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 News
January 18, 2010
The man who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981 has been released from prison in Turkey.
Mehmet Ali Agca served 19 years in an Italian prison for shooting John Paul, and another 10 years in Turkey for the earlier murder of a newspaper editor.
Agca's motives for attempting to kill the Pope remain a mystery, although when he was arrested he said he was acting alone.
In 1983 John Paul announced he had forgiven Agca after meeting him.
There hav
Source: BBC
January 16, 2010
When US President Barack Obama announced that one of the biggest relief efforts in US history would be heading for Haiti, he highlighted the close ties between the two nations.
"With just a few hundred miles of ocean between us and a long history that binds us together, Haitians are our neighbours in the Americas and here at home," he said....
Both countries were born out of a struggle against European colonisers.
The US declared independence from
Source: AP
January 17, 2010
Gaudencio Sotio injured his left leg fighting to expel the Japanese military from the Philippines during World War II. Though Filipino, he was fighting under the command of the United States, which had colonized his homeland in the early 1900s.
Last February, the U.S. said it would pay a lump sum — $9,000 or $15,000 — to veterans like Sotio in lieu of pensions it had promised Filipino soldiers during the war but reneged on paying.
Since then, more than 11,000 surviving
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 17, 2010
A twelfth-century poem newly translated into English casts fresh light on the origin of today's Francophobic stereotypes.
Although it is meant to be an 'entente cordiale', the relationship between the English and the French has been anything but neighbourly.
When the two nations have not been clashing on the battlefield or the sporting pitch they have been trading insults from 'frogs' to 'rosbifs'. Written between 1180 and 1194, a century after the
Source: CNN
January 17, 2010
Pope Benedict XVI is set to take one step forward in Catholic-Jewish relations Sunday when he becomes the first pope since 1986 to visit the main Jewish synagogue in Rome, Italy.
The problem is, the step forward comes immediately after he took one step back last month by moving his Holocaust-era predecessor closer toward sainthood.
In fact, much of Benedict's papacy has seen swings back and forth in the Vatican's relationship with the Jewish world.
The visi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 16, 2010
The self-proclaimed heir to Russia’s imperial throne has demanded the reopening of the investigation into the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family by Bolsheviks in 1918.
The Russian Prosecutor-General has formally closed a criminal investigation into the shooting because too much time had elapsed since the crime and because those responsible had died.
But monarchists said a resumption of the criminal case was essential if Russia as finally to come to terms with it
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 17, 2010
Saddam Hussein's notorious cousin "Chemical Ali" has been found guilty of crimes against humanity and given a death sentence for his involvement in a poison gas attack.
Families of victims in court cheered when the judge handed down the guilty verdict against Ali Hassan al-Majid in a trial for one of the worst poisonous gas attacks against civilians.
He has already received three previous death sentences for atrocities committed during Saddam's rule, particul
Source: BBC
January 17, 2010
Pope Benedict XVI has defended the Vatican against accusations of indifference towards the Nazis' annihilation of Europe's Jews in WWII.
On a landmark visit to Rome's main synagogue, the Pope said the Vatican helped Jews and "provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way".
The pontiff responded after an Italian Jewish leader spoke of the painful "silence" of wartime Pope Pius XII.
Source: BBC
January 16, 2010
Archaeologists have made what they described as a "chance discovery" of a stone arrowhead in the garden of a ruined schoolhouse in Sutherland.
Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (Guard) said it may have been dropped by a hunter.
It added that it may have arrived from elsewhere and then been lost by a local collector or a teacher at the former parish school in Durness.
Source: New York Daily News
January 17, 2010
The director of a forthcoming movie about Martin Luther King Jr. has vowed he won't show him in bed with a prostitute.
For months now, King's family has been nervous about "Selma." Produced by Brad Pitt and "Slumdog Millionaire" Oscar-winner Christian Colson, the project's script portrays King (r.) as the tireless martyr of America's civil rights movement. But Paul Webb's screenplay also shows him to be a flesh-and-blood man who had, as his colleague Ralph Aberna
Source: Fox News
January 16, 2010
He lost his friend at war almost half a century ago. Or at least, that's what veteran Rick Valenzuela, from Oregon, thought, MyFoxOrlando.com reported. Valenzuela served with friend and fellow U.S. Marine Gary Benson during Vietnam.
