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
October 25, 2009
JERUSALEM — Israeli police officers clashed Sunday with stone-throwing Palestinians at a site sacred to Muslims and Jews, in the latest sign of tension in this volatile city.
The police said that their forces had entered the Temple Mount compound twice after Palestinians hurled rocks at officers patrolling there, and that they dispersed rioters with stun grenades...
... The Temple Mount, revered by Jews as the site of two ancient temples and by Muslims as the site of t
Source: Discovery News
October 23, 2009
Legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart mostly likely died on an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, according to researchers at The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR).
Tall, slender, blonde and brave, Earhart disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937 in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator. Her final resting place has long been a mystery.
For years, Richard Gillespie,
Source: BBC
October 26, 2009
A rare Jacobean manuscript of a play about women's liberation, which was found in a trunk at a castle, is expected to fetch £90,000 at auction.
The unknown play by Lord Edward Herbert was found during a valuation by auctioneers Bonhams at Powis Castle in Welshpool, Powys.
It is believed the play was to have been performed before James I and his court in 1618, but it was cancelled.
The manuscript of the play, called The Amazon, includes crossings out.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 26, 2009
The archives of Sir Hardy Amies, who dressed the Queen for almost 40 years, are to be opened to the public to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth.
The exhibition will contain material including previously unseen photographs of the Royal Family, sketches, and letters from such clients as Baroness Thatcher and Sir Cecil Beaton, the photographer.
It will also contain unseen drawings of Princess Elizabeth in the year before she was crowned Queen, and sketches of his c
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 26, 2009
Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, was accused by a judge of obstructing the start of his genocide trial at the Hague after he boycotted the hearing.
Karadzic, the political leader during Bosnia's 1992-95 war which left at least 100,000 dead and became notorious in history because of the Srebenica massacre and siege of Sarajevo, refused to attend because he said he needs more time to prepare.
Noting the absence, Mr Kwon adjourned the hearing until Tuesday
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 25, 2009
Camillo Cibin, the former Vatican police chief who was dubbed the pope's "Guardian Angel" for saving the life of John Paul II, has died aged 83.
Cibin famously leapt across the barriers of St Peter's Square to come to the Pope's aid after he was shot by his Turkish assailant, Mehmet Ali Agca, on May 13, 1981.
One year later, Cibin stopped another would-be assassin, a Spanish fundamentalist priest, who tried to stab the pope at the Roman Catholic shrine of Fa
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 26, 2009
Stuart Henderson, a former head of the Lockerbie investigation, has said authorities wanted to speak to eight other potential suspects in connection with the bombing but they were never interviewed.
Mr Henderson, a former detective chief superintendent with Lothian and Borders Police, led the Lockerbie Incident Control Centre from 1988 until 1992.
He contends that a list of people in Libya, all believed to be male, were identified by police investigating the bombing,
Source: AP
October 26, 2009
The company that has exclusive rights to salvage the Titanic is planning a possible expedition to the world's most famous shipwreck in 2010.
The first expedition to the North Atlantic wreck site since 2004 is revealed in a filing by RMS Titanic Inc. in U.S. District Court, where four days of hearings are scheduled to begin Monday on the company's claim for a salvage award.
The 5,900 pieces of china, ship fittings and personal belongings are valued in excess of $110 mill
Source: Edmonton Sun/OpEdNews.com
October 22, 2009
MONTREAL — As George W. Bush joked with a business crowd inside a historic hotel ballroom Thursday, hundreds of people outside the room cheered while he was being burned in effigy.
Police in riot gear and others on horseback held back a crowd of hundreds, including several people who tossed shoes at the Queen Elizabeth hotel in a demonstration of disdain for the man speaking inside...
... Ironically, this anti-war protest took place outside the same hotel where the ulti
Source: Science Daily
October 25, 2009
It has passed as fact among historians, journalists and politicians, and has been recounted everywhere from tourist guidebooks to the floor of the U.S. Congress: British forces used chemical weapons on Iraqis just after World War I.
But that claim has never been fully squared with the historical record, says R. M. Douglas, a historian at Colgate University. According to Douglas's research, forthcoming in the December issue of The Journal of Modern History, no such incident ever occu
Source: BBC
October 25, 2009
The families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing have welcomed moves by police in Scotland to pursue "several potential lines of inquiry".
