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
May 21, 2009
Sifting through reams of old files from the communist state security apparatus in East Germany, two historians, Helmut Mueller-Enbergs and Cornelia Jabs, say they accidently uncovered information that the policeman, Karl-Heinz Kurras, was a so-called unofficial employee of the East German Ministry for State Security (MfS) and a member of the country's Socialist Unity Party (SED).
In reports published separately on Thursday by ZDF public television network and the Frankfurter Allgeme
Source: BBC
May 21, 2009
Mr Obama made a number of references to Republicans who disagree or have disagreed with the former vice-president's approach to national security.
He referred (although not by name) to former Secretary of State Colin Powell and quoted two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and John McCain.
And he emphasised that this had been a bipartisan rejection, by referring to the nomination by the American people of presidential candidates from both parties who wanted to turn t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 21, 2009
David Miliband has offered a stark appraisal of the Iraq war, saying
the invasion had damaged Britain's standing by causing"bitterness,
distrust and resentment" across the Muslim world.
The Foreign Secretary mentioned the Iraq conflict in the same breath
as the Crusades and 20th century imperialism as he delivered a
strikingly self-critical speech.
Addressing the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Mr Miliband called
British history"baggage that we have to acknowledge" and acce
Source: Newsweek
May 25, 2009
Bush has always been friendly. And maybe, after years of being cordoned off by security, his face time with others carefully choreographed and his days scheduled to the hilt, it's refreshing to him just to have the chance for a spontaneous chat with a neighbor. But Bush's choice of conversational companions may speak to something deeper. He lived in a bubble during much of his time in Washington; having left office with a disapproval rating of 73 percent, he might be forgiven for being a bit hes
Source: BBC
May 21, 2009
Ms Smith told MPs she was "proud to offer this country's welcome to all who have served in the brigade of Gurkhas".
It comes after a high-profile campaign by Joanna Lumley and other supporters of Gurkha rights - and an embarrassing Commons defeat for the government.
Some 36,000 Gurkhas who left before 1997 had been denied UK residency.
Source: VOA
May 19, 2009
The Kremlin has posted a decree that aims to prevent what are described as efforts to falsify history and harm the interests of Russia. The government move to set up a commission to deal with the issue, comes after the party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called for measures to criminalize the defamation of any Soviet contribution to victory in World War II.
The Kremlin Web site posted a decree Tuesday signed by President Dimitry Medvedev on May 15 that authorizes the establishm
Source: AP
February 21, 2009
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is harshly criticizing Russia's political system, saying that the nation's leaders have steadily rolled back the democratic achievements of his rule.
Gorbachev accused Russia's current government of trying to consolidate its grip on power and stifle opposition voices, but avoided specific mention of President Dmitry Medvedev or his predecessor Vladimir Putin, who is now prime minister.
Gorbachev says Russia's tightly orchestrated p
Source: Deutsche Welle
May 20, 2009
Italy's holding centers for immigrants are like "concentration camps," Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said in an apparent justification of his country's new practice of deporting to Libya migrants picked up at sea in international waters. He added that it was more humane to send migrant boats back to Libya than to let them enter Italy.
Berlusconi was speaking at a joint news conference on Tuesday with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who said the priori
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
May 21, 2009
The University of Colorado has filed a court brief formally responding to Ward Churchill’s bid for court-ordered reinstatement to the faculty. As university officials had suggested would be the case, their stand on his reinstatement is a very emphatic no.
In the brief, filed yesterday in state court, the university’s lawyers note that the jury that found last month that Mr. Churchill had been fired unjustly, in violation of his free-speech rights, also determined that he was due onl
Source: ABA Journal
May 21, 2009
Justice David H. Souter has in the past avoided the limelight. But in a speech yesterday at Georgetown Law Center decrying Americans’ lack of civic knowledge, the retiring justice demonstrated his speaking prowess.