Both men were in the Fox Company in the U.S. Marine Corps. In 1969, Valenzuela believed that Benson died in a rocket attack, the site reported.
This turned out to be a very fortunate mistake.
Source: WSJ
January 16, 2010
The Obama administration says it doesn't seek a return of a long-term American presence in Haiti, the poor Caribbean nation the U.S. colonized from 1914 to 1934.
But as the nation's death toll and governance challenges mount in the wake of Tuesday's earthquake, many Latin America specialists and leaders said the lone superpower across the sea will have little choice but to play an extended administrative role in Port-au-Prince.
Already, U.S. naval and air power are prov
Source: Hawaii News Now
January 15, 2010
The war plane sits on the ocean floor south of Maui in water less than 100 feet deep. Even covered by coral and rust it's an amazing site.
"Right now all the indications are it leans to a plane that was lost in 1945," Brad Varney said.
The Maui scuba tour operator found the wreckage Wednesday, acting on a tip.
"A local fisherman happened to come into the shop and mention that he was trying to catch some fish under the wings of a plane. I'm li
Source: AP
January 16, 2010
A piece of shrapnel sliced Jerry Maroney's right leg. A bullet pierced Peter Holt's neck. Les Newell took a shot in the rump.
These old American soldiers recovered from the physical scars of combat long ago. But last week, they visited a place where people still have fresh wounds from the Vietnam War, which ended nearly 35 years ago.
They came to Quang Tri Province, which is still littered with landmines and unexploded ordinance that routinely kill and maim people tryi
Source: The Daily Beast
January 15, 2010
In an exclusive email to The Daily Beast, Jean-Claude Duvalier, who fled Haiti for France in 1986, offered quake victims comfort and an $8 million pledge of support.
Reclusive former Haitian ruler Jean-Claude Duvalier has lived in France since he fled his homeland nearly a quarter-century ago. But Duvalier, famously known as “Baby Doc,” emerged from the shadows via email late Friday night. In an exclusive email to The Daily Beast’s Eric Pape, Duvalier offered comforting words in the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 16, 2010
Florence Green served with the Women’s RAF (WRAF) in 1918 and although she did not see front-line action, the charity Veteran’s Aid said she qualifies as a veteran of the war.
Mrs Green, who turns 109 next month and is a great-grandmother-of-seven, worked as a waitress in the officers' mess during the war at RAF Marham and Narborough Airfield, both in Norfolk....
Before the discovery of Mrs Green's service history, it was believed that British-born Gladys Powers, who di
Source: Deutsche Welle
January 16, 2010
An accomplice of Heinrich Boere, the former Nazi SS member on trial for murdering Dutch civilians during World War II, has testified that the SS were afraid of what would happen if they didn't follow orders.
Dutchman Jacobus Petrus Besteman testified on Friday by video link from the Netherlands.
"All those who participated were afraid of not following orders. It was very dangerous," he told the state court in the western German border city of Aachen.
Source: Spiegel Online (Germany)
January 15, 2010
Howard Carter, the British explorer who opened the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, will forever be associated with the greatest trove of artifacts from ancient Egypt. But was he also a thief?
Dawn was breaking as Howard Carter took up a crowbar to pry open the sealed tomb door in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. With shaking hands, he held a candle to the fissure, now wafting out 3,300-year-old air. What did he see, those behind him wanted to know. The archaeologist could do no more than s
Source: Dallas Morning News
January 15, 2010
[Texas] State Board of Education members Friday narrowly approved a change in proposed U.S. history standards that calls on students to be taught about leading conservative groups from the 1980s and 1990s - with no similar requirement for liberal groups. Pushed by board member Don McLeroy, R-College Station, the provision says students should learn about "key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s" including Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schla
Source: ABC News
January 15, 2009
Archaeologists in Indonesia have uncovered a 1,000-year-old temple that could shed light on the country's Hindu past.
The intricately carved statues and reliefs are some of the best preserved in Indonesia, but the dig is being conducted under tight security to protect the site from well-organised relic thieves.
The temple was found on the grounds of Yogyakarta's Islamic University as workers probed the ground to lay foundations for a new library, and they realised the e
