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: http://www.brooklynpaper.com
December 18, 2008
The promise of construction of the Brooklyn Bridge Park development along
the DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights waterfront may be a symbol of a glorious
future for the borough — but it has also revealed a scintillating symbol
of Brooklyn’s glorious past.
Workers who have begun prepping Pier 1 to become a large sweeping front
lawn for the hotel, condo and open-space development have unearthed a
19th-century flour mill that operated when a thriving, independent
Brooklyn was the region’s brea
Source: MSNBC
December 17, 2008
Inscribed limestone block suggests boy pharaoh was the child of Akhenaten
An inscribed limestone block might have solved one of history's greatest
mysteries — who fathered the boy pharaoh King Tut.
"We can now say that Tutankhamun was the child of Akhenaten," Zahi Hawass,
chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Discovery News.
The finding offers evidence against another leading theory that King Tut
was sired by the minor king Smenkhkare.
Source: Slate
December 18, 2008
Introspection has never been President Bush's strong suit. "I really do not feel comfortable in the role of analyzing myself," he told Robert Draper in 2007. "I'll try. But I don't spend a lot of time."
As his second term wanes, however, Bush is getting in touch with his inner president. At an event Thursday hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, Bush promised to "share some thoughts about the presidency—you could call it 'reflections by a guy who's he
Source: NYT
December 19, 2008
W. Mark Felt, who was the No. 2 official at the F.B.I. when he helped bring down President Richard M. Nixon by resisting the Watergate cover-up and becoming Deep Throat, the most famous anonymous source in American history, died Thursday. He was 95 and lived in Santa Rosa, Calif.
Related Links
HNN Hot Topics: Deep Throat and Watergate
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 19, 2008
In response to growing pressure from the opposition, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare confirmed that documents presented by shadow vice-defence Minister Yukihisa Fujita in parliament were authentic.
The papers, compiled in 1946 by Aso Mining, show that 101 British prisoners, 197 Australians and two Dutch were put to work digging coal for Japan's war effort in 1945. An estimated 10,000 Korean slave labourers were also put to work in the company's mines during the war. Aso M
Source: Times (UK)
December 19, 2008
Lockerbie knows that it will never be allowed to forget the night of December 21, 1988. Like Aberfan, Omagh, Dunblane - the little places struck by disasters – its name is for ever linked to one terrible moment. In Lockerbie’s case it was 7.03pm, when Pan Am Flight 103 dropped from the sky.
You cannot walk the streets today without the reminders: Sherwood Crescent, where the wing and fuel tank ploughed into the houses and evaporated them, leaving a massive crater, reeking of aviati
Source: Guardian
December 18, 2008
On a tree-lined street in a quiet suburb of north-east Santiago, the two-storey house looks like any middle-class family home. Yet 2244 O'Brien Street is one of the Chilean capital's most controversial addresses: the former home of one of South America's most notorious dictators, General Augusto Pinochet.
Today, two years after the death of the notorious dictator, the house is opening as a visitor attraction.
Displays include an extensive collection of model soldiers, a
Source: Reuters
December 18, 2008
LONDON -– Oliver Twist wouldn't have needed any more gruel in real life, scientists said Thursday.
The picture painted by Charles Dickens of starvation rations in an 1830s workhouse north of London is wide of mark, according to an analysis of menus and other historical evidence.
Dickens' eponymous hero famously asked for more of the "thin gruel" doled out three times daily in the grim institution for the poor where he grew up.
In fact, contemporar
Source: Washington Post
December 19, 2008
W. Mark Felt Sr., the associate director of the FBI during the Watergate scandal who, better known as "Deep Throat," became the most famous anonymous source in American history, died yesterday. He was 95.
Felt died at 12:45 p.m. at a hospice near his home in Santa Rosa, Calif. where he had been living since August...
As the second-highest official in the FBI under longtime director J. Edgar Hoover and interim director L. Patrick Gray, Felt detested the Nixon a
Source: BBC
December 18, 2008
An Argentine court has ordered the release from prison of 14 men accused
of committing human right abuses during the country's years of military
rule.
