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
July 29, 2009
A notorious criminal in Bosnia, deemed a national security threat, has gone on the run from prison in the central town of Zenica.
The man, Karray Kamel bin Ali, also known as Abu Hamza, was serving a four-year sentence for armed robbery and domestic violence.
Bin Ali, who was born in Tunisia, was previously suspected of plotting to kill the late Pope John Paul II.
Source: The Daily Beast
July 28, 2009
There are, apparently, no birthers in the House of Representatives: Salon reports that the House unanimously passed a resolution on Monday affirming that Hawaii is, in fact, the birthplace of President Obama. Introduced by Rep. Neil Abercrombie, Democrat of Hawaii, as part of a measure commemorating the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's statehood, Greg Sargent at The Plum Line described the resolution as confronting "House GOPers with a choice: They can vote for the measure, and endorse the idea
Source: Politico.com
July 28, 2009
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the police officer who arrested him will meet with President Barack Obama at the White House at 6 p.m. Thursday, a senior administration official said.
The White House was anxious to resolve the issue so it would quit dominating the news. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told “Fox News Sunday” that officials hoped to “get that done in the next several days.”
The charge of disorderly conduct was dropped by the Cambridge
Source: http://fredericksburg.com
July 28, 2009
Barely four hours before the public was to be heard yesterday on a proposal to build a Wal-Mart in the Wilderness battlefield area, Orange County officials canceled the hearing because of a technicality.
Wal-Mart personnel found that one of two legally required notices advertising a May 21 public hearing before the county Planning Commission had not been published by the local weekly newspaper. County officials were notified of the problem yesterday morning and decided to cancel la
Source: BBC
July 28, 2009
Ukrainian investigators say they have found skull fragments believed to be those of the journalist, Georgiy Gongadze, who was decapitated in 2000.
The find came just days after the arrest of a former Ukrainian general suspected of carrying out the murder.
Mr Gongadze was an investigative journalist who had exposed high-level corruption. He was an outspoken critic of former President Leonid Kuchma.
Three policemen were convicted of his murder last year.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 27, 2009
Germany's far-right NPD Party is on a collision course with the government over plans to build a museum celebrating the Third Reich's "Strength Through Joy" movement, which organised leisure activities for the masses.
Jürgen Rieger, the vice-president of the party that seeks to ban all immigration and sever all ties with the EU, has submitted plans to authorities in Wolfsburg - home to car giant Volkswagen - for the museum intended to "show the people what this organ
Source: Times (UK)
July 28, 2009
The Queen is skipping today’s celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Britain’s oldest colony after a row with the island’s pro-independence leader.
Bermuda is commemorating the shipwreck on July 28, 1609, of the Sea Venture, the flagship of a fleet sent to resupply the Jamestown colony in America.
Sailors, including the crew of the visiting Royal Navy destroyer HMS Manchester, will re-enact the 150 settlers rowing ashore on what is now St Catherine
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 27, 2009
An extremely rare copy of Mein Kampf, signed by author Adolf Hitler and dedicated to a fellow inmate at Landsberg prison, is being sold at auction.
The red cloth book is thought to be one of only a handful of pre-publication copies given to the Nazi dictator in 1925.
Translated as "My Struggle", Hitler dedicated the political manifesto to fellow Nazi, Georg Maurer.
A lucid black scrawled inscription reads, "Herrn Johann Georg Maurer. In memo
Source: Caberra Times
July 27, 2009
Archaeologists have uncovered the ancient remains of a young man in northern Vietnam who could be the oldest known paraplegic in the world.
The discovery has astounded researchers, showing the long-term survival of a man with a severe disability in a community where almost 50 per cent of people died before they turned five.
Source: Arkansas Democrat Gazette
July 27, 2009
National Park Service officials hope the recent conviction of a Russellville couple for violating a federal law will serve as a lesson to those who traipse across public land seeking a piece of history to take home.
The Archeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 prohibits digging up, destroying, disturbing or collecting arrowheads, pottery or other ancient artifacts found on federal land.
