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: San Francisco Chronicle
February 26, 2006
One month ago, a historic event took place in Buenos Aires when the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo staged their 1,500th, and last, demonstration.Crowds had been arriving since the day before, and tents littered the grass. Left-wing political factions had set up booths and were distributing literature. Images of Eva Peron and Che Guevara mixed with banners carrying slogans. Vendors on the outskirts hawked their wares to passers-by and tourists.
It was a festival,
Source: ansa.it
February 24, 2006
The forthcoming publication of the 'Gospel of Judas' has sparked fears among some Catholic theologians that it could give people wrong ideas about the man who is famous for betraying Jesus Christ .The second century text, which was believed lost for over a thousand years, reportedly argues that Judas Iscariot was an essential part of God's design and, as such, almost a hero. Without his betrayal, Jesus would not have been crucified and so, the argument goes, God's plan
Source: AP
February 22, 2006
NY: The entrance to the national headquarters of the Roman Catholic group Opus Dei is the last place you would expect to find mention of "The Da Vinci Code." The conservative organization has spent the past few years trying to escape the best-seller's shadow, after the novel portrayed Opus Dei as a murderous sect fixated on power and self-mutilation.
But now the low-profile spiritual community is starting a drive to improve its image ahead of a major
Source: History Today
February 16, 2006
The higher education minister commented on the reduction in the number of university applicants in subjects such as history and classics as not ‘necessarily a bad thing.’ Bill Rammell stated yesterday: ‘There is some evidence that students are choosing subjects they believe will be more vocationally beneficial to them.’ Ucas, the universities admissions service, revealed that there were 3.4% fewer students applying for higher education courses this autumn. The drop of 13,000 students is the firs
Source: Romanesko
February 24, 2006
Jay Rockefeller, vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made that charge Thursday in a letter to John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. Murray Waas asks: Did those leaks to Bob Woodward damage national security?
Source: AP
February 24, 2006
The Hyatt hotel chain has come under fire for agreeing to host a conference this weekend sponsored by a white supremacist group. The conference in the Washington suburb of Herndon is sponsored by the Oakton, Va.-based New Century Foundation, whose leader says the white race is losing its identity in the United States because of multiculturalism and immigration.
Students at George Mason University organized a phone campaign to urge the Hyatt to
Source: Japan Focus
February 24, 2006
South Korea’s Truth Commission on Forced Mobilization under Japanese Imperialism, working closely with Japanese activist groups, is currently trying to get the government to remit the unpaid wages and other benefits owed hundreds of thousands of Koreans who had been conscripted for military service or labor in wartime Japan.
Source: Seattle Times
February 24, 2006
The story his bones tell has no clear beginning yet. But the end is coming into sharp focus, say scientists who have been studying the controversial skeleton for the past six months.It's now clear the man Native Americans call the Ancient One was deliberately buried — not just covered over with sediment, said Doug Owsley, leader of the team that first examined the skeleton last summer and returned for another round of study this month.
Owsley, a phys
Source: Seattle P-I
February 24, 2006
Mayor Ken Livingstone refused to apologize for comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi camp guard, and now he's facing four weeks off the job - suspended for bringing his office into disrepute.The famously combative mayor said Friday's ruling by a disciplinary panel struck a blow against democracy, but many wondered why he couldn't just say sorry.
"Had the mayor simply recognized the upset his comments had caused, this sorry episode could have been avoi
Source: BBC News
February 24, 2006
A repairs package aimed at restoring the nation's damaged war memorials has been unveiled by English Heritage. Forty memorials will receive handouts for work including stonework repair, cleaning and metal conservation.
Among the memorials which benefited this year are one outside Sheffield City Hall, a village cross in Devon and one destroyed by vandals in Merseyside.
The award is the largest in the history of the six-year-old scheme run by the Wa
Source: Romanesko
February 23, 2006
Not terrorism, says Bob Woodward. He also notes that Republicans have a long track record of nominating "old war horses." Given that, and depending on how things go in Iraq, "You're going to think I'm crazy, but you heard it here first. I think they could nominate Dick Cheney."
Source: Romanesko
February 23, 2006
Mike Wallace's collection includes transcripts of "60 Minutes" broadcasts and interviews with participants, viewer correspondence, background research, newspaper clippings and photographs, and story ideas in various stages of development that were dropped or never aired. Wallace is a 1939 University of Michigan graduate.
Source: Jeffrey A. Dvorkin, NPR ombudsman, at his blog
February 23, 2006
Many ask why NPR refers to the president of the United States as "Mr. Bush" on second reference, instead of "President Bush" in all cases? Some listeners, like Tom King, insist this sounds insufficiently respectful.
Frequently on NPR news shows, reports dealing with the U.S. president refer to him as "President Bush" once, but then all additional references are to "Mr. Bush". This seems unique to the president, as other pe
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists
February 23, 2006
Could the National Security Archive be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for publishing historical documents that U.S. intelligence agencies now say are classified?
Could Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice be detained for continuing to publish historical intelligence records on the State Department web site that the CIA has flagged as classified?
Could thousands of historians and librarians around the country be arrested for retaining and circulat
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists
February 23, 2006
Responding to a February 21 New York Times story indicating that thousands of declassified documents had been reclassified by executive branch agencies and removed from public access in questionable circumstances, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) announced yesterday that an official investigation into the matter was underway.
An audit is being conducted by the Information Security Oversight Office, a NARA component, to determine the number
Source: BBC News
February 23, 2006
The authorities in Moscow have hastily removed posters congratulating Russian war veterans which mistakenly showed the American warship USS Missouri. The posters were taken down on Wednesday - just hours before Defender of the Motherland Day.
The Russian defence ministry said it did not produce the posters.
A Moscow city hall official said the design "should have been shown to specialists who can distinguish one battleship from another".
Source: cronaca.com
February 23, 2006
The Archangel Gabriel, his wings still fiery with colour applied over 1200 years ago, has emerged from beneath the nave of Lichfield Cathedral. The Anglo-Saxon carved figure was found when builders, watched over by archaeologists, took up part of the floor of the nave to build a new rising platform for concerts and recitals. . .
Britain's heritage of Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical art and architecture was almost obliterated by the scale and splendour of
Source: NYT
February 23, 2006
Is a death mask found in a ragpicker's shop in 1842 that of William Shakespeare? This coming Saturday's issue of the British weekly New Scientist says the mask, bearing the date 1616 and the high forehead, prominent nose and beard associated with Shakespeare, could be, Agence France-Presse reported. At the behest of Prof. Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, a scholar of English literature at the University of Mainz in Germany, specialists at the German Federal Bureau of Investigation compared two po
Source: The Daily Telegraph
February 23, 2006
SHAKESPEARE scholarship, lively at the best of times, saw the fur flying yesterday after a German academic claimed to have authenticated not just one but four contemporary images of the playwright - and suggested, to boot, that he had died of cancer.As the National Portrait Gallery planned to reveal that only one of half a dozen claimed portraits of William Shakespeare can now be considered genuine, Prof Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel said she could prove that there were at
Source: Deutche-Welle
February 23, 2006
Germany and the United States are warming up for a fresh diplomatic row over plans to open a huge collection of files from the Holocaust that has never been seen by historians or the general public. The United States wants the International Tracing Service's collection, one of the world's largest from the Nazi era which includes files on more than 17 million people, to be made available to historians.
Germany has so far refused to allow the archive at Bad
