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: CNN
November 2, 2007
Saudi Arabia could have helped the United States prevent al Qaeda's 2001 attacks on New York and Washington if American officials had consulted Saudi authorities in a "credible" way, the kingdom's former ambassador said in a documentary aired Thursday.
The comments by Prince Bandar bin Sultan are similar to the remarks this week by Saudi King Abdullah that suggested Britain could have prevented the July 2005 train bombings in London if it had heeded warnings from Riyadh.
Source: WaPo
November 2, 2007
A little-remarked feature of pending legislation on domestic surveillance has provoked alarm among university and public librarians who say it could allow federal intelligence-gathering on library patrons without sufficient court oversight.
Draft House and Senate bills would allow the government to compel any "communications service provider" to provide access to e-mails and other electronic information within the United States as part of federal surveillance of non-U.S. c
Source: NYT
November 2, 2007
ORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. — The door to the tumbledown clapboard building, the one with the “Off Limits” sign, creaks open, and Harlan Bradford’s flashlight beam cuts through the shadows inside.
Now in the spotlight, bat droppings on the floor. Up above, drop-ceiling railings dangle like stalactites. A stage curtain in tatters hints at the shows, the many shows that once rocked this place, the former Mountain View Colored Officers Club.
“You can see and hear them and imagine
Source: AP
November 1, 2007
Berlin | A vast archive of Nazi-era documents started accepting online requests Thursday for information from victims of Nazi crimes and people tracing relatives — a move meant to speed up an often-slow process.
The move by the archive, based in the central German town of Bad Arolsen, should make it easier for people to get information from the 50 million files of the International Tracing Service. The site, www.its-arolsen.org, will not, how
Source: Newsweek
November 1, 2007
Pisa is famous for its leaning tower, but archeologists there are now uncovering an amazing fleet of ancient ships, some complete with crew and cargo.
The San Rossore train station on the edge of Pisa, Italy, is a lonely stop. Tourists who visit this city to see its famous leaning tower generally use the central station across town. But San Rossore is about to be recognized as one of the country's most significant archeological digs. For nearly a decade archeologists have been worki
Source: http://www.earthtimes.org
November 1, 2007
After years of discussion and one false start, work begins Friday on a "Remembrance and Documentation Museum" in Berlin - on the site of the former Prince Albrecht Palais where the Gestapo and the SS had their notorious interrogation and torture cells during World War II. Unlike the city's 2005-built Holocaust Memorial honouring the murdered Jews of Europe, and Daniel Libeskind's daringly designed 1999 museum dealing with Berlin's Jewish tradition and history, the "new" museu
Source: http://www.avionews.com
November 2, 2007
Udine, Italy - Shot down by American fighters on January 30th, 1944
After the rescue of the Messerschmitt BF-109, occured the last October 20th, in the city of Concordia Saggitaria (Venice), also the remains of the German pilot shot down by US fighters on January 30th, 1944, have been identified.
After a first and difficult reading of the pilot's ID, which made think to a different name and grade, now finally there are no doubts anymore. After the necessary cleaning an
Source: National Security Archive
November 2, 2007
Then-national security adviser Henry A. Kissinger colluded with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to keep the U.S. Secretary of State in the dark about ongoing secret discussions between the Soviets and the Nixon White House, according to newly released Soviet-era documents, published this week by the Department of State.
In February 1972, with the Moscow summit approaching, Kissinger met with Soviet ambassador Dobrynin, who was scheduled to meet with Secretary of State William Rog
Source: Guardian
November 1, 2007
The construction of a large police barracks close to the Great Mosque of Samarra and its famed
spiral minaret is imperilling another of Iraq's precious historical sites, Unesco and senior
archaeologists have warned. Work on the building and a training centre for 1,500 Iraqi policemen
is continuing in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, despite the addition this summer.
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
November 1, 2007
Broad classification restrictions on the disclosure of historical
intelligence information are making it difficult or impossible to
accurately represent the record of U.S. foreign policy, an official
advisory committee warned the Secretary of State last summer.
By law, the Department of State is obliged to publish"a thorough,
accurate and reliable documentary record" of United States foreign
policy in its official Foreign Relations of the United States series.
