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
November 25, 2009
Seventy former Argentine army officers are accused of crimes against humanity for the alleged abuse, torture and, in one case, murder of their own troops during the 1982 war with Britain over the Falklands, or Malvinas, Islands. As the BBC's Angus Crawford reports, the case has divided Argentina's veteran community.
In 1982, Michael Savage was a student doing his military service, part of a force sent to invade the Falkland islands by the dictatorship then in power in Argentina.
Source: CBS
November 25, 2009
Nothing a president does lends itself more easily to a punch line – deliberate or inadvertent - than the annual pardon of a Thanksgiving turkey.
"I think it's kind of funny, and it's an annual ritual," said President Clinton at his first turkey pardon ceremony in 1993.
He said the pardon was easy for him "because I've been around turkeys all my life." Upon realizing the double meaning of his statement, Mr. Clinton was quick to add: "I didn't mea
Source: Times (UK)
November 25, 2009
Intelligence information that Saddam Hussein had dismantled his weapons of mass destruction programme was received by the Foreign Office days before Tony Blair ordered the invasion of Iraq, an inquiry into the war heard today.
The revelation on the second day of the Chilcot Inquiry will raise fresh questions about the justification for invading Iraq in March 2003.
The inquiry heard that the Foreign Office did not believe that Iraq had a large number of long-range miss
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 25, 2009
The intercepted exchanges are being posted online "as live" by the controversial Wikileaks website, with messages appearing in the order they were sent during the day.
The release began at 8am GMT and will continue for 24 hours. The majority of the messages posted in the first four hours offer little illumination, with most either automatic alerts sent by computers or anodyne personal memos.
Wikileaks has not revealed how it obtained the records. The site ha
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 25, 2009
The documentary, And Did Those Feet, explores the story behind the legend which survives in the hymn, for which William Blake wrote the words.
The legend claims Jesus visited several places in the West Country, such as the Roseland peninsula and Glastonbury, with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathaea.
In the film, the Scottish researcher Dr Strachan said it is plausible Jesus may have visited Britain to further his learning.
Ted Harrison, the film's director a
Source: Times (UK)
November 25, 2009
President Obama’s delay in authorising a US troop surge in Afghanistan had contributed to falling public support in Britain for the mission, Bob Ainsworth said yesterday.
The Defence Secretary said that as well as the “period of hiatus” in Washington, the deaths of British troops and the disputed Afghan elections had also played a part.
Mr Obama is preparing to announce his decision on troop numbers next week, it emerged yesterday, ending months of wrangling.
Source: Times (UK)
November 25, 2009
Cambodian prosecutors in the war crimes trial of the Khmer Rouge's former prison chief have demanded a 40 year jail sentence for the part he played in murdering thousands of Cambodians and spreading terror across Cambodia.
Kang Kek Ieu, known as Comrade Duch, was the director of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, where thousands of Cambodians were sent to be tortured and killed at the height of Pol Pot's genocidal regime.
Duch encouraged the jail's interrogation teams to
Source: Times (UK)
November 25, 2009
Gordon Brown today sparked controversy on the eve of the Commonwealth summit by suggesting he backs the sweeping away of 300-year-old laws that prevent Roman Catholics ascending to the Throne.
Mr Brown is also keen to change the ancient rule of primogeniture, which stipulates that men must always take precedence over a woman in line to the throne.
The Prime Minister is expected to raise the issue with heads of government in the "margins" of the Commonwealth
Source: Times (UK)
November 25, 2009
A German bomb devastated Bridgewater House, home of the Earls of Ellesmere and their magnificent art collection, on May 11, 1941. A monumental painting described yesterday by the director of the National Gallery as of huge importance was torn in 200 places by shrapnel and coated in dust.
For 68 years it was rolled up in storage, thought by its owner and experts alike to be ruined. But in February, Paul Delaroche’s Charles I Insulted by Cromwell’s Soldiers will go on display to comp
Source: Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter (press release)
November 23, 2009
Barack Obama's family roots reach deep into central Indiana and soon an old farm house near Kempton in Tipton County may serve as a living tribute to the President's ancestors. The President's mother, Ann Dunham, was born and raised in Kansas, but her grandfather moved there from Indiana and a historic preservationist is now at work reconstructing some of the Obama family history.
