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
September 6, 2009
CAIRO — Egyptians generally do not make any distinction between Jewish people and Israelis. Israelis are seen as the enemy, so Jews are, too.
Khalid Badr, 40, is pretty typical in that regard, living in a neighborhood of winding, rutted roads in Old Cairo, selling snacks from a kiosk while listening to the Koran on the radio. Asked his feelings about Jews, he replied matter-of-factly. “We hate them for everything they have done to us,” Mr. Badr said, as casually as if he had been as
Source: Seattle Times
September 7, 2009
WALLA WALLA, Wash. —
Pieces of the past are all around us.
Newspapers often refer to themselves as the first draft of history, a sampling of the most important news of the day, every day, day in, day out.
But of course newspapers don't have the market cornered. Another draft of history, a living document no less, can be found in a local title company.
This draft is the history of ownership of local lands.
Pioneer Title Company Pres
Source: BBC
September 7, 2009
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi said any claims for compensation based on Libya's supply of explosives to the IRA would be a matter for the courts.
He told Sky News: "They have their lawyers, we have our lawyers."
It has emerged that Gordon Brown had declined to put formal pressure on Libya for compensation. He has said the UK will support families making claims.
Source: History Today (UK)
September 7, 2009
‘Churchill was more a liability than an asset to the free world’. That was the motion defended, on September 3rd, by Patrick Buchanan, Norman Stone and Nigel Knight at the Methodist Central Hall Westminster.
Buchanan, Stone and Knight failed to convince the 1,700-strong audience. However, they had to a large degree already failed before the debate began. Prior to the debate, a mere 118 voted in favour of the motion; 1167 voted against; and 422 ‘did not know’. Their arguments convinc
Source: New York Daily News
September 5, 2009
Just as a river is considered the lifeblood of any city, within the murky waters of the Hudson flows the history of New York - the great metropolis that began as a little Dutch trading colony named Nieuw Amsterdam.
As New York State gets ready to throw a big birthday bash this week for the "oldest" river in the U.S., the boatload of events and exhibits around town aren't just for commemorating Henry Hudson's discovery 400 years ago - they're a celebration of the city itsel
Source: BBC
September 6, 2009
The bones and skulls of hundreds of people killed in one of Liberia's worst war-time massacres have been buried.
Victims were residents of Kolokpai village, in central Liberia, as well as displaced people who had sought refuge there in September 1994.
The killings were blamed on rival rebel groups that overran the nearby main provincial town of Gbarnga.
The burial, in a mass grave, was organised by a women's group following the discovery of the remains.
Source: BBC
September 6, 2009
A war memorial to those killed since World War II has been unveiled by veterans in Lincolnshire.
It is the first in the country to display the new Elizabeth Cross, introduced by the Queen in July to honour Armed Forces killed in action.
Veterans spent a year raising the £9,000 needed for the memorial and planning the design.
At a ceremony on Sunday wreaths were laid to represent past, present and future lives lost in action.
Source: Inter Press Service
September 3, 2009
WASHINGTON, Sep 3 (IPS) - In support of the official U.S. assertion that Iran is arming its sworn enemy, the Taliban, the head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Dennis Blair, has cited a statement by a Taliban commander last year attributing military success against NATO forces to Iranian military assistance.
But the Taliban commander's claim is contradicted by evidence from the U.S. Defence Department, Canadian forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban itse
Source: Truthout
September 4, 2009
While Republicans are busy gnashing their teeth over President Obama's imminent indoctrination of the nation's schoolchildren, there's an education story bubbling up in Texas that could have considerably more far-reaching consequences.
The GOP-controlled State Board of Education is working on a new set of statewide textbook standards for, among other subjects, U.S. History Studies Since Reconstruction. And it turns out what the board decides may end up having implications far be
Source: MSNBC
September 6, 2009
NEW YORK - The five skyscrapers were all supposed to rise by early next decade to replace the ravaged World Trade Center, with the city's tallest towers set in a spiral evoking the Statue of Liberty's torch.
They would frame a massive memorial in a tree-filled park, plus a theater and a transportation hub with uplifted wings — one of several symbols intended to defy the terrorists who destroyed the 16-acre site in under two hours.
