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: Telegraph (UK)
October 16, 2009
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said the Government will appeal against the ruling, which came despite his warnings that publication would be a major threat to British national security.
Mr Miliband had told the court that publishing the secret intelligence could jeopardise British-US relations and lead to the American authorities to downgrade their intelligence-sharing with the UK.
Rejecting that argument, the court said there was "overwhelming" publ
Source: Times (UK)
October 16, 2009
Two Libyan officials could be charged with involvement in the shooting dead of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, according to a legal assessment of evidence which has been seen by police and prosecutors.
The 150-page review names the men, who were attached to the Libyan People’s Bureau in London in 1984 at the time WPC Fletcher was killed in a burst of automatic gunfire from inside the building.
They did not have diplomatic immunity when the shooting happened at the Libyan Embassy
Source: Times (UK)
October 16, 2009
Strong, regal, confident (but not obviously amused): a self-portrait by Queen Victoria never shown in public before reveals how one of history’s more misunderstood monarchs really saw herself.
The sketch, which is to be exhibited next year, is from her personal sketchbook and shows the young Queen in her gown before a costume ball at Buckingham Palace in 1845.
Rather than the dowdy widow of popular recollection, it shows a woman who was fond of music, art and dancing,
Source: Reuters
October 16, 2009
During his presidency, Bill Clinton met prize-winning historian Taylor Branch 79 times in the White House to record a secret diary of his time in office.
The result is "The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President", a new book that presents a fresh view of key events such as Clinton's handling of the economy and deficit, the rise of al Qaeda and the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Since the Watergate scandal brought down Richard Nixon presidents have been
Source: BBC
October 16, 2009
The earliest human figure to be found in Scotland is to go on temporary display at Edinburgh Castle.
The Orkney Venus, which was discovered a few weeks ago, is a 5,000-year-old female carving which has the UK's first known depiction of a person's face.
It will be exhibited for a fortnight from Monday.
Historic Scotland said children would be given free entry to the castle during the exhibition, which ends on Sunday 1 November.
Source: BBC
October 16, 2009
A 13-foot statue of William Wallace that infuriated historians because of its likeness to actor Mel Gibson, has been returned to its creator.
The 12-tonne gold sandstone piece had stood at the Wallace Monument in Stirling for more than 10 years.
However, it was removed last year to make way for a new visitor centre.
Source: BBC
October 16, 2009
The reunion programme began in the year 2000, but since then, only a fraction of the tens of thousands of Koreans on the waiting list have so far been allowed to take part.
Last month, after a two-year gap, the latest meeting of relatives from opposite sides of the border was held in the North Korean tourist resort at Mount Kumgang.
Just 200 families, 100 from each side, were given the chance to see their long-lost loved ones for the first time in more than half a cen
Source: BBC
October 16, 2009
The Court of Bosnia and Hercegovina has sentenced a former Bosnian Serb army officer to 30 years in prison for his part in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
Milorad Trbic had taken part in a plan to capture, detain, execute and bury all able-bodied Muslim men in the town with "genocidal intent", judges ruled.
In all, as many as 8,000 men and boys were killed by Serb forces towards the end of the three-year war in Bosnia.
The court has already jailed
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 16, 2009
A New York exhibition has stripped back the concrete jungle that makes up the Big Apple to reveal the literal jungle that was the city 400 years ago.
Entitled the Mannahatta Project, these images show what Manhattan Island must have looked like in 1609, when the English explorer Henry Hudson first sailed up the river that now bears his name.
Using CGI technology, the team behind the Mannahatta natural history project can now pin point any area of Manhattan's 22 square
Source: NYT
October 16, 2009
WASHINGTON — Is the Central Intelligence Agency covering up some dark secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy?
Probably not. But you would not know it from the C.I.A.’s behavior.
For six years, the agency has fought in federal court to keep secret hundreds of documents from 1963, when an anti-Castro Cuban group it paid clashed publicly with the soon-to-be assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The C.I.A. says it is only protecting legitimate secrets. But because of the
Source: CNN
February 16, 2009
The world may soon know for sure where Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca rests after fascists executed him in 1936 during Spain's Civil War.
