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: NYT
December 26, 2009
For many Czechs, it is a historical reckoning that is 20 years too late.
Two decades after the Velvet Revolution overthrew Communist rule here in 1989, a group of Czech senators is pressing to ban the Communist Party, the only surviving one in the former Soviet bloc in Europe and, to its many critics, a national embarrassment and aberration.
“The Communists ruined this country and oppressed freedom and yet here they are 20 years later in our Parliament,” said David Cer
Source: NYT
December 24, 2009
ELEANOR, WVA: ... The economic fallout of this annus horribilis, now drawing to a close, continues: 10 percent unemployment ; tens of millions without steady access to adequate food; wholesale industry shakeouts. It takes the collective American mind to another time, an even harder time, when federal stimulus programs meant more than just bridge repairs and weatherization; when the government jump-started the economy by building highways, schools, post offices — entire towns.
Dozens
Source: AP
December 25, 2009
George Washington brought along a tourist for his Christmas Day ride across the Delaware River this year, and technology manufacturer Lockheed Martin brought its checkbook.
After months of financial uncertainty, the 57th annual re-enactment of Washington's daring Christmas 1776 crossing of the river -- the trek that turned the tide of the Revolutionary War -- took place without problems Friday.
Thousands of spectators came out to hear Washington's stand-in deliver stirr
Source: The Times (UK)
December 24, 2009
The Nazi gang that ordered the theft of the infamous 'Arbeit Macht Frei' sign from the gates of Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland planned to sell it to fund violent attacks against the Swedish Prime Minister and Parliament, it was claimed today.
A spokesman for the Swedish security police confirmed that the authorities were taking seriously a threat by a militant Nazi group to disrupt national elections next year.
Allegations concerning who ordered the theft, and
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 23, 2009
Vatican officials tried to patch up a growing dispute with Jewish leaders by saying the decision to move wartime Pope Pius XII closer to sainthood was based on his "piety" not his "politics".
Pope Pius XII has been condemned for not doing enough to prevent the Holocaust and his path to canonisation has sparked outcry.
Last week, Pope Benedict XVI signed a decree proclaiming the "heroic virtues" of Pope Pius – throwing the current Pontiff's
Source: BBC
December 23, 2009
The skipper of the Jewish immigrant ship the Exodus, which was refused entry to British-controlled Palestine in 1947, has died at the age of 86.
Israeli President Shimon Peres said the captain, Yitzhak (Ike) Aharonovitz, had made a unique contribution to the state of Israel.
The Exodus was carrying over 4,000 mostly Holocaust survivors when the ship was forced to return to Germany.
The incident sparked widespread sympathy for their plight.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
December 25, 2009
The opening of the President's House on Independence Mall will be pushed back to next fall, to allow further revision of interpretive materials so that they better portray the place of slavery in the nation's early days.
The announcement came from Mayor Nutter's administration, which is managing the $8.5 million project, and Independence National Historical Park, which ultimately will run the site.
The house had been scheduled for a July 4, 2010, grand opening, and it w
Source: CNN
December 26, 2009
Each Christmas, Christians tell stories about the poor baby Jesus born in a lowly manger because there was no room in the inn.
But the Rev. C. Thomas Anderson, senior pastor of the Living Word Bible Church in Mesa, Arizona, preaches a version of the Christmas story that says baby Jesus wasn't so poor after all.
Anderson says Jesus couldn't have been poor because he received lucrative gifts -- gold, frankincense and myrrh -- at birth. Jesus had to be wealthy because the
Source: BBC News
December 26, 2009
Countries across the Indian Ocean are marking the fifth anniversary of the catastrophic tsunami that killed almost 250,000 people.
In Indonesia's Aceh province, where 170,000 died, thousands held prayers in public mosques and private homes.
On Thai beaches, Buddhist monks chanted prayers as mourners held pictures of loved ones lost five years ago.
Hundreds of tourists also returned to Phuket island to mark one of the worst natural disasters of modern time
Source: National Geographic News
December 21, 2009
Jurassic Park was packed with pseudo-science, but one of its fictions may have accidentally anticipated a dinosaur discovery announced today—venomous raptors.
Though a far cry from the movie's venom-spitting Dilophosaurus, the 125-million-year-old Sinornithosaurus may have attacked like today's rear-fanged snakes, a new study suggests.