Standing on the site now — a multi-leve
Source: MSNBC
September 6, 2009
WASHINGTON - The new leader responsible for the overhaul of the deteriorating National Mall, with its crumbling sidewalks and dirty water, promises visible improvements within the next year.
It's only been a week since John Piltzecker became superintendent of America's "front yard," but the 25-year park ranger and administrator understands the public outrage over the mall's current condition. Piltzecker, 52, said he'll work to marshal both public and private money to renov
Source: NYT
September 6, 2009
MANCIANO, Italy — Commemorating the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday recalled the “tragedy of the Holocaust” and the deaths of “tens of millions” in the conflict.
Speaking at an outdoor Mass on Sunday in Viterbo, north of Rome, Benedict said: “We cannot forget the major events that took place during one of the most terrible conflicts in history, that left tens of millions dead and provoked so much suffering for our beloved Polish people,” he
Source: The Nation
September 2, 2009
Locals in the sleepy Delta town of Mileston, Mississippi, where King Cotton once reigned supreme, have lately begun to note a resurgence of wild fig trees and blackberry bushes, while creatures like lightning bugs, bees and caterpillars have bounced back after enduring heavy casualties from the harsh pesticides used to combat cotton's archenemy, the boll weevil. Calvin Head, a farmer and local leader, together with a handful of other small farmers in Mileston, a New Deal planned community, sees
Source: Time
September 6, 2009
Not long ago at Fort Bragg, N.C., the country's largest military base, seven soldiers sat in a semi-circle, lights dimmed, eyes closed, two fingertips lightly pressed beneath their belly buttons to activate their "core." Electronic music thumped as the soldiers tried to silence their thoughts, the key to Warrior Mind Training, a form of meditation slowly making inroads on military bases across the country. "This is mental push-ups," Sarah Ernst told the weekly class she leads
Source: Breitbart
September 6, 2009
SINGAPORE, Sept. 6 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Japanese atomic bomb survivors in Singapore as part of a Peace Boat global voyage Sunday categorically opposed calls from some quarters for Japan to become a nuclear weapons state as a deterrence measure.
Retired schoolteacher Shizuko Osaki said at a press conference, "I don't think we should go nuclear way even as a deterrence. It should be abolished altogether."
"Knowing how horrible and inhumane nuclear wars are, we ap
Source: NYT
September 5, 2009
WASHINGTON — Before Congress’s August break, the chief aides to Senate Democrats met in a nondescript Senate conference room with three former advisers to President Bill Clinton. The topic: lessons learned the last time a Democratic president tried, but failed disastrously, to overhaul the health care system.
With the aides as divided as their bosses on President Obama’s signature initiative, their typically tedious weekly session turned hotly spirited. So the Clinton White House ve
Source: NYT
September 5, 2009
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — It took more than four decades to indict a former Alabama state trooper in a 1965 civil rights killing, and getting him to trial is taking years, too.
The former trooper, James B. Fowler, was indicted in May 2007 in the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was shot to death 44 years ago during a civil rights protest in western Alabama.
A trial date for Mr. Fowler seems to be nowhere in sight because of feuding between the prosecutor and the judge.
Source: Russia Today
September 5, 2009
Attempts to belittle Russia’s role in fighting Nazism is unacceptable, said Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrey Nesterenko during his latest regular media briefing.
He also elaborated on Russia–US relations, cooperation with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the Iranian nuclear program, and many other international issues concerning Russia.
RT presents the full transcript of the address.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, good day.
Welcome to our regular br
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 6, 2009
Van Jones, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, has resigned after it emerged that he had signed a petition stating that the Bush administration may have allowed the September 11 attacks to happen as a pretext to go to war. [HNN: Jones says he wasn't aware the petition made this claim.]
The ousting of Van Jones, a Left-wing activist appointed by Mr Obama as his "special adviser for green jobs", is a victory for Republicans and a sign of growing weakness within the
Source: Russia Today
August 21, 2009
Russian diplomats have been invited for the first time to commemorate the last war between Russia and Sweden.
The Russian delegation visited the place where the final shots of the Russian-Swedish war of 1808-1809 rang out, and laid flowers on Russian soldiers’ graves.
Aleksandr Kadakin, the Russian ambassador to Sweden, said that the end of the war marked the beginning of fruitful bilateral cooperation between the two countries.