Officials in southern Spain Friday cleared the last legal hurdle to permit exhuming a mass grave site in a village near Granada where Lorca and some other Civil War victims are thought to be buried, CNN partner station CNN+ reported.
The area has been fenced off for weeks as scientists conducted preparatory work.
Source: CNN
October 16, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that President Bush's administration was "unrealistic" in its dealings with the war in Afghanistan.
Clinton told CNN the Bush administration was unrealistic both in terms of the number of U.S. soldiers it committed to the conflict and in its relationship with certain Afghan political leaders.
The war was "under resourced" since its start in 2001, she said, and she indicated the Bush administration's atte
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 15, 2009
Files released this week revealed the jokes were collected from letters steamed open by agents, from spies on the ground and wiretapped phone calls.
The gags were scrupulously collected and filed and dispatched to Bonn, much to the delight of civil servants.
"It was our biggest hit among our superiors," said one unnamed BND spy. "The Chancellery and the ministries couldn't wait for the file to have a laugh at those on the other side."
B
Source: Azzaman.com
October 14, 2009
Iraqi diplomats in Germany have stopped the sale of 28 Mesopotamian artifacts believed to have been smuggled from the country in the years since the 2003-U.S. invasion.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has asked the Iraqi embassy in Germany to appoint a lawyer and launch a lawsuit to have the artifacts returned to Iraq.
Under an Iraqi law issued in 2007, Iraqi envoys in foreign countries are required to report on the exhibition of Mesopotamian artifacts or their auctioni
Source: Toledo Blade
October 14, 2009
MONROE - A former industrial site near East Elm Avenue and North Dixie Highway has produced hard evidence about fighting that occurred in 1813 at the Battle of the River Raisin.
Musket balls, metal buttons from military uniforms, and other artifacts have been unearthed in archaeological digs on the War of 1812 battlefield, which has been identified for development into a national park.
Not much research has been done south of the Raisin River in Monroe, where U.S. troop
Source: Secrecy News
October 15, 2009
A 1957 scientific paper on astrophysics by the late Alistair G.W. Cameron has the unusual quality of being both historically significant and very hard to obtain. A scanned copy of the paper has recently been posted online. Known to specialists as CRL-41 (for Chalk River Laboratory paper number 41), the proper title is "Stellar Evolution, Nuclear Astrophysics and Nucleogenesis" (large pdf).
The paper is a milestone in the field
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
October 13, 2009
Patrick McGovern had just emerged from the ancient burial chamber in one of the most extensively excavated archaeological sites in China when a local scientist presented him with what he calls "the real treasure."
It was a sealed bronze drinking vessel that resembled a teapot from 1200 B.C.
With liquid still inside.
"I just about dropped over - a liquid sample from 3,000 years ago," said McGovern, a researcher at the University of Pennsy
Source: Yahoo News
October 15, 2009
CAIRO (Reuters) – Archaeologists have unearthed the site of a pharaonic-era sacred lake in a temple to the Egyptian goddess Mut in the ruins of ancient Tanis, the Culture Ministry said on Thursday.
The ministry said the lake, found 12 meters below ground at the San al-Hagar archaeological site in Egypt's eastern Nile Delta, was 15 meters long and 12 meters wide and built out of limestone blocks. It was in a good condition.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 14, 2009
A prescription for a sleeping drug given to Adolf Hitler's Nazi deputy Rudolph Hess when he was a prisoner in the Tower of London is to be sold at auction.
The prescription was made by pharmacist H A Rowe who dispensed the potassium bromide and choral hydrate draught ''with flavouring'' to Hess in 1941.
It refers to 'Herr Rudolph Hess, Deputy Fuhrer, Luftwaffe' who had flown to Britain in an unauthorised attempt to negotiate a peace treaty in the Second World War.
Source: Edmonton Journal (Canada)
October 15, 2009
An archeologist has discovered an intact 2,000-year-old campsite in Rossdale flats, with enough detail to even guess at the recipe the ancient people used in their soup.
The black circle of ash, scattered bison bone fragments and chipped rock doesn't count as a major scientific discovery, said Gareth Spicer, principal archeologist with Calgary-based Turtle Island Cultural Resource Management. But the site has enough diverse elements to tell a story about the lives of a small group o
