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
August 14, 2008
Lebanon and Syria have agreed to resume work on formally demarcating their common border as part of efforts to repair years of strained relations.
However, Syria said the work on borders would not cover one of the most contentious areas, the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms, until Israel withdrew.
Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman is currently in Damascus for talks with his counterpart Bashar al-Assad.
They also confirmed the setting up of diplomatic ties
Source: AP
August 14, 2008
A wall of one of the nation's first railroad tunnels has been excavated in Schenectady.
Workers using a backhoe uncovered part of the tunnel's western wall on Wednesday under the direction of City Historian Don Rittner.
The 1,500-foot-long tunnel was built in 1832. Horses pulled trains through the tunnel because they were considered too much of a fire hazard to travel through city streets.
The tunnel was filled in six years after opening.
The t
Source: AP
August 14, 2008
Tommy DeFoe wore his Southern pride on his Confederate flag belt buckle Wednesday as he argued in federal court that a school dress code banning such items violated his free speech rights.
"I am fighting for my heritage and my rights as a Southerner and an American," said the lanky DeFoe, 18, during a break in his trial.
DeFoe says his great-great uncle served in the Confederate army and "died for the South" in the Civil War.
But heritag
Source: AP
August 14, 2008
A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert. The slender arms of the youngsters were still extended to the woman in perpetual embrace when researchers discovered their skeletons in a remarkable cemetery that is providing clues to two civilizations who lived there, a thousand years apart, when the region was moist and green.
Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago and colleagues were searching for the remains
Source: History Today
August 14, 2008
The modernisation of the ancient pyramids at Giza has begun with the building of a high-tech security fence. The £14m project at the World Heritage Site includes CCTV, security alarms and sensors to alert guards about peddlers encroaching on the area and harassing tourists. The 12-mile fence is the first stage to update the last remaining ancient Wonder of the World; visitors will now arrive at the c.2575 BC site near Cairo through security gates with x-ray machines.
Source: BBC
August 6, 2008
It was discovered in a rubble-filled building where parts of a huge statue of the emperor Hadrian were unearthed last year.
The discovery, at the ancient site of Sagalassos, is thought to show Faustina the Elder, wife of Roman emperor Antoninus Pius.
Sagalassos was once an important urban centre.
It was abandoned after being hit by several strong earthquakes.
A team led by Marc Waelkens, from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgi
Source: The Times
August 14, 2008
Campaigners are trying to save a ramshackle Tuscan villa where the poet Lord Byron lived towards the end of his life, but which has fallen into ruin despite its rich history.
Conservationists in Livorno have appealed to the Tuscan regional authorities to preserve the Villa Dupouy where Byron stayed for three months until his friend Shelley's death by drowning in the nearby Gulf of La Spezia in July 1822.
A year later Byron stopped again at Livorno while sailing from G
Source: Telegraph
August 14, 2008
The mammoth 33 tonne sculpture, which features "the father of communism" staring out from a multitude of figures, once adorned Leipzig University.
But the academy, known as Karl Marx university in honour of the socialist philosopher until 1991, later mothballed the vast installation.
Plans to reinstall it unveiled earlier this year prompted fierce debate between fans of the monument and those who believe that the tribute to Marx ought to remain under wraps.
Source: Independent
August 14, 2008
A federal appeals court Wednesday reversed a ruling that awarded one of John Steinbeck's sons and a granddaughter publishing rights to 10 of the author's early works, including "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Of Mice and Men."
The ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will leave the rights in the hands of Penguin Group Inc. and the heirs of John Steinbeck's widow, Elaine. Author John Steinbeck died in 1968; his wife in 2003.
The appeals court
Source: Independent
August 14, 2008
Its jagged, bomb-shattered belfry towers above the busy streets at the centre of west Berlin like an enormous broken tusk – a ruin that remains one of the most famous and potent symbols of the horrors of war in Europe.
But now Berlin's landmark Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church, nicknamed the "Hollow Tooth" by Berliners, is threatened with closure unless at least €4m (£3.2m) can be found to restore its rapidly disintegrating neo-gothic facades.
