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: http://www.ligali.org
October 12, 2007
The european descendants of Lothar von Trotha, a brutal German military commander who instigated the mass slaughter of thousands of Herero people, have met with their representatives to apologise for the actions of their ancestor.
Representatives of the von Trotha family visited the chiefs of six Herero royal houses Omaruru, in central Namibia following an invitation from the Herero Supreme Chief Alfons Maharero, the grandson of Samuel Maharero who led the wars against the German in
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
October 22, 2007
Within a week, the Director of National Intelligence will formally
disclose the size of the National Intelligence Program budget for
fiscal year 2007, an ODNI spokeswoman said.
The anticipated disclosure marks the culmination of decades of
advocacy, debate and litigation.
Last July Congress enacted an intelligence budget disclosure
requirement over White House objections as part of a bill to implement
the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission."The Administration strongly oppose
Source: IHT
October 22, 2007
A Slovenian government program is working to help people come to terms with a hidden legacy of unprecedented slaughter during the World War II. So far, 540 sites have been registered across Slovenia. They are believed to hold up to 100,000 bodies."The killings that took place here have no comparison in Europe. In two months after the war, more people were killed here than in the four years of war," said Joze Dezman, a historian who heads the committee for registeri
Source: AP
October 21, 2007
A United States magistrate rejected arguments by the Bush administration and urged a federal judge to order the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mail messages. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola said it was necessary to hold out the threat of a contempt of court citation to ensure that White House personnel safeguard backup tapes of electronic messages that may have been deleted. Whether to issue the order is up to Judge Henry Kennedy of Federal District Court. The administration has 1
Source: NYT
October 21, 2007
MAMARONECK, N.Y. It all began with an Indian who wanted to eat peyote.
His name was Alfred Smith. He belonged to the Klamath tribe in Oregon and was a member of the North American Church, whose sacramental rites included ingesting peyote buds.
On March 2, 1984, when he told his boss at the alcohol and drug treatment center where he worked that he would be attending a church meeting the following day, he was told that if he used peyote there he would be fired. He did, an
Source: AP
October 20, 2007
As Peru heads into the most sensational trial in its history, the country is being taken back 16 years to the night when hooded men stormed a barbecue in a Lima tenement courtyard and machine-gunned the crowd, killing 15 people including an 8-year-old boy.
It was November 1991 — just a year into the 10-year presidency of Alberto Fujimori — and a dirty war was raging between government forces and Maoist rebels calling themselves the Shining Path. The police investigation of the Lima
Source: NYT
October 19, 2007
Neanderthals, an archaic human species that dominated Europe until the arrival of modern humans some 45,000 years ago, possessed a critical gene known to underlie speech, according to DNA evidence retrieved from two individuals excavated from El Sidron, a cave in northern Spain.
The new evidence stems from analysis of a gene called FOXP2 which is associated with language. The human version of the gene differs at two critical points from the chimpanzee version, suggesting that these
Source: NYT
October 19, 2007
On the docket for the weekly selectmen’s meeting here on Monday were the location of park benches, a liquor license for Vinny T’s restaurant and, not for the first time, the killing of 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey 90 years ago.
The debate in this affluent Boston suburb, home to many Jews and Armenians, centered on a local program to increase awareness of bias. The issue was not the program itself, but its sponsor, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish advocacy group, which has t
Source: WaPo
October 14, 2007
The two old sailors stepped side by side toward the Tomb of the Unknowns, carrying a memorial wreath to their shipmates between them. The crowd stood hushed in the autumn sun while the pair, in ball caps and blazers, approached the white marble monument, left their wreath, stepped back and saluted.
A bugler had just played taps, and as the breeze rustled a majestic elm nearby, the moment was almost perfect: Few seemed focused on the jagged crack that zigzagged through the 48-ton sto
Source: http://www.dailypress.com
October 19, 2007
Archaeologists probing beneath the surface of a Merchants Square parking lot have discovered evidence of a rare 17th-century building that dates back to a little understood colonial outpost that preceded the town's founding in 1699.
Located under the SunTrust Bank parking lot at the corner of Prince George and Henry streets, the 40-foot-long post-in-ground structure is one of only a handful of buildings known from the days of Middle Plantation, which was established in 1633. It coul
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
October 19, 2007
A resolution has been introduced in the House of Representatives to
honor the participants in"Post Office Box 1142," a military
intelligence interrogation program from World War II.
