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
September 24, 2009
Exceptionally well preserved dinosaur fossils uncovered in north-eastern China display the earliest known feathers.
The creatures are all more than 150 million years old.
The new finds are indisputably older than Archaeopteryx, the "oldest bird" recognised by science. Professor Xu Xing and colleagues tell the journal Nature that this represents the final proof that dinosaurs were ancestral to birds.
The theory th
Source: BBC
September 25, 2009
Two million people are now recognised as being descendants of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, more than tripling the number in the last count.
The announcement was made as the fifth update to Confucius' family tree was unveiled on the 2,560th anniversary of his birth, say Chinese state media.
Last updated in 1937, the book lists all 83 generations of descendents.
For the first time women, ethnic minorities and descendants living overseas have been incl
Source: BBC
September 25, 2009
An Egyptian man has received a $250,000 payout from the FBI because of the way he was treated following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Abdallah Higazy, 38, sued the bureau, saying he had been unjustly criminally charged and imprisoned for 34 days.
He had been accused of lying to investigators about an aviation radio found in his hotel room in New York.
Source: BBC
September 26, 2009
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has denied any deal was done to secure the release of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
In a TV interview with Al Jazeera Colonel Gaddafi said no deal was done and that he now considers the matter to be closed.
Asked about any deal over the release, Col Gaddafi said: "No, no, it is very clear, he had this illness and consequently they were compelled to release him because of this disease. There was no deal or anything e
Source: Fox News
September 26, 2009
Muammar Qaddafi met with at least two of the relatives of the victims of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland at the U.N. Mission to the United Nations in New York this week.
The Libyan leader said it was a "friendly" gathering where he offered his condolences.
A woman whose brother died in the bombing said she and another victim's relative met with the Libyan leader.
Lisa Gibson said she and the other relative met with Qaddaf
Source: CNN
September 26, 2009
More than 80 years after his family was ordered from the country, the grandson of one of the last Ottoman sultans was buried Saturday as hundreds of admirers looked on.
Ertugrul Osman, grandson of Sultan Abdulhamid II and heir to the Ottoman throne, died this week in Istanbul of kidney failure at the age of 97, after having lived most of his life in exile in a humble third-floor walk-up apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Osman's funeral in the garden of the mammo
Source: Yahoo News
September 25, 2009
PARIS – The French official choked on the words he read to a room of Defense Ministry recruits and swallowed back tears as he tried to kick off an unusual program aimed at teaching about the Holocaust.
The reading, from a young girl whose parents were arrested under the Nazi occupation, went straight to the heart of Friday's seminar on French officialdom's role in the Nazi terror.
"There were only French gendarmes. There were no Germans," read Eric Lucas, dire
Source: San Fransisco Gate
September 24, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO -- After years of wrangling over legal procedures, the lawyer for a defunct Islamic charity laid out his case Wednesday that former President George W. Bush's secret wiretapping program was illegal - an argument that an Obama administration attorney refused to discuss.
"May the president of the United States break the law in the name of national security? ... We're asking this court to say, 'no,' " Jon Eisenberg, lawyer for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation,
Source: ABC News
September 25, 2009
In 2001, high school history teacher Matt Rozell began an oral history project. He and his students interviewed family members in the small town of Hudson Falls, N.Y., to capture fading stories of World War II. The students ended up unearthing a forgotten chapter in history.
Near the very end of World War II, on April 13, 1945, the American 30th Infantry Division was pushing its way into central Germany. They found a train carrying nearly 2,500 emaciated Jewish prisoners -- many of
Source: The Daily Beast
September 25, 2009
Five new fossils from northeastern China were found which add weight to the idea that birds descended from dinosaurs. According to The Guardian, the fossils are older than previous discoveries, and date from 151 to 164 million years ago. The specimens all show feathers or feather-like structures, including one fossil that has four wings, lots of plumage, and feathered feet. The discoveries suggest that there may have been a four-wing transition stage between dinos and birds, and will shed light
Source: KansasCity.com
September 24, 2009
Gustavo Mestas walked 57 blocks a day to medical school because he didn't have the money for the bus. He still saved up enough money to buy his daughter a Barbie doll, however, to replace the roomful of dolls she'd left behind in Cuba.
