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
May 23, 2009
Last week, after more than 25 years of conflict, the Tamil separatists of Sri Lanka admitted defeat in their war for an independent homeland. And so ended Asia’s longest-running civil war, one of some 20 civil conflicts burning around the globe, from Colombia to Iraq to Pakistan.
Which raises some questions: How long do most civil wars last? What is a civil war, anyway? And how, finally, are they ended?
According to Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations, a civil
Source: http://www.boingboing.net
May 22, 2009
Retired Catholic Archbishop Rembert G Weakland, who has been accused of covering up widespread child rape by priests in Milwaukee, has a forthcoming memoir in which he wrote the following bits of wisdom:
"We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature."
Weakland, who retired in 2002 after it became known that he paid $450,000 in 1998 to a man who had accused him of date rape years earlier, said
Source: NYT
May 24, 2009
The Watergate break-in eventually forced a presidential resignation and turned two Washington Post reporters into pop-culture heroes. But almost 37 years after the break-in, two former New York Times journalists have stepped forward to say that The Times had the scandal nearly in its grasp before The Post did — and let it slip.
Robert M. Smith, a former Times reporter, says that two months after the burglary, over lunch at a Washington restaurant, the acting director of the Federal
Source: CNN
May 24, 2009
Medieval fishermen first took to the open seas in about AD1,000 as a result of a sharp decline in large freshwater fish, scientists have suggested.
They say the decline was probably the result of rising population and pollution levels.
The study forms part of a series that examines the impact of humans on life beneath the waves throughout history.
The findings will be presented at a Census of Marine Life (CoML) conference in Canada, which begins on Tuesda
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 24, 2009
The Allied bombing of the French city of Caen on D-Day was "close to a war crime", according to leading historian Antony Beevor.
Ahead of the 65th anniversary of the invasion of France in the Second World War next month, Professor Beevor claimed that an assumption the city had been evacuated had been "wishful thinking on the part of the British".
He said numerous mistakes were made by the Allies in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, and also p
Source: BBC
May 21, 2009
Reports from southern Yemen say at least three people were killed when police broke up an unauthorised demonstration in Aden.
Others were injured, and dozens of arrests were made. Reports say the police used tear gas and live rounds.
Protests were over poor living standards and alleged discrimination against southern Yemen by the authorities in the north.
Yemen is marking the anniversary of its historic unification in 1990.
Source: CNN
May 24, 2009
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell struck back Sunday at critics of his decision to support Barack Obama's presidential candidacy last year.
Calling for his divided party to widen its ranks, Powell declared, "I am still a Republican."
In an appearance on CBS' Face the Nation, Powell responded to attacks from former Vice President Dick Cheney and talk show host Rush Limbaugh, saying they are "not members of the membership committee of the Republican Pa
Source: Times (UK)
May 24, 2009
[HNN: In this article Michael Munn, author of a memoir of David Niven, discloses that the actor's second wife bedded JFK.]
“I got my revenge,” she said. “Jack Kennedy wanted a quickie, and I gave him a quickie.”
This happened, apparently, when the Nivens went to the White House for President Kennedy’s 46th birthday celebrations in May 1963, six months before he was shot.
Hjördis said: “He gave me a disease. Chlamydia. It taught me that revenge is not the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 23, 2009
A former White House intern who had a 17-month affair with President John F Kennedy is to tell her story for the first time.
Mimi Beardsley Alford, now 66, a retired New York church administrator, will receive an advance believed to be worth nearly $1 million (£630,000) from Random House, the publisher, for her memoir.
Mrs Alford, who is breaking her silence after more than 45 years, maintained the secret about her relationship with the womanising president until a new
Source: CNN
May 23, 2009
For years Section 60 has been the one of busiest parts of the cemetery. Every day new burials bring precision marches, the somber tones of taps and the nerve-rattling three-gun salutes.
More than flowers adorn the graves in Section 60. Visitors of all faiths have picked up the ancient Jewish tradition of leaving a small stone on the headstones to show that a visitor had been to the grave. In most cases these are pebbles found near the grave. But some people have taken to leaving co
Source: BBC
May 23, 2009
One of the centrepiece events of Scotland's year of Homecoming is taking place this weekend in Linlithgow.