A land grant shows the property was settled by Jacob Dunham in 1840. Jacob Dunham was Barack Oba
Source: Examiner
November 23, 2009
The belief that Thomas Jefferson had an affair and fathered a child (or children) with slave Sally Hemings -- and that such an allegation was proven by DNA testing -- has become so pervasive in American popular culture that it is not only widely accepted but taught to students as historical fact. "In Defense Of Thomas Jefferson,” by William G. Hyland Jr., has just been published by St. Martins Press. In this startling and revelatory new book, William G. Hyland Jr. shows not only that the ev
Source: Voice of America
November 24, 2009
Yosemite National Park, in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range, was one of the nation's first wilderness parks, created in 1890. It has granite cliffs towering over deep valleys, spectacular waterfalls and ancient giant sequoia trees. It also holds a special place in African-American history.
As an interpretive specialist at Yosemite, Ranger Shelton Johnson tells visitors about the history of the park. While researching Yosemite's archives, he learned that for three years, ar
Source: Zawya
November 21, 2009
RIYADH: The Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) handed over a number of Iraqi cultural artifacts smuggled to the Kingdom by an Arab expatriate recently.
The returned artifacts include statues of human beings and lions of varying sizes made of marble and other materials.
Hussein Abu Al-Hassan, assistant vice president of the SCTA, signed on Wednesday a statement returning five artifacts to the second secretary at the Iraqi Embassy in the Kingdom, Ahmad Al
Source: Huffington Post
November 23, 2009
As desperate Democratic lawmakers cast about for ways to create jobs from Capitol Hill, a 1970s-era jobs program is getting a fresh look.
Known as CETA -- the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act -- the program provided direct government funding to hire temporary workers. At its peak in 1978, it had created 725,000 public service jobs and shaved roughly one point off the unemployment figure.
A one-point drop in the unemployment rate -- not to mention the ancillary
Source: LA Times
October 20, 2009
Reporting from Fernald Preserve, Ohio - Amid the family farms and rolling terrain of southern Ohio, one hill stands out for its precise geometry.
The 65-foot-high mound stretching more than half a mile dominates a tract of northern hardwoods, prairie grasses and swampy ponds, known as the Fernald Preserve.
Contrary to appearances, there is nothing natural here. The high ground is filled with radioactive debris, scooped from the soil around a former uranium foundry that
Source: CNSNews
November 24, 2009
Geneva (AP) - The number of people worldwide infected with the virus that causes AIDS -- about 33 million -- has remained virtually unchanged for the last two years, United Nations experts said Tuesday.
Officials say the global epidemic probably peaked in 1996 and that the disease looks stable in most regions, except for Africa. Last year, HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 72 percent of all 2.7 million new HIV cases worldwide.
Daniel Halperin, an AIDS e
Source: Time
November 23, 2009
Whether or not you agree with Barack Obama's politics may influence how dark- or light-skinned you think he is, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study, which set out to determine whether political views can skew skin color perception, included three experiments...In all three cases, people who agreed with the politician's views were more likely to pick lighter-skinned images of him; people who disagreed were more likely to pick darker-sk
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
November 24, 2009
On November 18, 2009, Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) became the longest-serving member of Congress, having served in the House of Representatives (1953-1959) and the Senate (1959-present) for a total of 56 years, 10 months, and 16 days. He broke the record previously set by Carl T. Hayden (1912-1969). On June 12, 2006, Senator Byrd became the longest-serving senator in U.S. history
Source: BBC
November 22, 2009
The USSR's first civilian cosmonaut Konstantin Feoktistov, a crew member of the Voskhod spaceship in 1964, has died in Moscow aged 83, Russian media say.
Feoktistov also designed and tested spaceships himself, and has a crater on the Moon named after him.
He worked on the design of both the Salyut and Mir space stations.
The 1964 flight is famous for being the first in which crew members were sent into space without wearing special space suits.
Source: AP
November 24, 2009
In the most sweeping inquiry on the Iraq war, a panel investigating Britain's role in the conflict began questioning witnesses Tuesday in hearings that critics hope will humble ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair and expose alleged deception in the buildup to fighting.
The panel, which opened with a moment of silence for those who died, will question dozens of officials over several months — including military officials and spy agency chiefs. It will also seek evidence from ex-White House