Souter warned that the republic "can be lost, it is being lost, it is lost, if it is not understood,” the National Law Journal reports. He cited surveys showing about two-thirds of Americans can’t even name the three branches of government, one of the basic lessons h
Source: CNN
May 21, 2009
Abu Ahmed says he was there: An Iraqi held prisoner at Abu Ghraib by
the American military when inmates were abused.
He says he was kept naked and saw other naked inmates stacked onto a
pile while photos were taken, photos that would become public and
bring shame to the United States.
The pain of the past few years is clearly etched on the man's face and
equally obvious as he talks. It began October 1, 2003, he says, when
U.S. troops came to his home and detained him during a
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 21, 2009
Rome is to put over 30 historical sites including a gladiators training ground and the aqueduct that feeds the Trevi Fountain on display for the first time.
The sites, part of a vast network of tunnels, caves and catacombs which lie beneath the city, will be open from the end of this month.
Gianni Alemanno, the mayor of Rome, said the aim of the project was to "avoid Rome being known only for its most important monuments."
Source: PEW study
May 21, 2009
The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press’ long-term values study project has been tracking a broad range of beliefs and attitudes that shape public opinion and influence voting behavior. The project began in 1987 and has been updated 14 times over the past 22 years.
As the Obama era begins, the survey finds that centrism has emerged as a dominant factor in public opinion. The political values and core attitudes of the American public show little overall ideological movement. Th
Source: BBC
May 21, 2009
How many of the paintings displayed at the Vietnamese National Museum of Fine Arts in Hanoi are originals and how many are copies?
It is well known among Vietnamese artists that the museum has been hanging works of art that are in fact copies of very famous Vietnamese paintings as some of the originals were either sold or lost.
The leading art historian and Vietnamese painting expert, Nora Taylor, from Chicago University, believes that about half of the paintings displ
Source: Foxnews
May 21, 2009
It's too early to know what surveillance methods were used to arrest four men accused of plotting to bomb two New York synagogues, but national security experts say measures implemented under the Bush administration likely played a critical role.
The FBI launched an elaborate sting operation in June 2008 that culminated Wednesday in the arrest of four men who allegedly conspired to blow up two Bronx, N.Y., synagogues, and to shoot down military planes operating out of Stewart Air F
Source: AP
May 20, 2009
The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday threatened to sue a San Diego County school that refused to let a student present a report on slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk until her classmates got their parents' permission to hear it.
David Blair-Loy, legal director of the ACLU of San Diego County, said the principal of Mt. Woodson Elementary School in Ramona violated the free speech rights of 6th-grader Natalie Jones, who was the only student in her class prevented from givin
Source: CNN
May 20, 2009
The National Archives -- a repository of important government documents, including the U.S. Constitution -- has lost a computer hard drive containing large volumes of Clinton administration records, including the names, phone numbers and Social Security numbers of White House staff members and visitors.
Officials at the Archives say they don't know how many confidential records are on the hard drive. But congressional aides briefed on the matter say it contains "more than 100,0
Source: NYT
May 20, 2009
Tens of thousands of Irish children were sexually, physically and emotionally abused by nuns, priests and others over 60 years in a network of church-run residential schools meant to care for the poor, the vulnerable and the unwanted, according to a report released in Dublin on Wednesday.
The 2,600-page report paints a picture of institutions run more like Dickensian orphanages than 20th-century schools, characterized by privation and cruelty that could be both casual and choreograp
Source: NYT
May 20, 2009
It’s an underappreciated, almost ignored fact in the grand narrative of World War II that the Allied invasion of Normandy caused something on the order of 19,890 civilian deaths in the five French departments that saw most of the fighting.
These deaths took place in the two and a half months between June 6, 1944, and Aug. 25, when, as the historian William I. Hitchcock has put it, “Normandy would be chewed into a bloody, unrecognizable mess.” It is important to stress that these civ
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
May 21, 2009
“We are launching a review of current policies by all of those agencies responsible for the classification of documents to determine where reforms are possible,” announced President Obama in a speech at the National Archives today.While the President has spoken broadly before of the need for greater transparency, this is the new Administration’s first public approach to reform of the national security classification system. A
