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: NYT
December 3, 2009
TAISHAN, China — Hundreds, maybe thousands, of towers rise from the rice fields here in a tableau that is more Tuscan countryside than Chinese landscape.
It is a sight found nowhere else in China: rectangular towers, some made of concrete, some built of stone or other materials, jutting four or five stories high from the flatlands. They have balconies and turrets and Roman-style arches. There are metal shutters to keep out criminals and portholes where defenders can take aim at assa
Source: Reuters
December 3, 2009
Entering the Munich court this week to cover the trial of John Demjanjuk, 89, accused of helping to force 27,900 Jews into gas chambers at an extermination camp in 1943, was like stepping into a history book.
Inevitably, the spotlight was on Demjanjuk himself.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s most wanted Nazi war suspect lay under a white blanket on a mobile bed in the middle of the courtroom. Was this old, expressionless and clearly weak man really the “face of evil”?
Source: Speigel
December 3, 2009
It was supposed to be the beginning of a new era for Germany's Social Democrats (SPD). Following state elections in Brandenburg, held concurrently with the Sept. 27 general elections in Germany, SPD Governor Matthias Platzeck entered into a governing coalition with the far-left Left Party. Such an alliance has long governed the city-state of Berlin. But following the SPD's election-day debacle -- a miserable result of just 23 percent of the vote -- the party saw fit to begin opening itself up to
Source: Huffington Post
December 3, 2009
Sarah Palin declared on Thursday that the legitimacy of President Obama's birth certificate is "rightfully" an issue with the American public, and that it is "fair game" for politicians to question Obama's citizenship.
The comments came during an interview with conservative radio host Rusty Humphries, who asked Palin whether she planned to "make the birth certificate an issue" if she runs for president in 2012.
"I think the public righ
Source: CNN
December 4, 2009
James Gordon Meek was standing over the gravestone of a friend killed in Iraq when he noticed a familiar figure walking near him.
President Obama was walking through what's called "the saddest acre in America," Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The section is the burial ground for U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama hugged graveside visitors, shook hands and listened to mourners while a "bone-chilling drizzle" fel
Source: The National Security Archive
December 3, 2009
President George H.W. Bush approached the Malta summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev 20 years ago this week determined to avoid arms control topics and simply promote a public image of "new pace and purpose" with him "leading as much as Gorbachev"; but realized from his face-to-face discussions that Gorbachev was offering an arms race in reverse, according to previously secret documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive (www. nsarchive.org).
Source: The National Security Archive
December 3, 2009
30 years after the release of Jacobo Timerman, the former newspaper editor and Argentina's most famous political prisoner during the military dictatorship, the National Security Archive today posted declassified documents that confirm that his case almost resulted in the fracture of the military regime. One September 1979 document states, "President Videla, the civilian Minister of Justice, and the entire Supreme Court threatened to resign" if the military high command refused to relea
Source: CNSNews
December 2, 2009
If Santa is making his list and checking it twice, he may be surprised to find that for the first time since 2005, more American corporations are celebrating Christmas as a part of their seasonal marketing and ad campaigns.
The conservative religious freedom group Liberty Counsel released its annual “Naughty and Nice” list last week, putting businesses in the “naughty” or “nice” column based on whether Christmas is included in advertising and in-store displays.
“There’s
Source: WSJ
December 3, 2009
VIENNA, Va. -- From a dim basement just down the street from a train station here, Mohsen Sazegara is working to overthrow the leadership of Iran.
He's done it before. Thirty years ago, as a hot-headed young revolutionary in a Paris suburb, he helped topple Iran's last monarch, the shah, putting today's Islamic regime in power.
"Iranians across the world have found each other again," says Mr. Sazegara, sipping homemade sour-cherry juice, an Iranian summertime
Source: NYT
December 2, 2009
BASRA, Iraq — Officially, Iraq is a colorblind society that in the tradition of Prophet Muhammad treats black people with equality and respect.
But on the packed dirt streets of Zubayr, Iraq’s scaled-down version of Harlem, African-Iraqis talk of discrimination so steeped in Iraqi culture that they are commonly referred to as “abd” — slave in Arabic — prohibited from interracial marriage and denied even menial jobs.
