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
October 18, 2009
A Rwandan doctor suspended from his job in a French hospital last week after a nurse discovered he was wanted for genocide has protested his innocence.
Eugene Rwamucyo, who has been wanted by Interpol since 2006, said that he was a victim of injustice.
The authorities in Rwanda allege Dr Rwamucyo committed war crimes during the 1994 genocide.
The director of the hospital in the northern French town of Maubeuge said the whole community was in shock.
Source: BBC
October 18, 2009
Museum officials in Thailand have covered a billboard depicting Adolf Hitler saluting after complaints from the German and Israeli embassies.
The advertisement, which reads in Thai, "Hitler is not dead," was set up on a main road out of Bangkok two weeks ago.
The billboard was covered up after the museum received "a lot" of complaints, director Somporn Naksuetrong said.
The series of highway advertisements featuring famous dead people
Source: CNN
October 18, 2009
One of President Obama's top advisers said Sunday the Bush administration failed to ask critical questions about the war in Afghanistan, leaving the Obama administration starting from scratch -- and leaving the war "adrift."
"The president is asking the questions that have never been asked on the civilian side, the political side, the military side and the strategic side," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN's "State of the Union."
Source: The New Nixon
October 17, 2009
According to the Associated Press, tens of thousands are expected to visit the White House this weekend to tour the estate’s gardens and experience a rare glimpse of the “fragrant roses, blue salvias and towering, decades-old trees that beautify the president’s back yard.” The tour includes the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, the Rose Garden, the South Lawn, and the Children’s Garden — where visitors can see the handprints and footprints of Presidential grandchildren from Lyndon Baines Johnson to Geo
Source: Time
October 16, 2009
To understand the state of bullfighting in Spain's northeastern Catalonia region, you need look no further than Las Arenas. The striking, late-19th century arena with faux Moorish arches, located near Barcelona's central Plaza de Espa&ncirc;a, once pulled in thousands of bullfighting aficionados for the traditional — and gory — Sunday corrida (the Spanish word for "bullfight"). Today, it is being converted into a shopping mall.
After decades of both intense anti-bullf
Source: NYT
October 17, 2009
BANGKOK (Agence France-Presse) — About 17,000 people rallied in here on Saturday to demand that the Thai government move forward with a petition for a royal pardon for former Primer Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in 2006.
Thai authorities deployed 2,000 police officers and invoked a harsh internal security law to ensure that the rally in front of the government offices did not turn violent.
The demonstrators, known as “red shirts,” want the government to sp
Source: NYT
October 17, 2009
MOSCOW — Nearly two decades after the collapse of the Communist Party, Russia’s rulers have hit upon a model for future success: the Communist Party.
Or at least, the one that reigns next door.
Like an envious underachiever, Vladimir V. Putin’s party, United Russia, is increasingly examining how it can emulate the Chinese Communist Party, especially its skill in shepherding China through the financial crisis relatively unbowed.
United Russia’s leaders even
Source: McClatchy
October 9, 2009
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is trying to prevent the Obama administration from holding criminal trials in civilian courts for the alleged Sept. 11 plotters instead of bringing them before military commissions.
Graham, who helped craft the 2006 law that established the military commissions, said Friday that he'd attached an amendment to an appropriations bill that would prohibit the Obama administration from spending money on the prosecution and trial of the accused t
Source: WSJ
October 14, 2009
PARIS -- The word on the table that morning was "cloud computing."
To translate the English term for computing resources that can be accessed on demand on the Internet, a group of French experts had spent 18 months coming up with "informatique en nuage," which literally means "computing in cloud."
France's General Commission of Terminology and Neology -- a 17-member group of professors, linguists, scientists and a former ambassador -- was g
Source: Daily News (NY)
October 12, 2009
A firefighter and two cops who worked at Ground Zero in the days and weeks after Sept. 11 have died of cancer in the past five days, the Daily News has learned.
Family members and advocates are blaming their deaths on toxins released into the air after the twin towers collapsed - and they're urging Congress to act on a bill that would help pay for their medical care.
Source: WSJ
October 19, 2009
LONDON -- The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court long have been Anglophiles, routinely turning to antique English cases to help decide issues from gun rights to terrorism.
