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
February 21, 2009
In an interview with the Hanover daily Neue Presse, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews Stephan Kramer said, "Mr.Schroeder is greatly damaging the reputation of Germany and the German government."
Kramer said that by meeting the Iranian president, Schroeder was supporting Ahmadinejad and his government, and appealed for the former chancellor to cancel his engagement, "on the grounds of human rights."
Just hours before he was due meet Ahm
Source: BBC
February 20, 2009
Finland has said it will not extradite a Rwandan man suspected of genocide in his home country, because he may not receive a fair trial there.
Officials said the decision followed rulings by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which has halted the referral of three similar cases.
The 57-year-old man, who has not been named, has been in custody since 2007.
He would be tried in Finland if a prosecutor charged him, officials said. A decision is
Source: BBC
February 20, 2009
Serb authorities in Bosnia-Hercegovina have been ordered to pay $42m (£26m) to local Muslims for the destruction of mosques during the Bosnian civil war.
All 16 mosques in Banja Luka, the main town of the Serb-run Republika Srpska, were destroyed in the 1992-1995 war.
A lawyer for the area's Muslim community said the local court verdict was of historic importance.
Source: AP
February 21, 2009
A 19th-century Belgian priest who ministered to leprosy patients in Hawaii will be declared a saint Oct. 11 at a Vatican ceremony presided over by Pope Benedict XVI.
The Rev. Damien de Veuster's canonization date was set Saturday during a meeting between Benedict and cardinals at the Apostolic Palace.
De Veuster will be canonized along with four other people, the Vatican said.
In July, Benedict approved a miracle attributed to the priest's intercession, de
Source: National Security Archive
February 21, 2009
The Justice Department this week missed the opportunity to bring transparency to the controversy over deleted White House e-mail from the Bush administration by allowing briefing to continue on a motion that had been developed by the Bush Administration.
The motion, filed by the Justice Department on January 21, just after the inauguration, sought to dismiss the White House e-mail litigation even while admitting that a secretive restoration process was still not finished. Today the
Source: Oregonian
February 19, 2009
Bre Hoggans and T'aira Turner could win 200 points. With it, they'll move one step closer to freedom as they travel the Underground Railroad.
But this challenge isn't easy. They must research Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and write two paragraphs on how he used literacy to fight for freedom.
The two start reading a two-page biography aloud.
"He taught other people to read the Bible," says Turner, 13. "He fo
Source: LAT (blog) Top of the Ticket
February 21, 2009
The controversy over the validity of Barack Obama's birth certificate is back on a burner with firebrand conservative Alan Keyes making serious new charges.
In a video released Friday Keyes, who lost to Obama in the 2004 U.S. Senate race in Illinois that launched the new president's national political career, calls Obama a communist and usurper and says he refuses to acknowledge the validity of Obama's inauguration over lingering questions in the minds of many conspiracists about th
Source: China Central Television
February 19, 2009
The excavation of some Eastern Zhou period tombs that had ancient chariots and horses buried underground has been completed, an official from Luoyang's cultural relics office told Dahe Daily on Tuesday.
This is another latest uncover of ancient tombs following similar discoveries in surrounding areas in 2002.
The excavation site contains 29 tombs, including two imperial wooden chariots and two dead horses.
Field work for this excavation began in August 200
Source: News Post Online
February 20, 2009
Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered a statue of a pharaoh and a bust of the famous woman pharaoh Hatshepsut in the southern city of Luxor.
The three-meter Amenhotep statue was dug out with only one damage in the nose and one in the teeth, Moustafa el-Waziri, director of the archaeological mission, told the state MENA news agency.
He added that more antiques would be unearthed in the future.
Source: IHT
February 20, 2009
The descendants of Geronimo have sued Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale University with ties to the Bush family, charging that its members robbed his grave in 1918 and have kept his skull in a glass case ever since.
The claim is part of a lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington on Tuesday, the 100th anniversary of Geronimo's death.