Recounting the story in Georgetown, Del., his daughter, Ileana Smith, chokes up.
"I want you to know that you have had the greatest influence in my life of anyone, and I love you and I respect you and admire you," she tells him,
Source: The Wall Street Journal
September 25, 2009
SEOUL -- For the first time in two years, South and North Korean relatives will meet this weekend in government-arranged reunions, restarting a humanitarian program that underscores the differences between the two Koreas even as it tries to bridge them.
The two sets of three-day reunions, involving several hundred people from both countries, will take place from Saturday to Thursday at a South Korea-built resort at Mount Kumgang, just inside North Korea on the east coast of the two
Source: The Wall Street Journal
September 25, 2009
The figure at the center of Wall Street's latest insider-trading scandal also played a key role in another drama: the daring 1979 rescue of two American hostages held in Iran that was financed and orchestrated by H. Ross Perot.
Reza Saleh, a longtime employee of Mr. Perot's businesses who has lived quietly in Texas for 30 years, was accused by federal regulators Wednesday of making $8.6 million in illicit profits from Dell Inc.'s proposed purchase of Perot Systems Corp.
Source: CNN
September 24, 2009
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Drawing on 2006 remarks in which he compared former U.S. President George Bush to the devil, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking at the United Nations Thursday, said, "It doesn't smell like sulfur anymore."
In a rambling speech at the U.N. General Assembly, Chavez spoke highly of current President Obama, saying he is an "intelligent man" and comparing him to President John F. Kennedy.
"I hope God will protect Obam
Source: Yahoo News
September 24, 2009
MIAMI – Juanita Castro, the exiled sister of Cuban leaders Fidel and Raul Castro, is set to release a first-person memoir in which she talks at length about her brothers.
The more than 400-page book titled: "My Brothers Fidel and Raul. The Secret Story," is set for release Oct. 26. It is co-written by Spanish-language journalist Maria Antoineta Collins and will be published by Santillana USA.
Source: The National Post
September 23, 2009
SHANGHAI -- Beijing is making sure it won't rain on its 60th anniversary parade, but it still won't let anyone come.
Chinese newspapers say even more effort is being made to prevent showers or fog from spoiling the big day on Oct. 1 than was expended to ensure sunshine for the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
The air force is sending up 18 aircraft to chemically "disappear" clouds over the capital and 48 "fog-dispersal vehicles" wi
Source: The National Security Archive
September 24, 2009
The United States harbored serious concerns about the potential involvement of Colombian security forces in the February 2000 massacre at El Salado, an attack that occurred while the two countries were hammering out the final details of the massive military aid package known as Plan Colombia, according to declassified documents posted today on the National Security Archive Web site.
Orchestrated and carried out by paramilitaries from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC),
Source: Thaindian News
September 23, 2009
esearchers have discovered that many pyramids in Mexico were created by the ancient Mayans to create “raindrop” music to communicate with their rain god.
Take for example, Mexico’s El Castillo pyramid in Chichen Itza. As visitors climb the colossal staircase, their footsteps begin to sound like raindrops falling into a bucket of water as they near the top.
The discovery of the raindrop “music” in another pyramid suggests that at least some of Mexico’s pyramids were deli
Source: telegraph.co.uk
September 24, 2009
Mao Xinyu, the 39-year-old sole grandson of the Great Helmsman, was promoted to the post in June, according to the Chongqing Evening News.
Before his elevation, the younger Mao was a colonel. He works as a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, where he specialises in Mao Tse-tung Thought.
Although his promotion has not been widely publicised, Mao Xinyu was introduced at a recent function as a major-general, and is the youngest person to hold such a hig
Source: Trak.in News
September 23, 2009
An archaeological site more than 3330 years old has been found in the Udaranchamadama area in Embilipitiya, Sri Lanka, by a group of local archaeologists.
According to a report in the Daily Mirror Online, the site had been discovered by Professor Raj Somadeva and his team while excavating an area belonging to the Sri Jayabodharama temple in Udaranchamadama.
The ruins of a cemetery had been found earlier in the Pahalaranchamadama school premises and this team believed th
