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: Independent (UK)
February 25, 2009
Details of cabinet discussions held in the run-up to the Iraq war are to be kept secret after the Government decided to take the unprecedented step of vetoing their publication.
Campaigners had demanded to see the minutes of two meetings, on 13 and 17 March 2003, amid allegations that the Cabinet failed to discuss properly or challenge the decision to invade Iraq. The legality of the war was also discussed at the meetings.
The Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas,
Source: BBC
February 25, 2009
Richard Williamson, who lived in Buenos Aires, was asked to leave after he refused to retract his denial of the existence of Nazi gas chambers.
The row hugely embarrassed the Vatican which had only recently lifted an excommunication order on the bishop.
After his arrival he was taken straight to a waiting car by police officers.
Source: Wall Street Journal
February 24, 2009
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Anybody want some top-secret seagoing vessels? The Navy has a pair it doesn't need anymore. It has been trying to give them away since 2006, and they're headed for the scrap yard if somebody doesn't speak up soon.
One is called Sea Shadow. It's big, black and looks like a cross between a Stealth fighter and a Batmobile. It was made to escape detection on the open sea. The other is known as the Hughes (as in Howard Hughes) Mining Barge. It looks like a floating fi
Source: Washington Post
February 24, 2009
NEW DELHI -- Indians are expressing outrage over a New York auction that is set to sell some of the most personal belongings of India's great independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi -- the gaunt, bare-chested man whose ascetic life defied materialism.
The auction is a travesty for many Indians, for whom Gandhi is a godlike figure, and some in India's Parliament have called for the government to either stop the auction or put in the highest bid to get back the nation's iconic mementos
Source: NYT
February 21, 2009
As recession-wary Americans adapt to a new frugality, Japan offers a peek at how thrift can take lasting hold of a consumer society, to disastrous effect.
The economic malaise that plagued Japan from the 1990s until the early 2000s brought stunted wages and depressed stock prices, turning free-spending consumers into misers and making them dead weight on Japan’s economy.
Today, years after the recovery, even well-off Japanese households use old bath water to do laundry,
Source: Orange County News
February 19, 2009
[Re: The building of a store adjacent to a major Civil War battlefield in Virginia.]
Walmart representatives announced Monday that based on results of a recent survey, a new Walmart Supercenter will be welcomed by a majority of Orange County residents. Last month’s survey, conducted by an independent market research firm, questioned 300 registered voters in Orange County about shopping preferences and related issues.
Plans to build the 143,000-square-foot supercenter on a 19
Source: Science Daily
February 22, 2009
A student at Miami University has discovered what experts say is a fingerprint belonging to Abraham Lincoln from nearly 150 years ago.
Lydia Smith, a first-year psychology major from Granville, Ohio, was transcribing a letter written by Lincoln on Oct. 5, 1863, for a class project when she noticed a smudge that she suspected could be the 16th president’s thumbprint. Lincoln historians have confirmed the print.
The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, a project of the Illinois His
Source: Yahoo News
February 23, 2009
A hoard of jewels and coins, probably hidden by Jews fearing reprisals when the Black Death plague sweeping Europe was blamed on them, has gone on display in Britain for the first time.
The collection, including a delicate 14th century wedding ring, intricately decorated cups and dazzling jewels, was unearthed in Erfurt, Germany, in 1998, close to the town's 11th century synagogue.
Although historians cannot be sure, they suspect that the treasures were concealed in or
Source: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
February 23, 2009
Royal seal impressions were discovered in excavations of the Israel Antiquities Authority at Umm Tuba, in the southern hills of Jerusalem.
A large building that dates to the time of the First and Second Temples, in which there was an amazing wealth of inscriptions, was discovered in a salvage excavation conducted by Zubair Adawi, on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, in the village of Umm Tuba in southern Jerusalem (between Zur Baher and the Har Homa quarter), prior to cons
Source: The Times of India
February 23, 2009
Believed to be among the oldest brick shrines in India, Lucknow University’s department of ancient Indian history and archaeology has unearthed a 2,000-year-old Shiva temple as part of its excavation project recently in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district.
