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: Telegraph (UK)
October 25, 2010
The British Government is finally carrying out an investigation into the mystery deaths of around 300 babies born to military families in Cyprus in the 1960s, amid suspicions of a high-level cover-up.
The deaths of so many infants have never been adequately explained, with speculation that they may have been caused by poor hospital hygiene or an outbreak of typhoid, polo, cholera or meningitis.
Some former servicemen believe the blame lies with the cocktail of inocula
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 25, 2010
Rudolf Hess was lured to Britain in an elaborate MI6 sting, according to a new book that claims to solve one of the most enduring mysteries of the Second World War.
The reason for Hitler's deputy making his solo flight to Scotland in May 1941 has kept conspiracy theorists busy for decades. He was arrested in Renfrewshire and spent the rest of his life in prison.
Nearly 70 years on, a fresh theory has emerged. Author John Harris claims that Hess was lured to Britain in
Source: AP
October 25, 2010
The Palestinian government is planning an ambitious restoration project for the ancient church that marks the traditional spot where Jesus was born.
Ziad Bandak, an official working on the restoration, says renovation of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity is expected to take several years and cost millions of dollars.
Bandak said Monday this is the first comprehensive restoration project on the church since it was completed in the fourth century....
Source: CNN
October 25, 2010
A young girl sick with a seven-foot intestinal worm, men struck dead by bolts of lightning and a child so transfigured by illness that nurses said she'd been "substituted by the fairies."
These are just a few of the bizarre and exotic episodes revealed by more than 1,000 British Royal Navy Medical Officer journals -- compiled between 1793 and 1880 -- that have been made accessible to the public following a two-year cataloguing project by Britain's National Archives.
Source: BBC News
October 25, 2010
Germany's diplomats were more deeply involved in the Holocaust than previously known, according to an official German government report.
The government is considering making the 900-page text mandatory reading for all its diplomats.
The report was commissioned in 2005 after it emerged that flattering obituaries of war-time diplomats were being published internally....
Source: Salon
October 24, 2010
[Steve Kornacki is the news editor for Salon.]
You know the basic midterm narrative: The GOP, written off by pundits as a dying party after Barack Obama's sweeping 2008 victory, has staged a remarkable revival and is now poised to deliver a brutal blow to the first-term president on Nov. 2. Republicans are already celebrating their comeback — and promising an even bigger year in 2012.
Oddly enough, Walter Mondale knows exactly how they feel.
His party's obi
Source: Channel Canada
October 25, 2010
The new documentary, Canada Remembers: Women Who Have Served and Sacrificed will air on VisionTV November 11 at 10pm ET. It will be followed at 11pm ET by Canada Remembers: Their Achievements and Sacrifices.
During the Second World War, women served in non-combat support roles in the Royal Navy as WRENS, the air force women’s division and in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps. Many women also took over important jobs and others supported the military to help keep supplies moving. War B
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 25, 2010
Still feuding with McCartney? Still happily married to Yoko Ono? Leading a reformed Beatles?
John Lennon would have celebrated his 70th birthday this month had he not been shot by a nutter outside the Dakota building in New York. What would he be doing now if Mark Chapman hadn’t been on his doorstep? Still feuding with McCartney? Still happily married to Yoko Ono? Leading a reformed Beatles with Paul, Ringo and that unlovable Beatles wannabe, Noel Gallagher, taking George’s place on
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 25, 2010
n focusing on a short series, the Courtauld Institute provides more insight into the way he worked than even a huge exhibition might have, says Richard Dorment .
Cézanne’s series of paintings The Card Players is the cornerstone of his work between 1890 and 1895, and the prelude to the explosive creative achievement of his last years. It was a simple but inspired idea for the Courtauld Gallery to bring together three of the five versions of the picture and to display them alongside t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 25, 2010
Nicolas Sarkozy has become the most unpopular French president in more than 50 years, according to a new poll.
As his country teetered on the brink of economic chaos because of strikes, blockades and riots, new polls put his approval rating at less than 30 per cent.
The figures made Mr Sarkozy even less popular than President Charles de Gaulle was in 1968 - the year millions took to the streets to demand a complete overhaul of French society.