The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist had gold stripes stitched into his robe to emulate the British Lord Chancellor's costume in a Gilbert and Sullivan opera.
Now, the Mother Country is following the lead of its offspring. This month, the U.K. replaced its Law Lords -- a committee of noblemen that
Source: Time
October 15, 2009
There is a long tradition of sitting Presidents courting, relying on and even plotting with their predecessors, and the latest chapter is set to unfold Friday afternoon when former President George Herbert Walker Bush, accompanied by former Secretary of State James Baker, greets Barack Obama as he steps off a Marine Corps helicopter in College Station, Texas.
At Bush's invitation, the 44th Commander in Chief is paying a long-planned visit to the home of Bush's presidential library t
Source: Google News
October 15, 2009
BERLIN — Berlin's Neues Museum, boasting ancient treasures such as a famous bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti and a magnificent Bronze Age golden hat, is finally reopening to the public after standing for decades as a bomb-damaged shell.
The museum is being inaugurated Friday by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and opens its doors to the public Saturday. That will mark the first time since World War II that the whole of Berlin's neoclassical Museum Island complex, a UNESCO World H
Source: Yahoo News
October 16, 2009
ATLANTA – A key Southern Baptist official has apologized for comparing proposals to overhaul the nation's health care system with Nazism.
Richard Land is president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports he also apologized for bestowing a "Josef Mengele Award" on President Barack Obama's chief health care adviser.
Mengele was a Nazi doctor who conducted cruel experiments at the Auschwitz death c
Source: AlphaGalileo
October 16, 2009
Archaeologists surveying the world’s oldest submerged town have found ceramics dating back to the Final Neolithic. Their discovery suggests that Pavlopetri, off the southern Laconia coast of Greece, was occupied some 5,000 years ago — at least 1,200 years earlier than originally thought.
These remarkable findings have been made public by the Greek government after the start of a five year collaborative project involving the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry
Source: Politico
October 15, 2009
There’s nothing more traditional in American politics than the wholesome family portrait: a beaming candidate, beaming spouse, reluctantly beaming teenagers.
But when Bill de Blasio, a candidate for public office in New York City this fall, put his family in his campaign mailings and TV ads, there was nothing routine about it. De Blasio’s wife of 15 years, Chirlane McCray, is black, his children are of mixed race and, even in one of America’s most liberal cities, no one could rememb
Source: NYT
October 16, 2009
FOR nearly two decades, the Communist Party strove to wipe out the national memory of Zhao Ziyang, the reform-minded party secretary who opposed the use of force against pro-democracy protesters in 1989.
So when a former aide of Mr. Zhao’s, Du Daozheng, disclosed in May that he had helped secretly record Mr. Zhao’s memoir for posthumous publication, Mr. Du’s daughter refused to let him walk outside alone for fear of possible repercussions.
She need not have worried. On
Source: Daily News (Sri Lanka)
October 15, 2009
Archaeological excavations have unearthed remains of ancient human settlements in Vadamarachchi East area, Archaeology Director General, Dr. Senarath Dissanayake said.
"We have found evidence of three old human settlements in these areas. They have spread over an area covering nearly three kilometres and are vitally important to prove the historical background of Jaffna peninsula", he said...
... Archaeologists believe that Kandarodaya belongs to ironic age a
Source: EveningStar24
October 15, 2009
A BRONZE Age burial site has been unearthed by archaeologists excavating the former home of a Suffolk rugby club.
The two fields which served as the home of Sudbury Rugby Club in nearby Great Cornard are the source of great excitement for a team of archaeologists working at the site.
Since moving into the site off The Mead in July teams from Suffolk County Council's Archaeological Service have discovered a haul of artefacts dating back to around 3,000 BC.
T
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 17, 2009
The question has split the world of broadcasting and divided opinion across the country: should the BBC have invited the far-right British National Party to take part in this week's edition of Question Time, its flagship panel programme?
Views are polarised. While supporters of the decision say that it is the price Britain pays for free speech, and that the BBC has a duty to reflect a broad range of opinion, opponents have condemned the Corporation for offering the party an opportu
