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: CNN
January 18, 2011
Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier's return to Haiti has surprised many and pushed at least one person to seek criminal charges against the former ruler.
Duvalier returned to his homeland Sunday after some 25 years in exile, injecting a further dose of uncertainty into an already turbulent political situation.
Michele Montas, a Haitian journalist and a former spokeswoman for the U.N. Secretary-General, said Monday night that she plans to f
Source: CNN
January 18, 2011
After more than 40 years in television, Regis Philbin is retiring from the small screen.
Philbin, 77, made the announcement Tuesday at the start of the long-running "Live with Regis & Kelly."
"This will be my last year on this show ... but there is a time, there is a time that everything needs to come to an end for certain people on camera, especially certain old people," Philbin said.
The show, now in its 22nd year in national syndi
Source: CBS News (video)
January 17, 2011
When you think of Martin Luther King Jr.'s formative years, you think may think of Atlanta, where he grew up and attended Morehouse College. You may think of Montgomery, Ala., where he got his first pastor job and led the bus boycott. But who would ever think of Simsbury, Conn.?
"It seemed like it wasn't possible that he would come to, of all places, this town," said Richard Curtiss.
Curtiss is a history teacher at Simsbury High School. Last summer h
Source: BBC
January 17, 2011
An 18th Century Chinese vase is bought by a Chinese buyer at a small suburban auction house in London for £43m ($66m), more than £53m after fees and commission.
The sale price is 40 times the pre-sale estimate.
In Hong Kong a local buyer pays nearly $17m dollars for a pair of 5ft-high enamel cranes - believed to be a gift from an 18th Century Chinese emperor to his son.
Another Hong Kong-based collector pays $32m for an 18th Century Chinese floral vase.
Source: BBC
January 16, 2011
The South Sudanese leader has urged his people to forgive the north for killings during a civil war that lasted more than 20 years.
Salva Kiir made the appeal from the pulpit of a Catholic Cathedral in Juba.
Early results from Southern Sudan's referendum indicate the region has voted overwhelmingly to split from the north and form a new country.
Full results of the poll are not due until next month, but the region is widely expected to choose to secede....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 17, 2011
A long-running probe into the murders of the last Russian Tsar and his family has closed after failing to find evidence that Lenin ordered the killings, the chief investigator has said
Historians and archivists have found no evidence that the Bolshevik leader or regional chief Yakov Sverdlov gave permission for the family to be shot in 1918, Vladimir Solovyov, Russia's chief investigator, told the Izvestia newspaper.
Russia has now closed a criminal probe aimed at nam
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 17, 2011
The French Catholic nun who credits the late Pope John Paul with curing her of Parkinson's disease said on Monday her sudden recovery came just as she was about to quit working because of her ailment.
Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, 49, said she woke up in June 2005, two months after the Polish-born pope had died, suddenly cured of the disease she had suffered from for four years.
John Paul's successor, Pope Benedict, approved a decree last Friday declaring her healing a m
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 17, 2011
Tony Blair misled Parliament by claiming that Britain could legally attack Iraq in the face of United Nations opposition despite being given clear advice to the contrary, new evidence suggests.
In evidence to the Iraq inquiry, Lord Goldsmith, who at the time was the government’s top legal adviser, disclosed that he was “uncomfortable” about statements made by the then-prime minister in the run up to the 2003 invasion.
Two months before the war began, in a meeting at N
Source: AP
January 17, 2011
The prosecutor of the U.N. tribunal set up to bring to justice the assassins of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri filed the first indictment in the case Monday, the court announced.
Details of suspects named in the indictment and the charges against them were not released.
Hariri was killed along with 22 other people by a huge truck bomb blast on Feb. 14, 2005, on Beirut's Mediterranean sea front....
Source: Fox News
January 17, 2011
Authorities say a thief stole eight bronze plaques -- totaling $65,000 -- from a foreign war memorial, making off with the only official list of all the deceased veterans who belonged to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6919 in Morningside, Md.
