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: NPR/All Things Considered
February 22, 2007
Historic buildings in the Islamic world are often covered with breathtakingly intricate geometric designs. Both artists and mathematicians have long puzzled over them, wondering how the patterns were created.
Now, a Harvard physicist has some new ideas about the designs and the advanced math behind them.
The research, conducted by Peter Lu of Harvard University and Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, appears in the journal Science.
Source: AP
February 22, 2007
JACKSON, Miss. -- A federal judge refused to dismiss charges Thursday against a reputed Ku Klux Klansman in the 1964 slayings of two black men, rejecting arguments that the statute of limitations ran out long ago.
U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate also denied a request to let James Ford Seale, 71, out on bail while he awaits trial. Seale's wife testified that her ailing husband was not getting proper medical care in jail.
Seale's lawyer Dennis Joiner asked Wingate to
Source: Telegraph
February 22, 2007
The French presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen provoked outrage among British veterans yesterday when he compared the September 11 attacks on the United States to RAF-led bombing raids during the Second World War.
The National Front leader said both were "terrorist acts as they expressly targeted civilians to force military leaders to capitulate". Mr Le Pen, 79, also dismissed the al-Qa'eda atrocities in 2001 as a mere "incident".
He told the Ro
Source: AP
February 22, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Iraq war protesters are planning to converge on Washington next month and several organizations, including the POW-MIA group Rolling Thunder, are banding together to protect sacred ground for Vietnam War veterans.
The rally March 17 against the war, organizers say, is to get under way in a grassy park near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, known as the wall.
Two veterans' groups said Wednesday they fear protesters may deface the memorial, a claim dismissed by
Source: Telegraph
February 22, 2007
British school pupils could soon be learning history from a European Union textbook under a new proposal from Berlin to be tabled next week.
Germany is to urge the drawing up of a "European history book", to be taught in all schools to foster a common cultural identity across the EU.
The idea, said to have the backing of Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, is to be the flagship education proposal of Berlin's EU presidency. Annette Schavan, the federal educat
Source: Telegraph
February 22, 2007
A British soldier's pocket diary of life in the trenches during the early days of the Battle of the Somme have been made public for the first time.
[Private] Walter Hutchinson was a young shop manager when he enlisted in the 10th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment.
His poignant record of the battle, in 1916, includes a moving account of the first day during which more than 62,000 comrades died.
[Private] Hutchinson's handwritten account gives a graphic story of his own survival as w
Source: Guardian
February 22, 2007
The son of Idi Amin has broken his family's two-decade vow of silence about the tyrant, hoping to put the record straight about the dictator following release of the Oscar-nominated The Last King of Scotland.
Jaffar Amin has also called for a truth and reconciliation committee to investigate his father's reign of terror. "Dad is the only person that has ever been accused and sentenced, incarcerated by opinion, without it ever reaching any courthouse," said Jaffar, 40. Jaff
Source: Guardian
February 22, 2007
He was a coward, a bully, a lecher and many other dreadful things, according to his critics. All of which may explain why the centenary of the birth of Wystan Hugh Auden passed yesterday without the fanfare that a giant of English literature perhaps deserves.
But the cocktail party and several small soirees which honoured his memory may mark the start of a fightback by enthusiasts for a man whose complications have led to a uniquely split reputation.
"Maybe he's to
Source: Independent
February 22, 2007
For a cosmetics billionaire, New York socialite and art collector who is also one of the world's most influential Jewish philanthropists, rescuing Adolf Hitler's favourite Berlin airport for posterity might seem an unlikely goal.
But yesterday, Ronald Lauder, the second son of the cosmetics-maker Estée Lauder, who died in 2004, was heading a last-ditch attempt to prevent closure of Berlin's Nazi-built Tempelhof. His suggestion is for a €350m [$460m or £235m] project to turn the reli
Source: New York Times
February 22, 2007
The lineup of potential presidential candidates is a mishmash of senators, governors, former big-city mayors and a retired four-star Army general.
But nearly all of them share one title: published author.
“You’re not a real candidate, Pinocchio, if you haven’t written your own book,” said Mark Halperin, the political director of ABC News. “If you know everybody else is doing a book, you’ve got to do a book.”