The temple site is a mound in Sanchankot in Unnao. The excavations have been going on since 2004, when UGC cleared the project for funding. ‘‘A lot of things have come to fore since we began, but the temple complex has suddenly given
Source: China Central Television
February 21, 2009
Murals over two thousand years old still retaining their colors: that's an amazing find in a tomb in the suburbs of Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi province.
A ramp leads to the tomb chambers. Murals decorate both the vault and the brick walls.
Cheng Linquan, director, Institute of archeology, said, The upper part is painted with celestial signs and the lower part is painted with life scenes. We see here is a woman carrying a baby, while leading another chi
Source: BBC
February 24, 2009
A museum commemorating the victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami has opened in the Indonesian province of Aceh.
It has been designed as a symbolic reminder of the disaster, as well as an educational centre.
It will also serve as an emergency disaster shelter in case the area is ever hit by a tsunami again.
Aceh was home to more than half the 240,000 people who died in the disaster. The outpouring of aid which followed was the largest in history.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 24, 2009
The former 'First Lady' of the Khmer Rouge has told her accusers at Cambodia's genocide tribunal they would be 'cursed to the seventh circle of hell'.
Ieng Thirith, 76, who is facing trial for crimes against humanity under the communist regime, at first told the court that defence lawyers would speak on her behalf during her appeal against detention, saying: "I am too weak".
But she later erupted at the prosecution's suggestion that she was aware of atrocitie
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 24, 2009
The Queen has unveiled a £2 million statue of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother just a few feet from the imposing sculpture of George VI.
The Prince of Wales, in a moving speech in the presence of all senior members of the Royal Family described the 9ft 6in sculpture in The Mall as a fitting tribute to his "darling" grandmother.
The unveiling by the Queen of the 9ft 6in bronze statue was a poignant reminder of the simple ceremony she performed in tribute to he
Source: KCRA (Sacramento)
February 23, 2009
Abbey Of New Clairvaux Monks Work To Rebuild Structure.
History is being rebuilt in Tehama County as monks piece together stones from an 800-year-old building that will eventually become California's oldest standing structure.
Monks from the Abbey of New Clairvaux have been slowly putting together stones from a pre-Gothic meeting house built in Spain during the Middle Ages.
In 1931, millionaire newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst bought the original
Source: CNN
February 23, 2009
Norway's navy announced on Monday that it will help search for the missing plane of 20th century explorer Roald Amundsen, more than 80 years after his death.
The search -- scheduled for later this year -- will focus on a 40 square-mile (104 square-kilometer) area of the Arctic Ocean where researchers believe Amundsen's plane crashed in 1928.
Amundsen, who is a national hero in Norway, led the first successful expedition to the South Pole from 1910 to 1912. He is also cr
Source: CNN
December 31, 2069
More than 60 years after reneging on a promise to the hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who fought for the United States during World War II, the U.S. government will soon be sending out checks -- to the few who are still alive.
During the war, the Philippines was a U.S. commonwealth. The U.S. military promised full veterans benefits to Filipinos who volunteered to fight. More than 250,000 joined.
Then, in 1946, President Truman signed the Rescission Act, taking that p
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 24, 2009
In an exclusive interview with Telegraph TV, ahead of a speech at Chatham House on Wednesday, Morris Reid, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, said: “The special relationship (with the UK) is over and dead. It’s a different day.”
Reid’s speech entitled “Europe must show leadership and stop waiting on the United States” will make the point that “it is not smart for European politicians to think the American President needs to care about their concerns. And it is also not sma
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 24, 2009
Two men claim to own the sixth-floor "sniper's perch", where Oswald propped the telescopic rifle that he used to assassinate America's 35th president on Nov 22, 1963.
Caruth Byrd, 67, claims that he inherited the window in 1986 from his father, Col Harold Byrd, who once owned Texas School Book Depository, the Dallas building from which Oswald shot Kennedy.
Mr Byrd says that his father had the window removed six weeks after the assassination, fearful that it wo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 23, 2009
The 10-minute reels feature the wartime leaders Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe and future American president.
The clips show Churchill and Eisenhower visiting the 101st Airborne which was stationed in North Devon. There is also film footage of Russians at Putsborough beach.
The Russians can be seen with the American Army and is believed to be looking at plans for the Omaha landing during the Soviet military miss