Historians say that most African-Iraqis arrived as sla
Source: NYT
December 2, 2009
MANILA — Imelda Marcos, the flamboyant widow of the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, filed last-minute papers on Tuesday declaring her candidacy for a seat in the Philippine Congress next year.
Mrs. Marcos, 80, served in Congress once before, in the 1990s, representing the province where she grew up, Leyte. This time, she aims to represent the province of Ilocos Norte, the Marcos family’s stronghold in the northern Philippines.
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
December 2, 2009
A graduate student at Utah State University is a new kind of Civil War re-enactor. Instead of dressing up in period clothes, the student, Tom Caswell, uses Twitter to send short messages in the voice of Abraham Lincoln and other historical figures.
Mr. Caswell is one of the organizers of TwHistory, a Web site devoted to historical re-enactments via Twitter. For their first event, they staged the battle of Gettysburg in the voices of a handful of key characters, including Lincoln (wh
Source: NYT
December 2, 2009
WASHINGTON — When the Bush administration ran the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, career lawyers wanted to look into accusations that officials in one state had illegally intimidated blacks during a voter-fraud investigation.
But division supervisors refused to “approve further contact with state authorities on this matter,” according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office auditing the activities of the division from 2001 to 2007.
Congr
Source: The Jerusalem Post
December 2, 2009
Where is the intersection of the trial of alleged Nazi guard John Demjanjuk and the Islamic Republic of Iran?
The Demjanjuk trial is an example of Germany grappling with its historic responsibility to the victims of the Holocaust and to universal justice. Yet with regard to its more future-oriented responsibility to prevent Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons and its threats to obliterate Israel, critics say Germany is stumbling.
The cross-paths of Iran and Demjanjuk
Source: BBC News
April 12, 2009
The birthday celebrations of King Bhumibol Adulyadej are muted this year as the king remains in hospital recovering from pneumonia.
Instead of hearing his annual speech and watching the king's inspection of the glittering trooping of the colour, his loving subjects are worrying about his - and their nation's - health.
More than 1.2 million people have visited the Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok where the king has been staying for more than two-and-a-half months.
Source: CNN
December 4, 2009
In a nondescript conference room tucked inside the library at the University of Delaware, a graduate student found a historian's equivalent to a needle in a haystack.
Amanda Daddona said she discovered a personal letter from Thomas Jefferson amid one of 200 boxes of legal documents, minutes from meetings and day-to-day correspondence of a prominent Delaware family.
Daddona found the letter last month in an unmarked folder among archives from the Rockwood Museum in Wilmi
Source: BBC
December 4, 2009
Russian actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov, who immortalised a fictional wartime spy called Stirlitz in a 1973 Soviet TV series, has died in Moscow at 81.
Tikhonov, more familiar to Western audiences as Prince Andrei in an epic Soviet adaptation of War And Peace in the 1960s, had suffered a heart attack.
As Stirlitz, he was as familiar to Soviets as James Bond in the West.
Source: AP
December 3, 2009
Italian officials unveiled new discoveries Thursday in an ancient Roman luxury complex filled with priceless mosaics, elegant porticos and thermal baths.
The 1,800 square-meter (2,000 square-yard) complex, dating from the 2nd to 4th centuries, has been excavated intermittently since 2004, when the ruins were accidentally discovered during the renovation of a Renaissance palazzo that stands above them.
In the latest excavation, which began in March, archaeologists uncove
Source: BBC
December 4, 2009
Radovan Karadzic has rejected a British lawyer imposed on him by The Hague-based Yugoslav war crimes tribunal on grounds of nationality.
The Bosnian Serb ex-leader asked for a lawyer sharing his own "heritage and language" to replace Richard Harvey.
Judges appointed Mr Harvey in November after Mr Karadzic - who insists on defending himself - boycotted proceedings and demanded more time.
The case is due to resume in March to give Mr Harvey time t
Source: BBC
December 4, 2009
The Iron Curtain that divided Europe for 46 years left an indelible imprint on the continent's wildlife.
The isolation of Eastern Europe meant that far fewer alien bird species colonised it, scientists have found.
Restrictions on the movement of people and trade into Eastern bloc countries prevented the birds entering.
While westerners imported exotic birds such as parrots and weavers, people in Eastern Europe introduced just a few game birds that were go