The crowded field of early candidates has created
Source: New York Times
February 22, 2007
A year ago the settlement was hailed as one of the largest restitutions of art seized by the Nazis. Now about 170 old master paintings returned to the heirs of Jacques Goudstikker, a prominent Dutch dealer who fled Amsterdam in 1940, are to be offered at Christie’s in three sales, beginning in April in New York. The auction house says the paintings, many on view in Dutch museums and government buildings since the 1950s, could fetch from $22 million to $35 million...
The story of Jac
Source: New York Times
February 21, 2007
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. -- They were refugees of a failed uprising, most of them arriving penniless and alone, baffled by the language, knowing that returning home could mean jail or death.
But for eight weeks in the winter of 1956-57, roughly 300 Hungarians fleeing the Soviet tanks that crushed their startling revolt found a life raft in a small college 90 miles north of New York City.
Even if they could scarcely stop chatting in Hungarian, they learned enough Englis
Source: BBC News
February 21, 2007
Baroness Thatcher has become the first living ex-prime minister to be honoured with a statue in the House of Commons.
A 7ft 6ins bronze sculpture was unveiled on Wednesday, with her immediate successor John Major and Tory leader David Cameron attending.
Commons speaker Michael Martin said the tribute was a"fitting" tribute to Britain's first female prime minister.
Baroness Thatcher, 81, said it was"an honour", adding:"I may be made of iron but bronze will do."
Rel
Source: BBC News
February 20, 2007
A sharp freeze could have dealt the killer blow that finished off our evolutionary cousins the Neanderthals, according to a new study.
The ancient humans are thought to have died out in most parts of Europe by about 35,000 years ago.
And now new data from their last known refuge in southern Iberia indicates the final population was probably beaten by a cold spell some 24,000 years ago.
The research is reported by experts from the Gibraltar Museum and Spain.
Source: Times (of London)
February 21, 2007
ROME -- A 5,000-year-old golden artificial eye that once stared out mesmerisingly from the face of a female soothsayer or priestess in ancient Persia has been unearthed by Iranian and Italian archaeologists.
The eyeball —- the earliest artificial eye found -— would have transfixed those who saw it, convincing them that the woman —- thought to have been strikingly tall —- had occult powers and could see into the future, archaeologists said.
It was found by Mansour Sajjad
Source: Independent
February 21, 2007
One of the last remaining bastions of male domination has come crumbling down as one of the oldest libraries in Europe prepares to get to grips with the demands of the 21st century.
For more than 400 years, the Bodleian library - the main research library at the University of Oxford and the second largest in the UK after the British library -- has had a man at the helm. It has also never been run by anyone born outside these shores. But both of those taboos have been broken this wee
Source: International Herald Tribune
February 20, 2007
MATSUE, Japan -- As snow silently fell on the miniature garden outside, Bon Koizumi sat on the same tatami mat floor where, more than a century before, his great-grandfather had penned some of Japan's best-loved traditional folk tales. It was the perfect image of Japanese repose, except for the sepia-toned photo of Koizumi's ancestor, whose bushy mustache and aquiline nose showed an unmistakably Western face.
His great-grandfather was Lafcadio Hearn, the Irish-Greek author whose wan
Source: The World (PRI/BBC)
February 21, 2007
Thirty-five years ago today, President Richard Nixon got off a plane in Beijing, China. That began a new era in US-China relations. The opening for it came with something that's now called ping-pong diplomacy. The World's Mary Kay Magistad has more on how it started. [audio report]...
Source: by Nicholas Dujmovic, Studies in Intelligence (Unclassified Edition)
December 31, 2069
[CIA editorial note:] This article draws extensively on operational files and other internal CIA records that of necessity remain classified. Because the true story of these two CIA officers is compelling and has been distorted in many public accounts, it is retold here in as much detail as possible, despite minimal source citations. Whenever possible, references to open sources are made in the footnotes.
* * *
Beijing’s capture, imprisonment, and eventual release of CI
Source: Weekly Standard
February 26, 2007
George W. Polk was honored as a truth-teller. A correspondent for CBS News, he was murdered in Greece in 1948. A coveted, respected award named after him, the George Polk Award, was established in 1949 and is given every year to journalists in numerous specialties. According to a statement on the official website, the winners have exemplified the unearthing of"myriad forms of scandal and deceit." They comprise a two-generation roll call of distinguished names in journalism...
Polk