The Apache warrior's heirs are seeking to recover all his remains, wherever they may be, and have them transferred to a new gra
Source: BBC
February 20, 2009
Finland has said it will not extradite a Rwandan man suspected of genocide in his home country, because he may not receive a fair trial there.
Officials said the decision followed rulings by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which has halted the referral of three similar cases.
The 57-year-old man, who has not been named, has been in custody since 2007.
He would be tried in Finland if a prosecutor charged him, officials said. A decision is
Source: BBC
February 21, 2009
The Lost City of Atlantis is still lost - despite hopes that Google Earth had located the fabled city on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.
Observers noted what seemed to be a grid of streets and the outlines of a big city on the sea floor about 960km (600 miles) off the African coast.
Experts had said this was one of the possible sites of the city described by Plato, the Greek philosopher.
But Google said the lines represented sonar data collected from bo
Source: Foxnews
February 21, 2009
President Obama topped a new Harris interactive poll that asked 2,634 Americans who they admire enough to call a hero.
John Lennon once claimed the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Now President Obama has evidence that he's more popular than both.
Obama topped a new Harris interactive poll that asked 2,634 Americans who they admire enough to call a hero.
Jesus came in second on a list that includes God, Mahtma Gandhi and George Washington.
Source: CNN
February 20, 2009
William Jackson was a slave in the home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis during the Civil War. It turns out he was also a spy for the Union Army, providing key secrets to the North about the Confederacy.
Jackson was Davis' house servant and personal coachman. He learned high-level details about Confederate battle plans and movements because Davis saw him as a "piece of furniture" -- not a human, according to Ken Dagler, author of "Black Dispatches," which
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
February 19, 2009
If they would just fly in David Horowitz and Dinesh D’Souza, they could stage an awesome tag-team wrestling match …
The two academics that American conservatives most love to hate are scheduled to appear together next month at the University of Colorado at Boulder. According to an article in today’s Colorado Daily, William Ayers will appear on the campus with — and voice support for — Ward Churchill on the night of March 5, just days before Mr. Churchill’s lawsuit challenging his di
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 20, 2009
The sketch, believed to be Brown's first garden plan, covers around 100 acres of rolling Northumberland countryside close to where he was born in 1716.
It will take around 18 months to plant out the design at Kirkharle, subject to funding and permission to alter the Grade II listed parkland.
Brown was born and grew up in Kirkharle, 20 miles north west of Newcastle Upon Tyne, and it was there that the farmer's son first learned his craft as a "gardener's boy".
Source: Voice of America
February 20, 2009
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sparked a debate over race relations this week with a speech in which he said the United States was a nation of cowards because most Americans prefer to avoid candid talk about race.
At a Justice Department commemoration of Black History month, Eric Holder, the nation's first African-American attorney general, had some strong words about the state of race relations in the United States.
"Though this nation has proudly thought of
Source: NY Post
September 20, 2009
Wednesday's Page Six cartoon - caricaturing Monday's police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut - has created considerable controversy.
It shows two police officers standing over the chimp's body: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," one officer says.
It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.
Period.
But it has been taken as something else - as a depiction of President Obama, as a thi
Source: BBC
February 20, 2009
Mr Smith, resources director at Wessex Archaeology in Salisbury, Wiltshire, said his firm has laid off 60 archaeologists since orders "fell off a cliff" last November.
But he feels the business and the industry should have seen it coming.
Under new legislation any developer planning to build anything in a potentially sensitive area where there might be recorded remains, is required to have the land checked out by an archaeologist.
The law is un
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
February 20, 2009
For a few tantalising hours researchers appeared to have solved one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world - the location of the mythical underwater city of Atlantis.
More than 600 miles off the coast of Africa and nearly 3.5 miles below the surface lay a mysterious grid of lines and markings that closely resembled the streets of a city.
The image - discovered on the internet mapping tool Google Earth - lay in an area of the Atlantic long thought to be a possible loca
