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 17, 2008
Italy's parliament speaker has criticised the Roman Catholic Church for
failing to do enough to oppose anti-Semitic race laws in 1938.
Gianfranco Fini, who began his career in a neo-fascist party, was speaking
at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the laws.
Vatican Radio quickly reacted by denying his accusations.
The 1938 laws led to the deportation of thousands of Jews to Nazi
concentration camps where many of them died.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 17, 2008
Greece's most famous ancient monument, the Acropolis, became the latest
stage for the country's deep political crisis on Wednesday when protesters
draped it with banners calling for anti-government demonstrations across
Europe.
On the twelfth day of unrest since a police officer's fatal shooting of a
schoolboy triggered riots and arson, protesters unfurled two large pink
banners from the stone walls of the ancient hilltop citadel, which looms
over Athens."Thursday 18/12 demonstra
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 17, 2008
Two sons of a Nazi concentration camp survivor have met for the first time
after discovering each other while researching their father's wartime
history.
Peter Beschorner, said he was overjoyed at meeting the half-brother he did
not know he had.
Mr Beschorner, 67, was searching for information about his Jewish father,
Hans, a former inmate at the Dachau Nazi concentration camp, who later
fled to Britain.
He had no idea he had a brother, Klaus Mueller, 76, who was also d
Source: Time Mag.
December 17, 2008
On Friday, Dec. 5, the President-elect sat down with TIME managing editor Richard Stengel, editor-at-large David Von Drehle and Time Inc. editor-in-chief John Huey in Obama's spartan transition offices in Chicago to discuss his plans for the coming months, the improbability of his victory and how he's fighting to stay in touch with the real world from inside the presidential bubble. Excerpts from their conversation:
What kind of mandate do you have?
Well, I think we won
Source: BBC
December 16, 2008
Three ancient statues, engraved with a little-understood sub-Saharan
language, have been unearthed in Sudan.
The ram statues symbolise the god Amun, and include the first discovery of
a complete royal dedication in Meroitic script, only found before in
fragments.
It is the oldest written sub-Saharan language and dates from the Meroe
period of 300BC to AD450.
Source: HNN Staff
December 17, 2008
How does America today compare with America of 2001 when President Bush took office. Click on the SOURCE link above for a handy set of statistics compiled by ProPublica, which describes itself as "an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. We strive to foster change through exposing exploitation of the weak by the strong and the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them." The statistics measure GDP, debt
Source: NYT
December 17, 2008
John W. Powell, an American journalist who in 1959 was tried for sedition in a rare and highly public case after he asserted in print that the United States had used biological weapons in the Korean War, died on Monday in San Francisco. He was 89 and had lived in San Francisco for many years.
The cause was complications of pneumonia, his son John S. Powell said.
Mr. Powell’s case was one of the rare federal prosecutions for sedition — inciting resistance to the governme
Source: Washington Times
December 16, 2008
Can a president use the levers of popular culture to restore, or perhaps burnish, his legacy?
Central to the drama of Ron Howard's riveting new movie, "Frost/Nixon," is that a disgraced ex-president hoped a successful performance in a series of high-stakes television interviews could be parlayed into a broader effort to rehabilitate his public image - maybe even restore him to the bosom of Washington's power elite.
Similarly, outgoing President Bush has legacy
Source: MSNBC
December 16, 2008
“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States,” reads Article I of the Constitution.
Yet with their fondness for political dynasties, American voters have created their own notion of modern nobility: families such as the Kennedys, the Rockefellers, the Bushes, and the Bidens who win political office generation after generation.
Eleven current members of the Senate are the children of former senators or governors, or the spouses of former senators, governo
Source: AP
December 15, 2008
ANKARA, Turkey — A group of about 200 Turkish intellectuals on Monday issued an apology on the Internet for the World War I-era massacres of Armenians in Turkey.
The group of prominent academics, journalists, writers and artists avoided using the contentious term "genocide" in the apology, using the less explosive "Great Catastrophe" instead.
