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: Deutsche Welle
January 6, 2010
The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is the largest and last loyalist paramilitary group to lay down its arms after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which largely put an end to three decades of violence in the region.
"Today the leadership of the Ulster Defence Association can confirm that all weaponry under its control has been put verifiably beyond use," said UDA political representative Frankie Gallagher.
The disarmament was verified by two independent witn
Source: Times (UK)
January 6, 2010
The Prince of Wales faced demands today to give evidence to the official inquiry into the Iraq war as reports emerged that he had lobbied against the invasion after seeing secret evidence used to justify the overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Confidential correspondence between the Prince and Tony Blair about the decision to go to war should also be handed over to the Chilcot inquiry, campaigners said.
The calls follow a report that the Prince privately lobbied against the inv
Source: Times (UK)
January 7, 2010
Britain negotiated a ceasefire with insurgent militants in Basra before pulling troops out of the city, the Iraq inquiry was told yesterday.
A senior Ministry of Defence civil servant said that officials held talks with leaders of the al-Mahdi Army militia about a truce from spring 2007.
The al-Mahdi Army, also known as Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM), a Shia militia loyal to the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, was heavily involved in the insurgency that erupted after the 2003 i
Source: BBC
January 6, 2010
Part of a rare library of historic travel books including ones owned by Captain Cook is being sold off to try to protect the rest of the collection.
The Northern Lighthouse Heritage Trust owns documents of voyages by 18th and 19th Century explorers such as Captain Cook and Matthew Flinders.
The trust says the money raised will help safeguard the treasures which remain in its collection.
The collection is estimated to sell for £200,000 in Edinburgh next We
Source: BBC
January 6, 2010
An investigation by BBC's Newsnight has cast doubts on the key piece of evidence which convicted the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.
Tests aimed at reproducing the blast appear to undermine the case's central forensic link, based on a tiny fragment identified as part of a bomb timer.
The tests suggest the fragment, which linked the attack to Megrahi, would not have survived the mid-air explosion. Newsnight has been reviewin
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 6, 2010
Two Swedes masterminded the theft last month of the "Arbeit macht frei" sign at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp, Polish police have said.
Polish police arrested five local men in December just days after the theft of the sign, which means "work sets you free" and is a symbol of the Holocaust committed by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Police also recovered the sign, which had been cut into three pieces to fit into the thieves' getaway
Source: AP
January 6, 2009
At least nine Detroit area high school juniors are in trouble for wearing sweat shirts bearing a design that evokes the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center's Twin Towers.
Dearborn Public Schools spokesman David Mustonen has told The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press that the shirts the boys wore to Edsel Ford High School on Monday are "offensive" and in "poor taste."
The boys are Arab-American, as are about half the school's 1,7
Source: AP
January 5, 2010
It's not exactly the Alamo, but Davy Crockett is at the center of a battle here.
Officials in Tennessee want a Hillsborough County judge to enforce a Tennessee order that 90-year-old Margaret V. Smith turn over Crockett's original marriage license application, which the Tampa woman says she inherited.
Lura Hinchey, archive director for Jefferson County, Tenn., said the county has repeatedly asked Smith for the license application of Crockett and Margaret Elder. Official
Source: AP
January 5, 2010
Iraqi police on Tuesday seized a small cache of ancient statues and other artifacts in the south of the country that officials said were set to be smuggled abroad and sold.
Iraq, home to relics of the world's most ancient urban civilizations, has had its priceless heritage plundered and sold to collectors abroad in the chaotic years since the U.S.-led invasion.
The 39 artifacts were discovered stashed in a hole near a shrine outside the southern city of Nasiriyah, said
Source: LA Times
January 5, 2010
Given the plight of so many unemployed Americans, President Obama did not want to spend a lot of money on a lavish redecoration of the Oval Office.
But he did want to make it his own. So Obama asked California decorator Michael Smith to work with him to change the look of the Oval Office to better reflect his interests.
Now, the Associated Press has had a tour of the makeover. The changes are striking.
Obama opted to keep the Resolute desk that was a gift i
Source: New York Times
January 6, 2010
Tsutomu Yamaguchi , the only official survivor of both atomic blasts to hit Japan in World War II , died Monday in Nagasaki, Japan.