Visitors to Party at the Palace are to be given a taste of life as it would have been in 1503.
This was a momentous year, with James IV marrying Margaret Tudor - and Scotland signing "the Treaty of Perpetual Peace" with England.
Celebrations include an 80-strong procession escorting the "king and his new queen" to Linlithgow Palac
Source: BBC
May 23, 2009
A Bronze Age road has been found below Swansea's shifting foreshore.
The short section of track was discovered by a metal detector enthusiast and archaeologists have now dated it to around 4,000 years ago.
Woven from narrow branches of oak and alder the structure was covered in a thin layer of brushwood to provide a level walking-surface.
It was found in March when it was uncovered by storms but has since disappeared back under the marine clay.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 23, 2009
National museums and galleries could be forced to reintroduce admission fees to survive the recession, according to the man who led the campaign to scrap them.
David Barrie, director of The Art Fund, an independent art charity, warned that visitors to institutions like the Science Museum and the V&A may once again face entry charges as many establishments feel the effects of funding cuts.
Admission fees to 11 of the country's leading national museums and galleries
Source: The New York Times
May 22, 2009
WHENEVER a heavy storm rips through this coastal city, Mary Witkowski, a local historian, immediately has the same worrisome thought: “Are they still standing?”
So far, she has been both amazed and relieved to find that the two rickety structures known as the Freeman houses have indeed survived on their adjacent 161-year-old foundations.
Thought to be the state’s oldest remaining houses built by African-Americans, the boarded-up homes are the only remnants of a south-e
Source: NYT
May 22, 2009
Kristian Roebling,
whose great-great
grandparents,
Washington
Roebling and Emily Warren Roebling, built the Brooklyn Bridge, discusses his family's history and the reasons behind his objection to a new building project that would go up in the the bridge's shadow.
Source: NYT
May 22, 2009
For more than a week, Bao Tong, a former senior Communist Party official now under strict surveillance, openly promoted an insider’s account of Chinese political infighting sure to be banned in China.
The book is the posthumous memoir by Mr. Bao’s boss, Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party chief fired in 1989 for opposing the use of troops to quash pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. Before his death in 2005, Mr. Zhao furtively recorded his account of that period.
W
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 23, 2009
With her kindly manner and knack for turning the humblest ingredients into a meal fit for any guest, Clara Cannucciari is every American's idea of the perfect 'grandmom'.
Now, with the US economy in the midst of its greatest downturn since the 1930s, his videos of his 93-year-old grandmother have become a YouTube sensation, inspiring hundreds of thousands of Americans struggling to feed their families.
The hardships of the Depression can also be heard in her commentar
Source: CNN
May 23, 2009
Former South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun committed suicide Saturday by leaping to his death from a hill behind his house, the government announced.
He was 62.
Roh, who was president from 2003 to 2008, had gone hiking near his home with an aide about 6:30 a.m. Saturday (5:30 p.m. ET on Friday), the state-run Yonhap news agency said.
Prosecutors were investigating the former president for allegedly receiving $6 million in bribes from a South Korean business
Source: Sunday Times
May 22, 2009
When Father Patrick Desbois heard that chilling Nazi maxim, he knew
that he had to make a journey into one of the darkest corners of the
Holocaust.
After a five-year investigation he had received a shocking insight
into the mechanics of genocide — and strong indications that
historians may have to raise their estimate of how many Jews were
killed.
Working with a ballistics expert, the 53-year-old French priest dug up
the mass graves of Ukraine."Every village was a crime sc
Source: NYT
May 22, 2009
With his sustained blitz of television appearances and speeches, former Vice President Dick Cheney has established himself as perhaps the leading Republican voice against President Obama.
Not a bad time, then, to be in the market for a multimillion-dollar book contract.
Mr. Cheney is actively shopping a memoir about his life in politics and service in four presidential administrations, a work that would add to what is already an unusually dense collection of post-Bush-p