"My conscience does not accept that (we) remain insensitive toward and deny the Great Catastrophe that t
Source: FoxNews.com
December 15, 2008
Newly declassified White House documents shed light on a unique crisis in
American history: when investigators working for President Richard Nixon
discovered that the Joint Chiefs of Staff used a stenographer to spy on
civilian command during the Vietnam War.
A Navy stenographer assigned to the National Security Council during the
Nixon administration"stole documents from just about every individual
that he came into contact with on the NSC," according to newly
declassified White Ho
Source: International Herald Tribune
December 15, 2008
Armed with a bottle of Egyptian brandy and a bowl of steaming chickpeas,
Hatem Fouad keeps watch each night over a historic slice of Cairo that is
in danger of dying: the bars that once flourished amid the sweeping
boulevards and graceful roundabouts of the city's European-style city
center.
The former police officer is part of a cadre of older Egyptian men who
frequent drinking holes and belly dancing cabarets chronicled by the Nobel
Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz in the 1940s
Source: Spiegel Online
December 12, 2008
Archaeologists in Germany say they have found an ancient battlefield
strewn with Roman weapons. The find is significant because it indicates
that Romans were fighting battles in north Germany at a far later stage
than previously assumed.
The wilds of Germany may not have been off-limits to Roman legions,
archaeologists announced on Monday. At a press conference in the woods
near the town of Kalefeld, about 100 kilometers south of Hanover,
researchers announced the discovery of a bat
Source: Reuters
December 16, 2008
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan -– All references to Saparmurat Niyazov, the late autocratic leader of Turkmenistan, have been dropped from the Central Asian state's national anthem.
The parliament adopted a law changing the anthem Monday...
In the revised anthem, all three references to "Turkmenbashi" -- Niyazov's title meaning "the head of all Turkmens" -- have been replaced with "the people," according to a text of the revised anthem obtained by
Source: Washington Post
December 16, 2008
Barack Obama has evoked Abraham Lincoln ever since launching his campaign at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill.
Now he plans to arrive in Washington the same way that Lincoln did in 1861, with a train trip that will include stops, speeches and crowds along the way.
On Jan. 17, Obama and his family will start the day with an appearance in Philadelphia, where they will board a chartered Amtrak train. The train will stop in Wilmington, Del., where the Obamas will b
Source: Reuters
December 15, 2008
U.S. military operations, including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, have cost $904 billion since 2001 and could top $1.7 trillion by 2018, even with big cuts in overseas troop deployments, a report said on Monday.
A new study released by the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, or CSBA, said the Iraq conflict's $687 billion price tag alone now exceeds the cost of every past U.S. war except for World War II, when expenditures are adjusted for inflation.
Source: WaPo
December 14, 2008
Two rural churches in upper Fauquier County, Emmanuel Episcopal and Cool Spring United Methodist, are celebrating their 150th anniversaries this year. Their beginnings go even further back, to 1769, when the Virginia legislature created the Anglican parish of Leeds, acknowledging the growth that had occurred in Fauquier's western sliver.
Source: Politico.com
December 16, 2008
President-elect Obama has already broken White House records for the number of top Hispanic officials, and is expected to name two more in the next day or two, according to transition officials.
“Based on what I can cull from records, we have more Hispanics in senior positions in this White House than under either President Bush or President Clinton,” incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said in an interview.
Source: LAT
December 16, 2008
Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that he was directly involved in approving severe interrogation methods used by the CIA, and that the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should remain open indefinitely.
Cheney's remarks on Guantanamo appear to put him at odds with President Bush, who has expressed a desire to close the prison, although the decision is expected to be left to the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.
Cheney's comments also mark the f
Source: NYT
December 16, 2008
In state capitals across the country, a select group of Americans who make up the Electoral College met on Monday to cement President-elect Barack Obama’s victory, in a year when new figures showed that voter turnout reached its highest level since 1968.
In a quadrennial ritual that has been criticized by some as an outdated part of the American political system, 538 electors, chosen for their party loyalty, cast their votes on Monday. Mr. Obama was expected to receive 365 votes to
