 2008
Germany is challenging an October ruling by Italy's highest court ordering Germany to pay around 1 million euros in damages to the families of nine victims killed by the German army in Civitella, Tuscany in 1944. The massacre claimed the lives of 203 people.
On Tuesday, Germany urged the ICJ, the UN's main judicial body set up in 1945, to overturn the Italian court's ruling.
"In recent years, Italian judicial bodies have repeatedly disregarded the jurisdictional im
Source: Slate
December 24, 2008
On Thursday, Christians will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Was the Christian Messiah the first to have that name, or were there a lot of Jesuses running around back then?
Many people shared the name. Christ's given name, commonly Romanized as Yeshua, was quite common in first-century Galilee. (Jesus comes from the transliteration of Yeshua into Greek and then English.) Archaeologists have unearthed the tombs of 71 Yeshuas from the period of Jesus' death. The name also appears
Source: National Security Archive
December 21, 2008
A document from the Archive of Terror in Paraguay revealed today confirms that the Chief of the Secret Police tried to cover up the disappearance of Amilcar Oviedo, Carlos Mancuello, Benjamin Ramirez Villalba and Rodolfo Ramirez Villalba on September 21, 1976. Posted today for the first time on the Web site of the National Security Archive, a note from Commissary Eliodoro Sánchez reported that "THERE IS NO NEWS WORTH MENTIONING," emphatically contradicting the Chief of Investigations (
Source: BBC
December 24, 2008
An Australian man has been arrested at Cairo airport after security staff
found ancient Egyptian animal mummies in his luggage, reports say.
An airport official said the mummies of a cat and an ibis, a long-beaked
bird, dated back to 300 BC.
He said another 19 figurines of ancient Egyptian gods were also found in
the passenger's bags.
Source: NYT
December 22, 2008
About 225 of the Tuskegee airmen have accepted an invitation to go to Washington for Barack Obama’s inauguration, but it is not clear if all will actually make it.
Some of the 225 have accepted on a “conditional” basis — they are waiting to see what kind of arrangements can be made for their transportation and lodging as well as ground logistics in Washington.
Source: US News & World Report
December 22, 2008
Presidential inaugurations are quadrennial moments of renewal. No matter how bitter and angry a campaign has been, Americans tend to stand back, focus on the good qualities of their newly elected leader, and give him a break for at least a while. That's why most new presidents get a honeymoon, however brief, from their critics, and why the first months of a new administration tend to be among the most productive.
What Americans want in an inaugural address is a sense of vision and r
Source: AFP
December 23, 2008
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Monday that the Bush administration fell short of goals it had set for itself but maintained that history would prove it right.
In an interview with AFP, the chief US diplomat conceded that eight years after President George W. Bush came to power, his administration's popularity was "not very great" in the Arab world.
"I understand that a lot of the history between the US and the Arab world is one that Arabs l
Source: Denver Post
December 23, 2008
Presents, traditional foods and loved ones — a sure sign of Hanukkah, the dedication of miracles.
"It's a common misconception, but Hanukkah is not the 'Jewish Christmas.' There is no parallel in Judaism," said Rabbi Bernard Gerson of Denver's Congregation Rodef Shalom. "Presents and the time of year tend to make the two holidays seem more similar than they are."
Celebrated Dec. 21 through Dec. 29 this year, Hanukkah, known as the Festival of Lights,