But due to officia
Source: AP
October 31, 2007
American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan may soon be playing cards with the ace of artifacts or the king of archaeological digs.
Nearly 50,000 decks of cards meant to help troops avoid unnecessary damage to ancient sites and curb the illegal trade of stolen artifacts will be shipped to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as training sites in the United States.
The cards were developed by a Colorado State University researcher and graphic artist working with the Defens
Source: AP
October 31, 2007
Parliament condemned Gen. Francisco Franco's nearly 40-year dictatorship Wednesday in historic legislation addressing a dark chapter of Spanish history that had been largely off-limits.
The bill sponsored by the Socialist government and passed by the lower house of parliament also makes symbolic amends to victims of the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War. It formally denounces Franco's regime, mandates that local governments fund efforts to unearth mass graves from the Civil War and decla
Source: http://www.pinknews.co.uk
October 30, 2007
Two pink triangles, the symbols of Hitler's hatred towards homosexuals, are up for auction in Shropshire this week.
They are expected to fetch hundreds of pounds when they go under the hammer at the Mullock's Auctioneers at Ludlow Racecourse on Thursday.
Also being sold at the auction are other rare items including a description of a Spanish flu pandemic that killed millions and an apologetic letter from composer Edward Elgar.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 1, 2007
A top secret document outlining Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s concerns about the Vietnam War to the American president was left lying around a high street bank, newly released papers have revealed.
The fax, sent by the Labour leader to Lyndon B Johnson in 1967, voiced his fears that Britain was in danger of being portrayed as America’s “stooge”.
It was accidentally left in the Bank of Scotland on London’s Regent Street by an official of the Foreign Office and later dis
Source: AP
November 1, 2007
Winston Churchill had bitter disputes with his Cabinet during the Cold War about building the hydrogen bomb and conducting private diplomacy with the Soviet Union — even threatening to resign at one point, declassified documents showed Thursday.
The aging British prime minister threatened to quit in 1954 in order to quell a revolt by Cabinet ministers, angered at his high-handed leadership style, according to Cabinet notebooks released by the National Archives.
The det
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE)
October 31, 2007
Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda — a half-scale Roman Pantheon in red brick that is almost certainly the most famous university building in the United States — is in line for a renovation intended to give it a larger role in students’ daily lives, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
The university has hired a preservation-planning firm, John G. Waite Associates, to study the building, which was last renovated three decades ago. The firm has produced a 700-page report, which the univ
Source: NYT
October 31, 2007
In an exchange with Mr. Russert [at last night's Democratic Party presidential debate], arguably her third toughest opponent on the stage, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly declined to say whether she would push the National Archives to release correspondence from Mrs. Clinton to Mr. Clinton in the White House when he was president. Mr. Russert held up a copy of a letter from Mr. Clinton asking the Archives not to release any of those documents until 2012.
“Well, that’s not my decision to mak
Source: NYT Magazine
October 21, 2007
Has the Clean Air Act done more to fight crime than any other policy
in American history? That is the claim of a new environmental theory
of criminal behavior.
In the early 1990s, a surge in the number of teenagers threatened a
crime wave of unprecedented proportions. But to the surprise of some
experts, crime fell steadily instead. Many explanations have been
offered in hindsight, including economic growth, the expansion of
police forces, the rise of prison populations and the end o
Source: http://www.thestar.com
October 25, 2007
–South Korea's spy agency confessed yesterday to the most notorious kidnapping in the country's history, saying that in 1973 it snatched opposition leader and later Nobel laureate Kim Dae-jung in Tokyo.
A fact-finding panel of the National Intelligence Service also said it cannot rule out the possibility former president Park Chung-hee may have directly ordered the kidnapping of Kim, who was Park's main political rival at the time.
"It is judged that there was at l
Source: National Post (Canada)
October 31, 2007
Thirty-two years after Franco died, all of Spain, including the church in the Valley of the Fallen, is about to be stripped of every symbol associated with the Spanish dictator and his Nationalist cause. Today, parliament in Madrid is expected to pass a controversial law that condemns Gen. Franco's dictatorship and honours his victims.All statues, street signs and symbols associated with Gen. Franco and his Falange movement must be removed from public buildings.