City officials adm
Source: Fox News
August 14, 2008
They served in an international spy ring managed by the Office of Strategic Services, an early version of the CIA created in World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt.
The secret comes out Thursday — all of the names and previously classified files identifying nearly 24,000 spies who formed the first centralized intelligence effort by the United States. The National Archives, which this week released a list of the names found in the records, will make available for the first time
Source: Farragut Press
August 14, 2008
David Sink, a visitor to Campbell Station Park, got the surprise of a lifetime when he stumbled upon a Civil War-era artillery shell in North Fork Turkey Creek, Tuesday night, Aug. 12.
At 7:08 p.m., Knox County Sheriff’s Office dispatch received a call from Sink, who had found what he believed to be a piece of mortar in the park.
Sink had retrieved the shell from the creek, carried it up the hill toward the Farragut Library, and then decided to call 9-1-1.
Source: AP
December 31, 2069
A Civil War center that examines all sides of that historic conflict is considering whether to add a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis to its Richmond collection.
The Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has offered the $100,000 art work to the American Civil War Center. The center's board is expected to act Wednesday on the gift.
The heritage group said the offer of the life-sized bronze casting is intended to mark the bicentennial of Dav
Source: Civil War Interactive
August 14, 2008
Former Senators Howard H. Baker, Jr. (R–TN) and J. Bennett Johnston, Jr. (D–LA) yesterday announced the formation of the National Parks Second Century Commission, a first-in-a-generation effort to examine the national parks today and chart a vision for their future.
“More than one hundred years ago America invented the national park idea with the designation of Yellowstone as the first national park,” said Commission Co-Chair Senator Baker, former Senate Majority Leader. “Guid
Source: Times
August 14, 2008
The Office of Strategic Services was the vast American espionage organisation created by President Franklin Roosevelt in the Second World War and directly modelled on Britain’s intelligence services.
The OSS, which evolved into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after the war, was created virtually from scratch in 1942, and swiftly evolved into a wide intelligence-gathering network, employing soldiers, lawyers, actors, sportsmen, academics and many others.
The full
Source: Times
August 14, 2008
One was a historian and assistant to John Kennedy, another was the chef who first introduced French cuisine to American households, and a third was the father of Stewart Copeland, drummer for the band The Police.
In their every day lives they had nothing in common but Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Julia Childs and Miles Copeland shared a secret life - serving in an international spy ring at a time when Hitler was threatening the world.
Their work and that of thousands of othe
Source: BBC
August 13, 2008
Dissident republicans are believed to have about 80-100 active members, the BBC has learned.
A small hardcore are experienced terrorists, previously members of the Provisional IRA.
The majority are believed to be committed to the dissident cause but lack operational experience.
There are small but relatively strong elements in Londonderry, Tyrone, Fermanagh and north Armagh.
It is estimated there could be about 250-300 others willing to len
Source: BBC
August 13, 2008
Japan and North Korea have agreed to reopen an inquiry into Pyongyang's abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, Japanese reports say.
Agreement came when envoys of the two states, which have no diplomatic ties, met in China as part of broader talks on North Korea's nuclear programme.
In 2002, North Korea admitted that it had kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens to help train its spies in Japanese ways.
It said five had been returned to their fam
Source: CNN
August 13, 2008
Cambodia's genocide tribunal formally indicted a former prison chief of the country's notorious Khmer Rouge, paving the way for a historic trial.
The U.N.-assisted tribunal said in a Tuesday statement its investigating judges issued the indictment after ending their investigation of Kaing Guek Eav -- also known as Duch -- whose Phnom Penh prison was used as a torture center.
Duch, accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes, is the first suspect to be indicted by
Source: AP
August 13, 2008
Japanese World War II leader Hideki Tojo wanted to keep fighting even after U.S. atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, accusing surrender proponents of being "frightened," a newly released diary reveals.
Excerpts from the approximately 20 pages written by Tojo in the final days of the war and held by the National Archives of Japan were published for the first time in several newspapers Tuesday.
"The notes show Tojo kept his dyed-in-the-wool militarist
