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
August 19, 2009
When former President Corazon C. Aquino died this month, Filipinos filled the streets in mourning and in celebration of the golden moment in 1986 when she led them in a peaceful uprising that some called a revolution.
The nation’s dictator, Ferdinand E. Marcos, had fled as masses of people faced down his tanks, and democracy was restored after 20 years of repressive rule. Mrs. Aquino, the opposition leader who became president, ushered in wide-ranging political reforms.
Source: ABC
August 19, 2009
Almost all Chicagoans have heard of the Fort Dearborn Massacre. But very few of us have ever heard of Ensign George Ronan.
Ronan was a hero of that battle in the War of 1812, and now, a Chicago historian wants recognition for that forgotten man.
In this age of political correctness, the Fort Dearborn Massacre is now referred to as the Battle of Fort Dearborn. And at 18th and Prairie along the lakefront, a new historical marker tells the story of how 91 people - soldie
Source: BBC
August 18, 2009
Palaeontologists have drawn with ink extracted from a preserved fossilised squid uncovered during a dig in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.
The fossil, thought to be 150 million years old, was found when a rock was cracked open, revealing the one-inch-long black ink sac.
The find was made at a site which was first excavated in Victorian times where thousands of Jurassic fossils with preserved soft tissues were found.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 20, 2009
French anti-war campaigners have desecrated a statue of Winston Churchill in central Paris on the anniversary of the city's liberation from Nazi rule.
The night time attack saw the bronze hands of the £250,000 statue daubed in red paint.
The initials RH were also daubed on the statue, perhaps a reference to Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, who flew to Britain at the height of the Second World War to allegedly try and make peace.
Instead, Churchill had h
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 20, 2009
Skulls and bones of Japanese who died during the Second World War are being kept at the University of California Berkeley in violation of the Geneva Conventions, according to a report.
The university's anthropology department is under pressure to return the remains of the Japanese soldiers and civilians, which were reportedly taken by a US navy doctor from the island of Saipan in 1945, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle. The bones are now being stored in an underg
Source: Foxnews
August 20, 2009
Vice president jokes about former administration during a fundraising dinner when he responded to a suggestion that President Bush leaned heavily on Vice President Cheney for guidance.
Joe Biden knows who wears the pants in the White House — and apparently it isn't him.
Biden, known for his often embarrassing off-the-cuff remarks, was at the $1,000-a-plate event to rally support for Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson — who didn't hold back with his own quips at Biden's expen
Source: CNN
August 20, 2009
Victims' family members and advocates are grieving anew as the only man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland -- which killed 270 people -- was released Thursday from a British prison.
Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, 57, sick with advanced prostate cancer, was released on compassionate grounds and sent home to Libya to die, Scottish authorities said. Megrahi, who prosecutors said was a Libyan intelligence agent, was convicted in 2001 of placin
Source: Deutsche Welle
August 19, 2009
Though not widely known, it was never really a secret that the Nazis
ran brothels in many concentration camps. But never has there been as
comprehensive an account of the fact as in a new book by a German
researcher.
"Das KZ Bordell" (The Concentration Camp Brothel) has been hailed as
the first comprehensive account of a little-known chapter of Nazi
oppression during World War Two.
Robert Sommer’s 460-page book is the result of four years of
painstaking resear
Source: The Wall Street Journal
August 20, 2009
There's a new battle under way for control of the Alamo -- and just like the Texas legend, neither side shows any sign of surrender.
For more than a century, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas -- nearly 7,000 women who trace their pedigrees back to the origins of the Texas Republic -- have had total control of the Alamo, the state's most revered historic site. They maintain what's left of the old mission, manage its historic exhibits and run the gift shop. They don't charge admi
Source: BBC
August 20, 2009
Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, 57, was jailed in 2001 for the atrocity which claimed 270 lives in 1988.
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill revealed that the Libyan, who has terminal prostate cancer, would be allowed to return to his homeland.