Three of the plaques bore the faces and names of the soldiers for whom the Post was named, the station reports. Five other plaques, weighing about 120 pounds each, listed the names of the deceased veterans who belonged to the Post. The list
Source: SF Chronicle
January 17, 2011
Silicon Valley now has a museum dedicated to the human penchant for making objects to augment our already remarkable brains, in a continuum from the dawn of the abacus to the continuing evolution of the Internet.
"If you love baseball, you have Cooperstown; if you love art, you have the Louvre," said John Hollar, president of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.
"Now if you love computing, you have a place to go," said Hollar, who presided o
Source: Time.com
January 14, 2011
It's likely Edward Teach didn't need much to scare his enemies. After all, the notorious pirate better known as Blackbeard boasted a thick mass of facial hair so intimidating that it got immortalized in history.
He also numbered among the first corsairs to fly a black flag with bones on it. And, according to some accounts, he had a habit of lighting fuses beneath his hat, a halo of smoke giving the bristly sea dog a decidedly demonic aspect....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 14, 2011
The letter, sent by King Alaungphaya, was an effusive and gushing appeal for camaraderie and trade with Britain. But although engraved on a gold sheet and adorned with 24 rubies, it was simply banished to a vault in the King's home town of Hanover, Germany, and not deemed worthy of a reply.
The letter has languished there, in the Leibniz library, for more than 250 years as nobody could read it. But historians who have spent three years examining the document have now unravelled its
Source: Spiegel Online
January 14, 2011
More than 250,000 concentration camp prisoners died in death marches shortly before the end of World War II. Many of them were murdered by German civilians. A new book tries to answer the question why.
The end was in sight, with Allied troops already on the outskirts of the city. Nevertheless, a number of citizens of Celle in north-central Germany became murderers on April 8, 1945.
They participated in the hunt for hundreds of concentration camp prisoners who, during an
Source: NJ.com
January 14, 2011
Call it a high-end garage sale, or a fabulous rent party: the New Jersey Historical Society is auctioning off prime artifacts from its collection to help pay the bills. You don’t have to be a historian to gasp at the $2.1 million sale last month of an extremely rare 1784 map of the United States. It had been in the historical society’s possession since 1862. No more. Other items will go on the auction block soon, including oil paintings, silverware and 18th-century furniture.
Someth
Source: The Australian
January 17, 2011
THE toll of World War II on Winston Churchill's health has been revealed in notes compiled by the former British prime minister's physician.
The previously confidential records show a leader whose work deteriorated and whose character suffered because of years of stress that left him with "an intolerance of criticism and bad temper".
Churchill's decline was exacerbated because he "never nursed his physique" and failed to "listen to advice",
Source: The Local (DE)
January 15, 2011
Klaus Barbie, the Nazi war criminal known as the ‘butcher of Lyon’ for his hideous treatment of Jewish prisoners, was paid by the German intelligence services for political information during the 1960s, according to Der Spiegel.
Barbie fled to Bolivia after the war, in which he had served as the head of the SS in Lyon, and lived there under the name Klaus Altmann from 1951. It was there that he was recruited by the BND intelligence service, the magazine reported on Saturday.
Source: Lee P Ruddin
January 17, 2011
The results of the UK American Presidency Survey have been released.
Rating presidential performance across five categories, 47 UK-based, US specialists ranked Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) first and James Buchanan (1857-1861) 40th. George W. Bush (2001-2009) is in 31st place, putting him in the bottom 10.
The UK Survey of US Presidents was conducted by the United States Presidency Centre of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London, and
Source: BBC News
January 14, 2011
US and world leaders have honoured Richard Holbrooke, the US diplomat who died last month at 69, praising him as a giant in foreign policy.
Mr Holbrooke, a diplomatic veteran, was President Barack Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mourners included Mr Obama, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton.
Mr Holbrooke was credited in part with ending war in the Balkans in the 19
Source: BBC News
January 17, 2011
Prince William was asked to walk behind the coffin of Princess Diana because of fears the Prince of Wales might be attacked, Alastair Campbell says.
Mr Campbell, former Downing Street director of communications, makes the claim in extracts from his diaries published in the Guardian.
He said Prince Charles's press secretary was sent to ask William to walk with his father.
Clarence House said it would not be commenting on Mr Campbell's claims.
Mr
