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: Telegraph (UK)
April 22, 2009
Pope Pius XII told senior bishops that should he be arrested by the Nazis, his resignation would become effective immediately, paving the way for a successor, according to documents in the Vatican's Secret Archives.
The bishops would then be expected to flee to a safe country – probably neutral Portugal – where they would re-establish the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church and appoint a new Pontiff.
That Hitler considered kidnapping the Pope has been documented bef
Source: Times (UK)
April 21, 2009
The Israeli government used the potent, emotionally-charged platform of Auschwitz concentration camp today to rebut President Ahmadinejad’s latest tirade against the Jewish state.
Standing under the notorious wrought-iron gateway to the camp with its cynical slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes Free), the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, Silvan Shalom, said Iran was advocating no less than the Nazi-style elimination of the Jews.
“What Iran is trying to do right now is
Source: Huffington Post
April 22, 2009
Philip Zelikow, a longtime diplomat who worked as counselor to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and was the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, has been forthright in his opposition to the harsh interrogation techniques used under the Bush administration.
Zelikow disagreed with the legal reasoning employed by Bush's Office of Legal Counsel to justify the use of harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding. And he claims that copies of memo he circulated to d
Source: Times (UK)
April 22, 2009
This battered bucket is expected to fetch up to £1,000 when it is sold at auction this month.
The leather container with a copper rim is one of HMS Victory’s fire buckets, used during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, in which Lord Nelson was mortally wounded.
Source: Deutsche Welle
April 22, 2009
Brandenburg state Interior Minister Joerg Schoenbohm said the search was to begin on Wednesday - the 64th anniversary of the liberation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
The mass grave, which is believed to hold the remains of 753 prisoners, is on the grounds of the former Lieberose forced-labor camp, a satellite camp of Sachsenhausen, located around 120 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of Berlin. The grave is thought to be the largest in Germany outside the walls of a former
Source: NYT
April 22, 2009
Give or take, it is 5,000 miles from the Indian Ocean off Somalia to the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan. That is a vast distance, but few places on earth can match New York for its history of hospitality to pirates.
On Tuesday, the accused Somalian pirate man — or gullible boy, if you believe his parents, or possible victim of kidnappers, as his lawyer speculates — arrived in shackles and jumpsuit for arraignment on charges that he committed piracy on the high seas. Even wors
Source: NBC News video
April 21, 2009
Tourists flock to see Saddam's digs.
Source: USA Today
April 20, 2009
Outside experts say Obama's Cabinet is among the latest to be filled since Inauguration Day was moved up six weeks, to Jan. 20, in 1937. The delays were caused by ethics problems that forced his first nominees for the Commerce and Health and Human Services departments to withdraw, and the more extensive vetting process that followed.
If she is confirmed by the Senate, Sebelius will complete a Cabinet that experts say is the most diverse in history. It will have seven women and nine
Source: Boston Globe
April 21, 2009
When the mysterious first shot rang out around dawn yesterday, it was just like that fateful day 234 years before on the Lexington Green, except the gray-haired men squaring off looked a lot older than their ancestral combatants. There was also no blood and a lot of fake groaning, as well as sleep-deprived neighbors, history buffs, and members of the news media with cameras to chronicle every drumbeat. The annual reenactment of the Battle of Lexington has spawned its own traditions and veterans,
Source: Washington Independent
April 21, 2009
The release last week of Bush-era legal memoranda justifying the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of extreme interrogation methods has opened a window on what former Vice President Dick Cheney famously called “the dark side” of the war on terrorism. But despite President Obama’s declaration that releasing the four Justice Department memos disclosed Friday would end “a dark and painful chapter in our history,” at least one other memorandum on CIA interrogations remains undisclosed: a 2007 opinio
Source: Doyle McManus in the LAT
April 21, 2009
Since [FDR] journalists and political analysts have embraced the 100-day report card for new presidents. But for most leaders since FDR, the first three months have been an unreliable guide to the years that followed.
In 1993, Bill Clinton's 100 days were a chaotic period of trial and error, beginning with a stymied attempt to allow gays to serve openly in the military and ending with the defeat in Congress of a $16-billion stimulus bill (an amount that seemed high at the time). At
Source: Denver Post
April 19, 2009
At 11:21 a.m. on April 20, 1999, the first 911 call alerted authorities to the unfathomable: Two students at Columbine High School, 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold, had launched what was then the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.
With shots fired outside the school, they began a spree that left a dozen classmates and a teacher dead, and many more wounded, before the two committed suicide in the school library. A chilling collection of writings and vide
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 20, 2009
Citing a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum, the New York Times said the agency used the simulated drowning technique on the two al-Qaeda operatives far more than had been previously reported.
The report recalls that in 2007, former CIA officer John Kiriakou told media organizations that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.
Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks
Source: AP
April 21, 2009
OSWIECIM, Poland – Thousands of young Jews and elderly Holocaust survivors marched Tuesday at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz to honor those who perished in the Holocaust, while an Israeli official condemned the Iranian president's recent anti-Israel comments.
A shofar, or ram's horn, sounded the march's start. Around 7,000 people from more than 40 countries, many carrying the blue-and-white flag of Israel, then streamed through the infamous wrought-iron gate — crowned with
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 21, 2009
A love letter that Henry VIII wrote to Anne Boleyn proclaiming his intention to marry her is to go on display in Britain for the first time in its five century history.
The handwritten letter – described by the historian Dr David Starkey as marking "the moment at which British history changes" – has been reunited with the writing desk on which it was almost certainly written.
They are being displayed together at a British Library exhibition, starting on Thur
Source: AP
April 21, 2009
The former Khmer Rouge prison commander accused of overseeing the torture and execution of thousands of men, women and children said Tuesday that his underlings were taught class hatred that allowed them to kill their enemies.
Witnesses have alleged that Duch personally took part in torture and executions _ an accusation he denies. But on Tuesday, he explained how he compelled his guards to carry out such acts.
"We educated people to have a firm class stand and the
Source: AP
April 21, 2009
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dropped language describing the Holocaust as "ambiguous and dubious" from a speech attacking Israel at a United Nations racism conference, the U.N. said Tuesday.
The U.N. and the Iranian Mission in Geneva did not comment on why the change was made, but U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday that he had met with Ahmadinejad before his speech and reminded him that the U.N. had adopted resolutions "to revoke the equation of Z
Source: CNN
April 21, 2009
For 65 years, Elisabeth Mann has carried with her the pain only a Holocaust survivor can know.
Branded in her mind are the images of, for example, a pile of babies set ablaze, snarling dogs and the laughter of an SS officer pointing to the black smoke of incinerated bodies that filled the sky. And on her heavy heart is the anguish, including the blame she feels for her brother Laci's death.
Given the horrors she's lived and witnessed, one might think Mann, now in her 80
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 21, 2009
It had been reported that The Pope would give Charles a copy of the 1530 appeal by English peers for the annulment of Henry's marriage.
But the pope's official spokesman described reports as "completely false and without any basis of truth" and asked for an "immediate and unambiguous retraction".
It had been claimed that The Pontiff was planning to present to the Prince of Wales a high quality facsimile of the appeal to Pope Clement VII.
Source: BBC
April 21, 2009
The rebels are cornered in a small stretch of territory in the north-east of the country.
There are two conflicting theories - which observers agree are equally plausible - as to how the last battle will finish.
"One school of thought is that the Tamil Tiger leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, will go down fighting with his troops like General Custer in his famous last stand," says Amal Jayasinghe, Colombo bureau chief of the AFP news agency.
"