However, they renewed calls for a public inquiry in to the 1988 atrocity.
The Crown Office - Scotland's prosecuting authority - told relatives of British victims, via e-mail, that a police review of the case had started now that "appeal proceedings were at an end".
It said police were following
Source: Yahoo News
October 25, 2009
NAJAF, Iraq – The graves stretch some 10 miles into the desert, in what may be the largest cemetery in the world.
Near the center lie the older ones, packed closely together in a jumble of tall clay mounds and blue-domed mausoleums. Here is the final resting ground for those killed during Saddam Hussein's brutal regime or in the war against Iran and other cases and causes that date back centuries.
In the outskirts of the cemetery, the city fades into the background and
Source: Time
October 24, 2009
In early October, the Second Maine Militia opened its meeting with the traditional shooting of the televisions. The 50 or so "members" (there are no rolls and no one pays dues) chatted quietly as the blasts rang out. A small cannon was fired into the woods, parting the trees and shaking the windows of the house nearby...
... The purpose of the annual meeting, the same as it has been since the militia started in 1995, was to bring together the politics of left and right ove
Source: NYT
October 24, 2009
The last time California elected a governor from Northern California, John F. Kennedy was president, the San Francisco Giants had just won their first National League pennant, and Gavin Newsom, now San Francisco’s mayor, had not been born. It was 1962 when Gov. Edmund G. Brown won a second term by defeating Richard M. Nixon.
Since then, six Southern Californians have filled the state’s top office: two Hollywood actors, three career politicians and Mr. Brown’s son, Jerry, who was li
Source: NYT
October 24, 2009
WHEN the Dow Jones industrial average climbed back to 10,000 this month, the achievement was widely noted but barely celebrated, and for good reason.
“Haven’t we done this several times before?” asked Edward Yardeni, the economist and investment strategist.
In fact, we had. The Dow had crossed 10,000 on more than 20 occasions, starting in late March 1999, when the market was so hot that stock-picking seemed to have become the national pastime. In that year, the book “Do
Source: NYT
October 23, 2009
LONDON — In a usual week, “Question Time” is a worthy but largely unexciting television production, a late-night panel discussion on the BBC that for 30 years has attracted a modest, pre-bedtime audience.
But on Thursday, it was transformed into the forum for Britain’s most widely anticipated political showdown in decades, drawing 8.2 million viewers, more than three times the program’s usual audience, on a par with the World Cup games played by England’s soccer team and more than
Source: NYT
October 23, 2009
Remember Ida, the fossil discovery announced last May with its own book and television documentary? A publicity blitz called it “the link” that would reveal the earliest evolutionary roots of monkeys, apes and humans.
Experts protested that Ida was not even a close relative. And now a new analysis supports their reaction.
In fact, Ida is as far removed from the monkey-ape-human ancestry as a primate could be, says Erik Seiffert of Stony Brook University in New York.
Source: NYT
October 23, 2009
BERLIN — As thousands lined up to catch a glimpse of Nefertiti at the newly reopened Neues Museum here, another skirmish erupted in the culture wars. Egypt’s chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, announced that his country wanted its queen handed back forthwith, unless Germany could prove that the 3,500-year-old bust of Akhenaten’s wife wasn’t spirited illegally out of Egypt nearly a century ago.
“We’re not treasure hunters,” Mr. Hawass told Spiegel Online. “If it’s proven clearly that
Source: BBC
October 25, 2009
A plaque has been unveiled to workers who were killed or maimed at a wartime munitions factory in south Wales.
At its height in World War II, 32,000 people, three-quarters of them women, worked with high explosives and detonators at Bridgend, with 27 killed.
A ceremony in Bridgend commemorated the tens of thousands of the people from south Wales who worked in the arsenal, and the plaque lists the 27 killed. It was on a huge complex where the headquarters of South Wales
Source: BBC
October 25, 2009
A gold ring found by a metal detector enthusiast in Nottingham is provoking debate among experts.
Paul Hammond unearthed the ring in a field near his Clifton home last summer and handed it over to a local museum for them to investigate its origins.
While the signet ring has been dated to the 17th Century, no-one has been able to identify the elaborate coat of arms it bears.
It has now been declared treasure trove and could go on display in Nottingham.