"There's a huge concern that the public doesn't know what's allowed,"
Source: BBC
July 27, 2009
A list of the country's most important battlegrounds is being drawn up and is expected to be complete by 2011.
Councils will then have to consider a site's history when deciding planning applications, although building on battlefields will not be forbidden.
The scheme was officially unveiled on the 320th anniversary of the Battle of Killiecrankie, the first major battle of the Jacobite Risings.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au
July 24, 2009
DNA evidence linking Indian tribes to Australian Aboriginal people supports the theory humans arrived in Australia from Africa via a southern coastal route through India, say researchers.
The research, lead by Dr Raghavendra Rao from the Anthropological Survey of India, is published in the current edition of BMC Evolutionary Biology.
One theory is that modern humans arrived in Australia via an inland route through central Asia but Rao says most scientists believe modern
Source: Reuters
July 25, 2009
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's lawyer denied the premier hid archaeological ruins at his Sardinian villa and said tapes purporting to show him boasting to a call girl were fake, newspapers said on Saturday.
The recordings, allegedly of Berlusconi in conversation with Patrizia D'Addario, have riveted Italy by revealing details of their purported sexual liaison. On Friday L'Espresso weekly released a further transcript in which the billionaire politician appeared to boast
Source: http://www.dallasnews.com
July 25, 2009
The long and bitter lawsuit over ownership of land near the site of the future George W. Bush presidential library came to an abrupt end Friday when SMU settled the case with two former condominium owners.
The surprise settlements remove one of the potential obstacles to construction of the $300 million library. In recent years, Southern Methodist University tamped down resistance from a small contingent of faculty members and from some Methodist churchgoers who said SMU should not
Source: Time Magazine
August 3, 2009
People born after 1980 tend to have a distinctive style of handwriting: a little bit sloppy, a little bit childish and almost never in cursive. The knee-jerk explanation is that computers are responsible for our increasingly illegible scrawl, but Steve Graham, a special-education and literacy professor at Vanderbilt University, says that's not the case. The simple fact is that kids haven't learned to write neatly because no one has forced them to. "Writing is just not part of the national a
Source: BBC
February 27, 2009
Plans to turn the birthplace of the longest surviving member of the Charge of the Light Brigade into a sex shop have been approved.
Edwin Hughes, otherwise known as 'Balaclava Ned', was born in Wrexham and died in Blackpool in 1927 aged 96.
He rode in the infamous charge in the Crimean War in 1854, which led to the deaths of 272 British soldiers.
One critic said Balaclava Ned would be "spinning in his grave". The company behind the plans refused
Source: NYT
July 25, 2009
Every fight over health care reform is different, and every fight over health care reform is the same.
In 1929, Michael Shadid, a doctor in western Oklahoma, proposed an idea for making medical care affordable to farmers. Rather than pay piecemeal for treatments, farmers would each contribute $50 a year to a cooperative. Dr. Shadid and his colleagues would pay their own salaries and expenses with the aggregate sum, and no farmer’s annual bill for family medical care would exceed $50
Source: BBC
July 27, 2009
Former Liberian leader Charles Taylor has denied eating human flesh or ordering militias to eat their enemies.
Speaking at his war crimes trial in The Hague, Mr Taylor was quoted as saying accusations of cannibalism levelled against him were "total nonsense".
Some of Mr Taylor's former fighters have previously told the court that he had ordered them to eat their enemies.
Mr Taylor has denied 11 charges related to the civil war in Sierra Leone, L
Source: BBC
July 27, 2009
A house in South Africa where Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi lived in the early 1900s has been put up for sale.
The house's owner says she has failed to find an institution interested in preserving the building's legacy, so she is selling it on the open market.
Gandhi is thought to have lived there for three years from 1907 - when he began to formulate his philosophy of non-violent resistance.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 27, 2009
Claude Choules, Britain's last surviving veteran of the First World War, shrugged off his achievement and described the war as boring.
His measured reaction was typical, according to his daughter Anne Pow, 80.
Her father had often told her that war was mostly very tedious punctuated by moments of extreme danger, she said.
Mr Choules is one of three First World War veterans still alive. The other two are Frank Buckles, a 108-year-old American, and Canadian
