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 23, 2009
The body of Alec Collett was one of two dug up by British experts last week in Bekaa Valley, the Foreign Office said.
The freelance journalist was 64 when he was snatched at gunpoint from a car near Beirut airport in 1985.
The United Nations is to transport the body home. UK embassy staff in Beirut are assisting Mr Collett's family.
Source: BBC
November 21, 2009
In a speech to international socialist politicians, Mr Chavez said "Carlos", a Venezuelan, was not a terrorist but a key "revolutionary fighter".
He is serving a life sentence in France for murders committed in 1975.
Mr Chavez also hailed Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
Source: Spiegel Online
November 23, 2009
Michael Fröhlich, a German dealer in classic cars, has sold John Lennon's Mercedes 600, Marlene Dietrich's Rolls Royce Cabriolet and Charlie Chaplin's Bentley S3 in his time but has just arranged his most unusual deal yet -- a five-tonne armored limousine that, he says, was used by Adolf Hitler.
Fröhlich, 59, told SPIEGEL ONLINE that he managed to trace the vehicle to a collector in northern Germany on behalf of a Russian investor willing to shell out millions of euros for the open-
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 22, 2009
Secret correspondence between the exiled Duke and Duchess of Windsor and their confidant Kenneth de Courcy has revealed a dastardly scheme to change the course of British history by denying Queen Elizabeth II the crown, says royal biographer Christopher Wilson.
It was the spring of 1946. The Second World War had drawn to a close, King George VI’s health was starting to fail and, from their homes in Paris and the south of France, the exiled Duke and Duchess of Windsor were having dee
Source: BBC
November 23, 2009
Coded plans for "The Great Escape" have been found in the diary of a World War II airman from Greater Manchester.
Ted Nestor was a prisoner of war (POW) at the camp where 77 Allied officers managed to dig a tunnel and escape.
His journal includes stories of camp life, cartoons and even a coded reference to the mass breakout.
Now, 20 years after his death, his daughter Sharon Cottam has visited Stalag Luft III in Poland and learned that her fathe
Source: Journal Star
November 21, 2009
Thanksgiving is heavily steeped in traditions.
But as sometimes happens with history and facts, myths can get in the way.
James W. Baker, senior historian at Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Mass., has some thoughts on why that is with Thanksgiving.
“It is an invented tradition,” he said. “It doesn’t originate in any one event. It is based on the New England Puritan Thanksgiving, which is a religious Thanksgiving, and the traditional harvest celebrations of
Source: Fast Company
November 20, 2009
Part of the point of a presidential library is that it's a monument to a leader's legacy--his style, his enduring affect on the world, even his reading habits...or lack thereof. Speaking of which, Laura Bush unveiled the design for her husband's book joint this week, and the ultra-traditional structure that nods to Washington but bows to the rest of Southern Methodist University's campus isn't winning any points with architecture critics. But how does W's design stack up against his predecessors
Source: NYT
November 20, 2009
CAIRO — History has proved that there are two subjects that will move Egyptians to pour into the streets in riotous numbers, crashing windows, burning cars, battling one another and defying an army of club-wielding riot police officers.
One is the price of bread. Another is soccer, as was proved again this week after Egypt’s national team was defeated by its bitter rival Algeria, losing a berth in the World Cup tournament next year and sparking a riot outside the Algerian Embassy i
Source: Yahoo News
November 22, 2009
TAXILA, Pakistan (AFP) – Archaeologists warn that the Taliban are destroying Pakistan's ancient Gandhara heritage and rich Buddhist legacy as pilgrimage and foreign research dries up in the country's northwest.
"Militants are the enemies of culture," said Abdul Nasir Khan, curator of Taxila Museum, one of the premier archaeological collections in Pakistan.
"It is very clear that if the situation carries on like this, it will destroy our culture and will d
Source: New York Daily News
November 20, 2009
Disagreement over the fate of two colonial-era millstones that had long been buried in a Long Island City sidewalk is causing some friction among local groups.