The then agein
Source: CNN
October 25, 2010
After retiring the floppy disk in March, Sony has halted the manufacture and distribution of another now-obsolete technology: the cassette Walkman, the first low-cost, portable music player.
The final batch was shipped to Japanese retailers in April, according to IT Media. Once these units are sold, new cassette Walkmans will no longer be available through the manufacturer.
The first generation Walkman (which was called the Soundabout in the U.S., and the Stowaway in th
Source: CNN
October 25, 2010
Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr pleaded guilty to charges against him Monday, the Pentagon said, in the first military commission trial there since Barack Obama became president.
Khadr, 24, was accused of throwing a grenade during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, a Special Forces medic.
He also admitted that he "converted landmines to Improvised Explosive Devices and assisted in the planting of
Source: WaPo
October 25, 2010
The question around Washington today is not whether Nov. 2 will be a difficult day for the Democrats who control Congress, but rather how bad it will be....
If these trends hold - if the Republicans do gain the House without also taking control of the Senate - that would represent a historic anomaly: Not since the election of 1930 has the House changed hands without the Senate following suit....
Source: Guardian (UK)
October 24, 2010
Manchester's Tutankhamun exhibition is full of fakes, but no less inspiring for that.
The exhibition Tutankhamun – His Tomb and His Treasures, which opened at the Trafford Centre on Friday, boasts the very room that amazed Carter 88 years ago. Golden beds, chairs, chariots, chests and portraits are heaped as they were when he peeked through that tiny aperture: the death mask of Tutankhamun, one of the most astonishing works of art on earth, is here. The only trouble is, none of it i
Source: BBC
October 23, 2010
Sri Lanka's war, which ended last year, set the mainly Sinhalese government and military against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE - Tamil Tigers), a militant group drawn from the Tamil minority.
Caught in between were the Muslims, about 9% of the population and regarded as a separate ethnic group, although Tamil is their mother tongue.
Exactly 20 years ago, the Tigers violently expelled almost all of northern Sri Lanka's Muslims. They fled into internal exil
Source: BBC
October 24, 2010
Two funeral directors are behind a new heritage trail, highlighting historic figures buried at a cemetery.
Ian and James Reynolds were told about some of the 70,000 graves, ranging from an MP, war hero to a footballer, by their father who worked at Treorchy Cemetery, Rhondda for 65 years.
The trail includes graves or memorials for:
Rhondda's first MP and president of the South Wales Miners Federation, William "Mabon" Abraham, who died in 1922
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 24, 2010
The inhabitants of Pompeii, who died when Mt Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago, were killed by intense heat rather than suffocation as previously thought, a new study of the disaster has claimed.
Thousands of people in the Roman city were caught up in a firestorm in which they were exposed to temperatures of up to 1112F (600C), a team of Italian scientists believe.
The extraordinarily high temperatures would have killed fleeing inhabitants in just 10 seconds, acc
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 24, 2010
Human skulls or ancients mummies are being removed from British museums for fear of insulting minority religious groups, academics have warned.
Already museums around the country have been forced to close coffin lids, remove skeletons and respectfully replace the shroud on mummies in order to placate protesters. There are fears such artefacts could be banned altogether.
Small groups such as the Pagan Organisation Honouring the Ancient Dead claim that it is against the
Source: CNN
October 24, 2010
In a few weeks a noteworthy anniversary will arrive: fifty years since the election of John F. Kennedy as president of the United States.
Much will be made of the fact that half a century has passed. Photographs of the young president and his family will be republished, retrospective essays will be written. Inevitably, as the Kennedy years are freshly examined, the name of the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald will be mentioned in the context of what might have been, if only Kennedy's pat
Source: Digital Journal
October 24, 2010
A new scientific study seems to confirm that there is little new under the sun. It appears the modern recycling mantra of 'reduce, re-use, recycle' was already practised by the ancient Romans.
These are the findings of an analysis of ancient Roman glass tableware that was used in Britain during the last century of Roman rule by UK researchers Caroline Jackson of the archaeology department of the University of Sheffield and Harriet Foster of the Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Ser