"In advancing the Nation's interests and uncovering vital secrets, the
interrogators at P.O. Box 1142 never resorted to tactics such as sleep
deprivation, electrical shock, or waterboarding. Their captives were
never sexually abused, humiliated, or tortured. They never resorted to
the methods that have rece
Source: Reuters
October 19, 2007
When Japanese soldiers gave out grenades to residents of Okinawa toward the end World War Two, Kiku Nakayama says she and her friends knew what they were for.
Then a teenage military nurse, she was told to fend for herself when the hospital where she worked was abandoned as U.S. forces approached.
"We were given grenades and we all interpreted that to mean we should use them to kill ourselves," Nakayama said.
"Many people were given two and t
Source: Catholic News Agency
October 18, 2007
“Let us love our enemies, bless those who curse us, pray for those who persecute us. For love will conquer and will endure for all eternity.” — Franz Jagerstatter
Franz Jagerstatter was a rare soul and could be compared to the great contemplatives and saints. He was a simple Austrian farmer who stubbornly refused to serve in the armies of the German Third Reich and to support the Nazi party and was executed as a consequence. Jagerstatter became one of the outstanding figures of Chri
Source: AP
October 18, 2007
Detectives said they recovered Nazi artifacts that somehow moved from Adolf Hitler's mountain stronghold to a Utah storage unit where they were stolen two years ago.
The documents, ornately decorated and addressed to Hitler, were obtained from an antiques dealer who had been approached by somebody who wanted to sell them.
The items are believed to have come from Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" in the Bavarian Alps and brought home by an American soldier after World Wa
Source: AP
October 18, 2007
The restoration of Germany's famed Anna Amalia Library, a UNESCO World Heritage List site gutted by fire three years ago, has been completed and the building will reopen to the public next week, officials said Thursday.
The US$18.2 million restoration was undertaken after a fire on Sept. 2, 2004, tore through the roof and top floor of the 16th-century rococo palace that houses the library.
Tens of thousands of irreplaceable books were lost and damaged in the fire, thoug
Source: Miami Herald
October 16, 2007
For 10 years, they fought, hid and prayed for freedom here by the river, those 750 fugitive slaves, free blacks and black Seminoles who drifted west from the middle of Florida to form the largest community of its kind in the early 19th century South. Then, in 1821, their settlement, which they had named Angola after its kindred region in West Africa, was burned and looted and destroyed, probably by order of Gen. Andrew Jackson.
For the past five years, documentary producer Vickie Oldham has
Source: NYT
October 19, 2007
The problems swirling through Japan’s ancient sport of sumo recently would seem to be random, unconnected events.
A coach was expelled from the sumo association this month for inflicting fatal injuries on a 17-year-old apprentice in a hazing incident and may face criminal charges. One of the two grand champions, Asashoryu, has been suspended for claiming an injury and then being filmed playing soccer in his native Mongolia. He is also suspected of fixing matches with other wrestlers
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org
October 16, 2007
The unfinished Obelisk Quarry in Aswan, Egypt, has a canal that may have connected to the Nile and allowed the large stone monuments to float to their permanent locations, according to an international team of researchers. This canal, however, may be allowing salts from ground water to seep into what has been the best preserved example of obelisk quarrying in Egypt.
"Working deposits and surfaces exposed during excavation are being damaged by accumulation of salts," the re
Source: Reuters
October 18, 2007
A group of mediaeval minarets in the Afghan city of Herat could be saved thanks to the closure of a busy road threatening their foundations.
The minarets, standing at more than 100 feet, are all that remain of what was once a brilliantly decorated complex for Islamic learning and devotion on the Silk Road on the outskirts of the western Afghan city.
Just over a century ago, more than a dozen minarets stood in Herat, part of a madrasa-mosque complex built in the 15th cen
Source: AP
October 19, 2007
Hippies used to say if you remember Woodstock, you weren't really there. Republicans say presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton can forget about getting $1 million in taxpayer funds for a Woodstock museum.
Clinton and Charles Schumer, Democratic senators from New York, want to earmark the federal money for a museum that would commemorate the 1969 music festival in their state.
"Woodstock Museum is a shining example of what's wrong with Washington on pork-bar