The Greater Astoria Historical Society and several other groups would like to see the stones, once part of a gristmill that dates back to the 1650s, removed and safely stored away.
But the Dutch Kills Civic Association thinks they should stay where they are until the city hires experts to determine if they are s
Source: BBC
November 20, 2009
A US senator has written to Prime Minister Gordon Brown calling for the Lockerbie bomber to be returned to prison.
Democrat senator Charles Schumer said Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was released early on the assumption he only had three months to live.
Mr Schumer questioned the severity of Megrahi's prostate cancer given that the three months had now passed.
Source: Time (November 30 issue)
November 22, 2009
If he holds his handy lead in the polls, Porfirio (Pepe) Lobo will be the next President of Honduras. Problem is, the last man elected to that office, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted last summer in a military coup. That makes it unlikely that any nation — except maybe the U.S. — will recognize Lobo if he wins the Nov. 29 election. But as he relaxes in his opulent house near Honduras' capital Tegucigalpa after a day of campaigning, Lobo sounds unfazed. "I practice Taekwondo for serenity," he
Source: BBC
November 21, 2009
Pope Benedict has invited international artists, sculptors, architects, musicians, film directors and even a solitary Italian prima ballerina to meet him under the soaring vaulted ceiling of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel in the Vatican on Saturday to begin a new dialogue between the Catholic Church and the arts.
Five hundred invitations were sent out to leading figures in the arts around the world last September, and more than 250 acceptances have been received at the Vatican.
Source: NYT
November 21, 2009
CAIRO — For years, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri criticized Iran’s supreme leader and argued that the country was not the Islamic democracy it claimed to be, but his words seemed to fall on deaf ears. Now many Iranians, including some former government leaders, are listening.
Ayatollah Montazeri has emerged as the spiritual leader of the opposition, an adversary the state has been unable to silence or jail because of his religious credentials and seminal role in the founding
Source: BBC
November 23, 2009
The first trial at Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal is entering its final week, with lawyers due to give closing arguments after months of testimony.
Kaing Guek Euv, better known as Comrade Duch, ran a prison where thousands of people were tortured and murdered in the late 1970s.
He is accused of crimes against humanity and faces a lifetime prison sentence if convicted.
But the defence is likely to repeat its argument that he was following orders.
Source: Fox News
November 22, 2009
Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the five detainees to be tried in New York would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but "would explain what happened and why they did it."
The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.
Critics of Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try
Source: NYT
November 21, 2009
ISTANBUL — Few here doubt that the case began with something threatening: in June 2007, 27 hand grenades and fuses were found in the attic of a house in an Istanbul slum. Investigators claimed they were stashed there by an ultranationalist retired officer and they were later linked to an elaborate coup plot.
But the question many are asking, inside and outside Turkey, is whether the Islamic-inspired government is exaggerating the threat in order to wage a much larger battle against
Source: AP
November 22, 2009
Leaked British government documents call into question ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair's public statements on the buildup to the Iraq war and show plans for the U.S.-led 2003 invasion were being made more than a year earlier, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Britain's Sunday Telegraph published details of private statements made by senior British military figures claiming plans were in place months before the March 2003 invasion, but were so badly drafted they left troops poorly equipped a
Source: Fox News
November 22, 2009
A stepped-up campaign by Iraq's prime minister against Saddam Hussein loyalists is alienating Sunni Muslims and stoking tensions between them and the majority Shiites ahead of key national elections.
In its latest anti-Baathist attack, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government put three men on state television Sunday to confess their alleged role in planning homicide attacks in Baghdad last month. The three, all in detention and dressed in orange prison jumpsuits,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 20, 2009
Five exotic crocodiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs 100 million years ago, including one sporting boar-like tusks and another with a duckbill snout, have been discovered in the Sahara.
Unlike their modern cousins, the ancient crocodilians were as agile on land as they were in the water.
They were reptiles like the dinosaurs, but belonged to a completely separate lineage that continues to this day.
The crocodiles once ran and swam across present-day
