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: Deutsche Welle
August 24, 2009
With its most modern airplanes flying in formation overhead, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko deliverd a speech in Independence Square where he said that Ukraine needed strong institutions to ward of threats to its future prosperity.
"I choose a strong state, strength and dignity, to put in their place not only our local feudals but also foreign overlords who want to set down how we should live," said Yushchenko during his 25-minute address. He also added that, "
Source: Independent (UK)
August 25, 2009
Gordon Brown said today he was "angry" and "repulsed" at the reception given to the freed Lockerbie bomber in Libya - but still declined to say if he agreed with the decision to release him.
The Prime Minister insisted the British Government had "no role" in the decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi on compassionate grounds, but went on to say that his determination to fight terror remained "absolute".
He also dis
Source: Guardian (UK)
August 25, 2009
1974 was a terrible year for Manchester, with United relegated to the second division for the first time in four decades and power cuts forced by the three-day week declared by Edward Heath's collapsing Tory government.
But the city would have been even more jittery had it known that in Moscow Soviet generals were eyeing the A56 between Deansgate and Stretford and checking that T-72 battle tanks could use the Mancunian Way.
Leaving nothing to chance, maps for an armoure
Source: Times (UK)
August 25, 2009
A New Jersey town with a bitter experience of terrorism is in uproar at the prospect of Muammar Gaddafi pitching his air-conditioned tent there during his first visit to the United States.
The Libyan leader is considering making his Bedouin camp in the garden of a Libyan-owned mansion in Englewood, next door to a Jewish school and a famous rabbi, when he travels to New York to address the UN General Assembly on September 23.
Officials in the wealthy commuter town, 23
Source: BBC
August 25, 2009
North and South Korea are to hold talks on reuniting families divided by war in the 1950s, officials in Seoul say.
The programme, organised by the Red Cross, was suspended more than a year ago as inter-Korean relations soured.
The announcement that talks will resume this week is being seen as another sign of a thaw, correspondents say.
It follows North Korean envoys meeting South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Seoul ahead of the funeral of former leade
Source: BBC
August 25, 2009
Seventy years after the end of the civil war in 1939 in which more than 350,000 people were killed, Spain is still divided over how to deal with what the country calls its "historical memory".
Many people, especially the older generation, say that it has been so long since the war took place that now it is time to forget.
However, those related to victims of the Franco era, and the younger generation, say that it is necessary to know about the events of that
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 25, 2009
Much of our knowledge about Ancient Egypt comes from the elite’s tombs, the decoration of which was intended to ensure their smooth passage into the next life.
The tombs were not designed to be visited regularly by thousands of people.
Their burial chambers were meant to be sealed off for eternity, and any offering chapels which remained accessible above ground were to be visited only by surviving relatives and priests.
The extremely arid Egyptian climat
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 25, 2009
Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's Justice Secretary, who freed the Lockerbie bomber, has promised to publish all the submissions and evidence he received prior to making his decision.
His officials are writing to all those who made submissions and representations, including the British Government, asking for permission to make public the information.
There has been speculation, prompted by the Libyans, that the bomber was released as part of a trade pact agreed by Gordon Br
Source: BBC
August 23, 2009
A village is holding a memorial service to mark the 65th anniversary of an RAF Wellington bomber crashing into the river, killing four crew members.
The crew were on a training night flight over the Irish Sea when they had engine trouble and ditched into the Teifi near Cenarth, Ceredigion.
Local historian Graham Elliott, BEM, researched many of the details and is in contact with the two survivors.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 22, 2009
Sunday is the 64th anniversary of the crash that killed the crew of the 356 Squadron Liberator KL654 while on a resupply sortie over Negeri Sembilan in central Malaya.
Japan had announced its surrender only eight days earlier and part of the crew’s mission was to search for prisoners of war still held in camps in the jungle.
The site of the crash was first discovered in the 1950s and reported to the authorities, but no action was taken. Another appeal was made in 1970
Source: Observer (UK)
August 23, 2009
British scientists are to begin work on a revolutionary project to record three-dimensional models of world heritage sites so that they can be re-created if they fall victim to climate change, natural disaster, war or terrorism.
The team of six – from Historic Scotland and the Glasgow School of Art – will team up next month with an American company, CyArk, to shoot laser beams at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, creating a 3D model accurate to within 3mm, digitally preserving the car
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
August 24, 2009
Survivors of the 2002 Bali bombings are devastated over plans to build a new nightclub at the site in the tourist district of Kuta.
Indonesian businessman Kadek Wiranatha, who took out a 30-year-lease on the site of the Sari Club last year, says he plans to build a nightclub and restaurant there.
His proposal opposes plans to lay out a 'peace park' in memory of the 202 that died in the attack.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
August 25, 2009
A few months ago, Obama administration officials were sounding the alarm about another 1929. These days, it's 1937 that has them in a sweat.
The Great Depression was W-shaped. The stock-market collapse led to a steep economic decline. But by 1933, the economy had rebounded. Then a series of monetary and fiscal blunders drove the country back into a deep recession at the end of 1937.
That episode is at the heart of the debate over how quickly the government and the U.S.
Source: The Washington Post
August 24, 2009
President Obama has approved the creation of an elite team of interrogators to question key terrorism suspects, part of a broader effort to revamp U.S. policy on detention and interrogation, senior administration officials said Sunday.
Obama signed off late last week on the unit, named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. Made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the interrogation unit will be housed at the FBI but will be overseen b
Source: AP
August 24, 2009
Scottish legislators gathered Monday for an emergency meeting on the government's decision to release the Lockerbie bomber as critics claimed the act could severely damage relations with the United States...
... "I understand the huge and strongly held views of the American families, but that's not all the families who were affected by Lockerbie," Salmond told the BBC. "A number of the families, particularly in the U.K., take a different view and think that we made th
Source: Truthout
August 23, 2009
Richmond, Kentucky - Behind armed guards in bulletproof booths deep in the Kentucky woods, workers have begun pouring the foundations for a $3-billion complex designed to destroy America's last stockpile of deadly chemical weapons.
The aging arsenal at the Blue Grass Army Depot contains 523 tons of liquid VX and sarin -- lethal nerve agents produced during the Cold War -- and mustard, a blister agent that caused horrific casualties in World War I...
... About a third o
Source: NYT
August 24, 2009
The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.
The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Depar
Source: Times (UK)
August 23, 2009
The alleged crimes and abuses carried out under the Bush Administration will take centre stage today with the release of a report detailing brutal CIA interrogations, a document that could trigger criminal investigations later this week.
The 2004 report, which has been suppressed until now, documents in grim detail interrogations of terror suspects at secret CIA “black site” prisons between 2002 and 2004, including mock executions, such as threatening a prisoner with a gun and powe
Source: Times (UK)
August 24, 2009
Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, is writing his autobiography to “proclaim his innocence” by disclosing new information behind Britain’s deadliest terrorist attack, The Times has learnt.
Abdurrhman Swessi, Colonel Gaddafi’s official envoy to Scotland, disclosed yesterday that al-Megrahi was working on a book that would detail his life behind bars and reveal all he knows about the bombing in 1988 of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people.
The freed b
Source: BBC
August 24, 2009
In the third of a series of articles marking the outbreak of World War II 70 years ago, the BBC Russian Service's Andrei Ostalski analyses media coverage of the events that led to conflict.
On 21 August 1939 the Soviet government newspaper Izvestiya published a short article entitled On Soviet-German Relations in its middle pages, between pieces on the development of Soviet agriculture and the legal system.
Just a few lines in length, it was to have the effect of an ex
