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
October 22, 2008
Exiles of the Chagos Islands will not be able to return to their homeland, the House of Lords has ruled.
The government won its appeal against a previous court decision that had ruled in favour of 2,000 former residents of the British Indian Ocean territory.
They were evicted in the 1960s when the colony was leased to the US to build an airbase on the atoll of Diego Garcia.
Their solicitor Richard Gifford said they are in a "state of shock" at
Source: USA Today
October 22, 2008
The Tower of David isn't Jerusalem's most celebrated, sacred or coveted site, but perhaps no place better illustrates the city's contentious history: Over the millennia, myriad conquerors have used it as a fortress, military barracks and cannon emplacement.
These days, the Tower serves a more benign purpose. Tucked inside the walls of the picturesque Old City, the compound is now a museum that welcomes tens of thousands of visitors each year.
Though overshadowed by its world-
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 21, 2008
Thirty years after China began its post-Mao reforms, and with almost all of the Chairman's decisions reversed, nostalgia for the dictator is surging.
Mao Xinyu, the 38-year-old sole grandson of the Great Helmsman, is set to become the dean of China's first undergraduate university department dedicated to the study of Mao Zedong thought.
Songtian University, a private college in Guangdong, has applied for permission to the Ministry of Education to found the new departmen
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 21, 2008
Adolf Hitler marched his henchmen onto the streets of Munich to perpetrate the atrocity that became known as Kristallnact, newly deciphered passages from the diaries of Josef Goebbels show.
It had never been in doubt that the Nazi propaganda machine fuelled the Night of Broken Glass but now a German scholar has uncovered strong evidence that on the night of Nov 9 the Fuhrer led Nazis to destroy an important synagogue, deliberately throwing a match into a tinderbox.
On N
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 21, 2008
Republicans are facing their biggest electoral disaster since the Watergate scandal with even the party's Senate leader in grave danger of losing his seat.
The party's leaders are bracing themselves for heavy losses in Congress, with Democrats aiming to seize a commanding majority.
Standing on the steps of the local courthouse in Jamestown, in staunchly Republican rural southern Kentucky, Senator Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, admitted: "This race is goin
Source: Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
October 21, 2008
International excavation project discovers hitherto undisturbed cremation sites
Within the scope of an international rescue excavation project, a team of four archaeologists specialized in Middle Eastern affairs headed by Dr. Dirk Wicke (Institute of Egyptology and Ancient Oriental Studies) have unearthed parts of a Neo-Assyrian governor's palace dating back to 900-700 B.C. in a two-month excavation program amongst the ruins on Ziyaret Tepe Hill. The discoveries were extraordinary. The site in
Source: AP
October 21, 2008
SOCORRO — Civil War buffs say a rocky patch of vacant land likely holds hundreds of human remains in a long-abandoned cemetery, including the unmarked graves of 27 Confederate soldiers.
Ken Garrison, an officer with the New Mexico Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said if the abandoned cemetery can't be preserved, soldiers' remains should be exhumed and reburied "in a respectable location."
The land is owned by Mary Silva, who said it's among the f
Source: NYT
October 21, 2008
Mr. Obama, who was campaigning in Florida on Tuesday, will make an appearance in Indianapolis on Thursday, but he canceled stops planned for Wisconsin and Iowa after that so that he can fly to Honolulu. His wife, Michelle Obama, will attend rallies in Akron and Columbus in his place.
Though Mr. Obama is leading in the polls, “there are still so many uncertainties, and 36 hours is a lot of time in two weeks,” said Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at the Woodrow
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
October 19, 2008
The year was 1825, and though a 6-year-old girl named Sally couldn't sign her name, she could sign away the next 22 years of her life.
With the mark of an "X," Sally promised to serve Pittsburgh attorney John McKee in exchange for food, clothing and lessons in the "art and mystery of a house Servant and Cook." At age 28, she'd be granted her freedom, as well as "two suits of women's apparel ... one of which shall be new."
Sally's story -- a
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
October 21, 2008
Jean Bartik, 83, one of six women selected to program the Eniac computer in 1945. The computer was designed by the Army to compute firing tables in World War II and weighed 30 tons. The women taught themselves how the machine operated by studying logical and electrical block diagrams. Bartik went on to contribute to other computers and has received several awards, including membership in the Hall of Fame Women in Technology International.