Rear-fanged snakes don't inject venom. Instead, the toxin flows down a telltale groove in a fang's surface and into the bite wound, indu
Source: National Geographic News
December 23, 2009
An ancient dwarf whale unearthed in southeastern Australia captured its prey by slurping up mouthfuls of mud, a new study says.
The fossil whale, thought to be between 25 and 28 million years old, hints that mud sucking might have been a precursor to the filter feeding used by today's baleen whales.
Many modern whale species use hair-like structures called baleen to filter tiny prey such as krill from seawater. Baleen species include the humpback, the minke, and the lar
Source: AFP
December 25, 2009
In the tiny synagogue of Masada, a ruined desert fortress steeped in myth, symbolism and controversy, a Torah scribe sits motionless but for the slow, deliberate strokes of his right hand.
A master in the art of writing Hebrew Bible scrolls, Shai Abramovich seems oblivious to the outside world as he traces the characters onto cow-leather parchment, his bespectacled face just centimetres (inches) from his desk.
He insists his composure belies the excitement he feels work
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 25, 2009
Major-General Miloslav Kaspar, who has died aged 95, fought with Czechoslovak forces in eastern Europe and France during the Second World War, and was responsible for choosing the team which assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, the SS governor of Prague in 1942; after the war he served as an intelligence officer with Deuxième Bureau and MI5.
In March 1939 Kaspar was with his first regiment in the Slovak capital of Bratislava when the Wehrmacht marched in to proclaim the Czech provinces
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 25, 2009
A fight is on to save the historic Bastogne military barracks in the Belgian Ardennes from closure.
The campaign follows the Belgian government's decision to close 23 barracks across the country by 2011, including the so-called 'Heinz' barracks at Bastogne where US General Anthony McAuliffe had his headquarters during famous Battle of the Bulge in 1944.
The announcement by defence minister Pieter de Crem has caused a storm of protest among US and British war veterans a
Source: BBC
December 25, 2009
There has been widespread condemnation of the jailing by China of leading dissident, Liu Xiaobo, for subversion.
The US, UN and EU were joined by human rights groups in a chorus of anger over Mr Liu's 11-year sentence.
The UN human rights commissioner said it was "extremely harsh", and cast an ominous shadow over China's commitments to protect human rights.
Mr Liu, 53, helped draft Charter 08, a petition urging political change in China. His wife
Source: BBC
December 23, 2009
A Donegal pensioner has received an unexpected Christmas surprise after he uncovered letters he and his sisters sent to Santa almost 70 years ago.
Workmen replacing the chimney at Neil Doherty's family home in Buncrana discovered the letters stuck in the flue.
He was only five years of age when his sister Mona wrote the letter to Santa for him in 1941.
Source: BBC
December 23, 2009
Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has gone on trial in Beijing on charges of "inciting subversion of state power".
Mr Liu, a prominent government critic and veteran of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests, could be jailed for 15 years if convicted.
He has been in jail since 2008, after being arrested for writing a document calling for political reform in China.
The EU, US and rights groups say the trial is politically motivated and have calle
Source: AP
December 24, 2009
Two-time President Rafael Antonio Caldera, considered one of the founders of Venezuelan democracy after decades of dictatorship, has died. He was 93.
Caldera died around 2 a.m. in the capital of Caracas, his son Andres Caldera told Globovision news channel.
Andres Caldera did not give a cause of death, but the former president suffered from Parkinson's disease for several years.
Source: AP
December 24, 2009
Former President Jimmy Carter apologized for any words or deeds that may have upset the Jewish community in an open letter meant to improve an often-tense relationship.
He said he was offering an Al Het, a prayer said on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. It signifies a plea for forgiveness.
"We must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel," Carter said in the letter, which was first sent to JTA, a wire service for Jewish newspapers, a
Source: NYT
December 23, 2009
It was hard to know what was more shocking: the haplessness of the thieves who stole the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign looming over Auschwitz, or the laxness of the security protecting this emblem of the Holocaust’s perversity and horror.
The thieves first tried to steal the sign, which means “Work Makes You Free,” last Thursday evening. But they lacked the right tools. Undetected, they drove to a hardware shop in the nearby town of Oswiecim and bought better tools. When they returned to