The men worked at the Naval Mechanics School, known as Esma, the largest
clandestine detention centre in Buenos Aires during the"Dirty War".
The men should be freed because they have been in prison for more than two
years without trial, the court said.
Source: Chicago Tribune
December 16, 2008
Since it was shuttered in 1989, the imposing brick structure of St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church has provided neighbors and passersby with a reminder of the rich Catholic heritage of Chicago’s Near Northwest Side.
But the 104-year-old church also has been the subject of a contentious struggle between the Chicago archdiocese and preservationists seeking to rescue the Romanesque building from the wrecking ball.
Touching off another battle to preserve its crumbling walls
Source: NPR
December 18, 2008
The Justice Department on Tuesday donated thousands of documents to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The papers — totaling more than 50,000 pages — chronicle trials of Nazis found living in the United States over the past three decades.
These are the ultimate cold cases, says Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, which hunts down and tries former Nazis hiding in the United States.
"If on
Source: LAT
December 17, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama may well be one of the 79 million members of the baby boom generation. But he's a late-wave boomer, a child of the 1970s -- as are half of the two dozen people he's selected thus far to help him lead the country.
Many of those Obama is bringing to Washington -- including his Education secretary, Homeland Security chief, Treasury secretary, United Nations ambassador and Energy czar -- came of age in the era of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
Source: Radio Free Europe
December 18, 2008
SAMARRA, Iraq -- In this ancient city along the Tigris River, a new Al-Askari Mosque -- a revered Shi'ite shrine and ground zero in the sectarian battles that roiled Iraq -- is slowly rising from the rubble of war.
Al-Qaeda gunmen who once roamed the city at will to enforce their draconian strictures and terrify the population have been driven out to desert hideouts by U.S. and Iraqi security forces, and the main focus now is transitioning to stability -- and that includes rebuildin
Source: BBC
December 18, 2008
Immunity allegedly offered to suspected war criminal Radovan Karadzic is
not valid and will not prevent his trial, the UN war crimes court has
ruled.
The ex-Bosnian Serb leader faces 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against
humanity and genocide.
His claim that he was offered immunity by US peace envoy Richard Holbrooke
in 1996 in exchange for giving up his leadership is denied by Mr
Holbrooke.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 18, 2008
Deputy Foreign Minister He Yafei told the UN Security Council that China
is"seriously considering" sending ships to join the UN's anti-piracy
mission off the coast of Somalia. His statement came after the Security
Council on Tuesday authorised UN member states to act against the pirates
on land as well as sea.
Forty ships have been hijacked this year by pirates operating from bases
along the Somali coast. On Tuesday, a Chinese fishing vessel was boarded
by pirates but escaped being
Source: International Herald Tribune
December 18, 2008
New legislation backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would allow
Russian authorities to label any government critic a traitor.
The bill, which is expected to pass in Parliament, would expand the
definition of treason to include damaging Russia's constitutional order,
sovereignty or territorial integrity.
That, critics said, would essentially let the authorities interpret any
act against the state as treason, a crime punishable by up to 20 years in
prison.
Source: NYT
December 18, 2008
A senior Rwandan military officer charged with being one of the masterminds of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in which bands of Hutus massacred hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus, was convicted on Thursday by a United Nations court in Tanzania of genocide and sentenced to life in prison.
Source: CNN
December 18, 2008
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the liberation of Afghanistan and
Iraq's first elections are among her proudest accomplishments during her
tenure.
Rice, who sat down with CNN's Zain Verjee in a wide-ranging exit
interview, also said her historic trip to Libya in September to meet with
leader Moammar Gadhafi was one of the high points of her service.
'"The thing I never expected was to actually be in Libya face-to-face with
Colonel Gadhafi," Rice said."That probably st
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 17, 2008
German officials are investigating an apparent rise in Right-wing
extremists using car number plates as a platform to advertise their
neo-Nazi political views.
Authorities in the north-eastern state of Brandenburg have given warning
of a rise in extremists using letter and number combinations on number
plates to identify themselves to the public.
Right-wing sympathisers recognise HJ as Hitler youth, NS as National
Socialism, and KZ as concentration camp, Brandenburg authoritie