The US government said it"deeply regretted" the Scottish Government's decision to release Megrahi.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
August 20, 2009
Scotland is likely to release the terminally ill Libyan agent convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, people familiar with the matter say, despite the protests of victims' families and the public opposition of the U.S. government.
The convicted bomber, Abdel Baset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, who has prostate cancer, will be released on compassionate grounds, one of the people said...
Source: Reuters (blog)
August 18, 2009
Steve Hanke and Alex Kwok just published a paper calculating last year’s hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, when “conventional inflation measures were not available.” Their conclusion is that in mid-November, prices were doubling every day. That means Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation ranks second worst in world history.
Source: BBC
August 19, 2009
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has visited Hungary for festivities marking the 20th anniversary of the opening of its borders to the non-communist West.
The decision paved the way for the fall of the Berlin Wall three months later.
The open Hungarian border with Austria allowed hundreds of people to leave communist Eastern Europe.
The event was called the "Pan-European Picnic". Mrs Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, thanked Hungarian
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
August 19, 2009
French anti-war campaigners have desecrated a statue of Winston Churchill in Paris on the anniversary of the death of Rudolf Hess.
They daubed the statue's hands in red paint to signify blood and scrawled the initials RH on the plinth.
It has been 22 years since the death of Adolf Hitler's deputy, who flew to Britain at the height of the Second World War, allegedly to try to make peace.
Prime minister Churchill had him thrown in prison in 1941 and the wa
Source: Yahoo News
August 19, 2009
A prehistoric runway for flying pterosaurs has been discovered for the first time.
Scientists uncovered the first known landing tracks of one of these extinct flying reptiles at a site dubbed "Pterosaur Beach," in the fine-grained limestone deposits of an ancient lagoon in southwestern France dating back some 140 million years ago to the Late Jurassic.
The footprints suggest the pterosaur - a "pterodactyloid" with a wingspan roughly three feet wide (
Source: Reuters (India)
August 17, 2009
Work to build a subway line through Algeria's capital has given archaeologists a chance to uncover traces of their country's ancient history that they thought had been erased by French colonial rule.
When engineers closed off part of Algiers' bustling Martyrs' Square to build an underground railway station, archaeologists seized the opportunity to investigate the site and, beneath layers of concrete, found a 5th century basilica.
They also found Ottoman-era metal forges
Source: NYT
August 18, 2009
For the first time, a building block of proteins — and hence of life as we know it — has been found in a comet.
That adds to the prevailing notion that many of the ingredients for the origin of life showered down on the early Earth when asteroids (interplanetary rocks orbiting the inner solar system) and comets (dirty ice balls that generally congregate in the outer solar system beyond Neptune) made impact with the planet.
In the new research, scientists at the Goddard
Source: NYT
August 18, 2009
... Spending two days with Agent Bernardino’s 21-member threat squad, known as Counterterrorism 6, or CT-6, offered a rare window on the daily workings of an F.B.I. transformed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The bureau now ranks fighting terrorism as its No. 1 priority. It has doubled the number of agents assigned to counterterrorism duties to roughly 5,000 people, and has created new squads across the country that focus more on deterring and disrupting terrorism than on solving crimes...
Source: BBC
August 19, 2009
She said it would be "absolutely wrong" for the Scottish Government to release Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi or transfer him to jail in his homeland of Libya.
Megrahi, dying from terminal prostate cancer aged 57, dropped his second appeal against conviction on Tuesday.
Some 189 Americans were among the 270 people killed in the airliner bombing.
Source: Times (UK)
August 19, 2009
A letter from Neville Chamberlain now on display at the Imperial War Museum, London, demonstrates how unfit he was to lead Britain during the Second World War, a historian said.
A pocket diary owned by Chamberlain, also included in the exhibition on the outbreak of war 70 years ago, even shows how he incorrectly entered “War declared” on September 4, 1939, before scribbling over the words and rewriting them under September 3.
The documents shed light on the thinking o