Robert Metcalfe, 62, who invented Ethernet,
Source: http://www.buffalonews.com
October 21, 2008
Catholics have been moving south from Western New York for decades. A vacant church on Buffalo’s East Side soon might join them.
A parish in the Archdiocese of Atlanta wants to buy St. Gerard Church at Bailey and East Delavan avenues, dismantle the basilica-style structure and ship it to Norcross, Ga., where it would be reassembled.
Officials of the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo expressed optimism about the unusual plan, which they call “preservation by relocation.” They
Source: McClatchy
October 19, 2008
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain fixed his sights on Saddam Hussein long before President Bush sent the U.S. military to oust the Iraqi dictator in March 2003.
Four years earlier, the Arizona senator told a Kansas State University audience that Saddam was amassing illicit weapons, and that the U.S. should arm opposition groups to overthrow him, along with North Korea's leaders and other "odious regimes."
Saddam, however, no longer had any chemical,
Source: Times (UK)
October 21, 2008
This is going to sound strange - unbelievable, probably - but I have just returned from a visit to the only royal palace on US soil, where angry Americans are demanding that the Queen be returned to power. I'm completely serious. As far as these neo-monarchists are concerned, the choice offered by November 4's election isn't good enough.
They want blue blood and a crown.
Now I know what you're thinking: it took them long enough to come to their senses. It's been - wha
Source: Times (UK)
October 21, 2008
Scottish ministers could release the former Libyan intelligence agent convicted of the Lockerbie bombing because he is suffering from “advanced stage” cancer.
The SNP Administration at Holyrood confirmed today that it would consider a request for early release on the grounds of his deteriorating health.
Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, 56, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer following hospital tests last month, his lawyer revealed today. Tony Kelly added that the disea
Source: Baltimore Sun
October 13, 2008
A group of Baltimore high school students held a demonstration this morning to educate people about the less-heroic elements of Christopher Columbus, on a day most Americans honor the explorer.
The students from Baltimore Freedom Academy, a citywide charter school focusing on social justice and activism, spent the past six weeks comparing textbook accounts of Columbus' travels and actions with primary sources about his life, such as journals and writings.
As the culmina
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 21, 2008
Historians from Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), the body charged with investigating communist crimes, have found documents that suggest that the Soviet Union was involved in the kidnap, torture and murder of Father Jerzy Popieluszko in 1984.
The IPN says new evidence indicated that Father Popieluszko, an unflinching and brazen critic of communist rule in Poland, may have been held at a Soviet military base near Kazun, 30 miles to the north of Warsaw, and murdered a
Source: Spiegel Online
October 20, 2008
It was almost exactly seven decades ago that Nazi SA thugs spread out across Germany to spread terror among the Jewish population. The event, which saw thousands of Jewish shops destroyed, hundreds of synagogues torched and dozens of Jews killed, came to be known as Kristallnacht.
Now, an Israeli journalist conducting research near Berlin has stumbled upon what might be a massive dump full of the wreckage from the pogrom, which took place on the night of Nov. 9, 1938.
Source: Tehran Times
October 21, 2008
Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf also held talks with Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba in which he pointed out that the Iranian nation was also a victim of weapons of mass destruction.
“What you have experienced in the bombardment of your city, we have also experienced… and (we) have suffered the consequences of weapons of mass destruction,” the Tehran mayor told Akiba.
Qalibaf said there are about 100,000 Iranians who are still suffering from the injuries they rece
Source: Tehran Times
October 21, 2008
People who constructed the Sassanid fortress may have received bad news or were informed of a forthcoming invasion, the director of the team that recently completed a season of excavation at the fortress told the Persian service of CHN on Monday.
“Consequently, they had to cover all towers of the fortress with earth and left it in the hopes of coming back again but most likely they didn’t return to the site,” Mohammadreza Nemati added.
“Twelve excavations have been ca
Source: Dr. Lawrence K. Altman in the NYT
October 19, 2008
Fifteen days before the election, serious gaps remain in the public’s knowledge about the health of the presidential and vice-presidential nominees. The limited information provided by the candidates is a striking departure from recent campaigns, in which many candidates and their doctors were more forthcoming.