The cause was stomach cancer, his daughter said on Wednesday. He was 93.
Mr. Yamaguchi, as a 29-year-old engineer for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was on a business trip in Hiroshima when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. He was getting off a streetcar when the “Little Boy” device detonated abov
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 4, 2010
This online supplement is produced and published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russia), which takes sole responsibility for the content.
Vasily Kononov is surrounded by his family in an apartment outside Riga. His daughter by his side, this 87-year-old WWII veteran maintains a sense of humour despite the many tragedies he has experienced. The European Court of Human Rights is to rule on an event that happened in 1944, with potential repercussions for all veterans across Europe.
Source: BBC
January 1, 2010
Scientists have analysed DNA extracted from the remains of a 30,000-year-old European hunter-gatherer.
Studying the DNA of long-dead humans can open up a window into the evolution of our species (Homo sapiens).
But previous studies of this kind have been hampered by scientists' inability to distinguish between the ancient human DNA and modern contamination. In Current Biology journal, a German-Russian team details how it was possible to
Source: Global Times
January 5, 2010
The question of how to verify the authenticity of historic remains believed to be that of Chinese warlord Cao Cao remains unanswered even after DNA tests were considered but were not done because they were deemed useless.
The remains, excavated since 2008 in Anyang, Central China's Henan Province, are a source of intrigue.
A large tomb complex with 1800 years of history was dug up in 2008, and officials from the cultural relics administration of Henan Province said Sund
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 5, 2010
A series of photographs reveals how Barack Obama has stamped his mark on the Oval Office since becoming President almost a year ago.
In the White House's most famous room, metal gadgets and American Indian pottery have replaced the decorative china plates favoured by former President George W Bush.
A bust of Martin Luther King Jr and a framed programme from the 1963 March on Washington where he delivered his "I have a dream" speech, adorn the walls.
Source: Fox News
January 5, 2010
In new book, Michael Steele says the GOP should acknowledge where "we most glaringly compromised our principles" in the past decade and hold its elected officials accountable.
Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele offers a simple explanation for why the GOP may have lost touch with some Americans since the Ronald Reagan era: "We screwed up," he claims in a new book offering a blueprint for the party's resurgence.
That "we" includes the l
Source: AP
January 5, 2010
Britons will be getting an extra public holiday in the summer of 2012 to celebrate the 60th year of Queen Elizabeth II's reign.
Business Secretary Peter Mandelson says that Tuesday, June 5, has been picked to mark what is called the queen's Diamond Jubilee. Together with another holiday June 4, that will create a four-day weekend.
The queen celebrated her Silver Jubilee in 1977 and her Golden Jubilee in 2002.
Source: AP
January 5, 2010
A human skull that apparently was turned into a ballot box for Yale's mysterious Skull and Bones society is going on the auction block.
Christie's estimates the skull will sell for $10,000 to $20,000 when it is auctioned on Jan. 22. Fittingly, the auction house has agreed to keep the seller's name a secret. On Monday, it described the person only as a European art collector.
The skull is fitted with a hinged flap and is believed to have been used during voting at the fa
Source: National Post (Canada)
January 4, 2010
For 20 years during the pioneering age of Canadian aviation, an aluminum-bodied bush plane soared over northern forests and remote lakes as part of a government mission to map and monitor the country's uncharted backwoods.
Now, 80 years after Canadian forestry officials purchased the U.S.-made Hamilton Metalplane from a Boeing plant in Wisconsin, the meticulously refurbished and flyable aircraft -- the only one of its kind in the world -- is expected to sell for at least $1-million
Source: National Geographic
January 4, 2010
Hundreds of circles, squares, and other geometric shapes once hidden by forest hint at a previously unknown ancient society that flourished in the Amazon, a new study says.
Satellite images of the upper Amazon Basin taken since 1999 have revealed more than 200 geometric earthworks spanning a distance greater than 155 miles (250 kilometers).
(Related: "Huge Pre-Stonehenge Complex Found via 'Crop Circles.'")
Now researchers estimate that nearly ten
