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: AP
October 11, 2010
Former President Bill Clinton is busy on the campaign trail, helping candidates in races from Florida to Washington state. His successor, George W. Bush? Holed up in Texas.
Bush left office deeply unpopular and sour on domestic politics. After leaving Washington and returning to Texas, he has kept a low profile, working on his memoir and appearing only occasionally at paid speeches. Aides say he has no plans to be a figure in this year's elections, which could see major gains for th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 10, 2010
The Palestinian Authority has denounced a potentially explosive Israeli plan to build a gate in the Ottoman walls of Jerusalem's storied Old City as a provocative move that could undermine peace talks.
Jewish municipal officials last week unveiled a proposal to breach the Old City's walls for the first time in 112 years, a project that threatens to jeopardise the delicate status quo in one of the world's most sensitive and disputed religious sites.
The row comes when t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 10, 2010
Nelson Mandela's new memoirs explore his anguish over the toll political activism took on his family, according to excerpts that appeared in Sunday newspapers around the world.
The excerpts offer readers a sneak peak of Conversations with Myself, which goes on sale Tuesday and is based on decades of the anti-apartheid icon's notes, letters and conversations.
The Sunday Times quotes a letter sent in 1969 to his daughters Zenani and Zindzi, then nine and 10, after his th
Source: Guardian (UK)
October 11, 2010
The battle between President Nicolas Sarkozy and the French unions over pension reforms enters a crucial phase today with a new wave of strikes and protests across the country.
Workers and students are expected to take to the streets in an escalation of industrial action against government plans to raise the official retirement age to 62, with walkouts bringing disruption to France's transport network, schools and oil refineries.
For the first time, several unions have
Source: NYT
October 11, 2010
Two years ago, a team of linguists plunged into the remote hill country of northeastern India to study little-known languages, many of them unwritten and in danger of falling out of use.
On average, every two weeks one of the world’s recorded 7,000 languages becomes extinct, and the expedition was seeking to document and help preserve the endangered ones in these isolated villages.
At a rushing mountain river, the linguists crossed on a bamboo raft and entered the tiny
Source: Newsweek
October 11, 2010
After 36 years and more than 40,000 deaths, one of the world’s bloodiest and longest-running insurgencies—the separatist struggle of Turkey’s Kurds—could soon be over. Last week Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hinted that his government was finally negotiating with Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, imprisoned since 1999. Not long ago, such talks would have been political suicide. But Erdogan is riding high after a victory last month in which voters
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 10, 2010
A Republican candidate from Ohio is battling to save the credibility of his midterm election campaign after it was revealed that he had dressed up in a German SS uniform to participate in Nazi re-enactments.
Rich Lott, a favourite of the conservative Tea Party movement, said in a statement that he meant no disrespect to anyone who had served in the military.
But his actions drew sharp criticism from Holocaust survivors and from Democrats, who were keen to portray his h
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 10, 2010
Landowners have been warned the discovery of a valuable Roman helmet could trigger a flood of treasure hunters.
The find is the latest in a series of high profile artifacts unearthed by amateurs armed with metal detectors.
However the Country Land and Business Association is warning that property owners can become embroiled in costly legal disputes if they fail to agree contracts with anyone searching on their land.
There are an estimated 30,000 metal de
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 10, 2010
For visitors to Pompeii, they are a guaranteed crowd pleaser: erotic frescoes, including one of Priapus, the god of fertility, adorning the walls of a 2,000 year old Roman villa.
Or rather they were until two years ago, when the House of the Vettii closed for a restoration project which was supposed to last a year but which still grinds on, the villa encased in scaffolding and a sign outside offering no indication of when it might reopen.
Pompeii may be the best prese
Source: AP
October 10, 2010
Nelson Mandela's new memoirs explore his anguish over the toll political activism took on his family, according to excerpts that appeared in Sunday newspapers around the world.
The excerpts offer readers a sneak peak of "Conversations with Myself," which goes on sale Tuesday and is based on decades of the anti-apartheid icon's notes, letters and conversations.
The Sunday Times of London quotes a letter sent in 1969 to his daughters Zenani and Zindzi, then 9 an
Source: AP
October 10, 2010
Visitors to ancient Jericho got a rare glimpse Sunday of a massive 1,200-year-old carpet mosaic measuring nearly 900 square meters (9,700 square feet), making it one of the largest in the Middle East.
The small red, blue and ochre square stones laid out in sweeping geometric and floral patterns cover the floor of the main bath house of an Islamic palace that was destroyed by an earthquake in the eighth century. Since being excavated in the 1930s and 1940s, the mosaic has largely rem
Source: AP
October 10, 2010
Clapping, waving and even cracking a smile, the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il joined his father Sunday at a massive military parade in his most public appearance since being unveiled as the nation's next leader.
Kim Jong Un, dressed in a dark blue civilian suit, sat next to his father on an observation platform at Kim Il Sung Plaza as armored trucks with rocket launchers and tanks rolled by as part of celebrations marking the 65th anniversary of the reclusive state
Source: CNN
October 10, 2010
Despite being allowed to tell her husband he won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, the wife of Liu Xiaobo was detained in her apartment in Beijing, China, according to a human rights group and her attorney.
Liu Xia has not been charged with a crime, but "appears to be under a de facto house arrest," said Beth Schwanke, legislative counsel for the U.S.-based group Freedom Now.
But upon return to Beijing, Liu Xia was not allowed to leave her apartment, Schwanke said.
Source: AP
October 10, 2010
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expressed solidarity with China's government Sunday over the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a jailed Chinese dissident.
He suggested the prize should not have gone to Liu Xiaobo, who has drawn praise from Western governments as an advocate of gradual political change without any violent confrontation with Chinese leaders.
The Venezuelan leader criticized last year's award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama, saying the U.S. pr
Source: WaPo
October 9, 2010
A GOP nominee for the House of Representatives drew sharp criticism from Holocaust survivors Saturday for having participated in a Nazi reenactment group devoted to a Waffen SS division, and Democrats seized on the Ohio businessman's activities as the latest indication that the Republican Party is backing fringe candidates.
The Atlantic magazine reported Friday that Rich Iott, a member of the National Republican Congressional Committee's "Young Guns" program, participated
Source: Discovery News
October 5, 2010
Footprints found in 250-million-year-old rocks suggest dinosaurs evolved a few million years after Earth's most severe extinction event to date.
The earliest known fossils associated with dinosaurs have been identified in 250-million-year-old rocks from Poland.
The fossils -- footprints made by dinosaur relatives known as dinosauromorphs -- suggest that dinosaurs evolved from small, four-legged animals that lived during the Early Triassic just a few million years after
Source: NYT
October 9, 2010
HANOI, Vietnam — A musical refrain blared from a loudspeaker as this weekend began — “Hanoi, Hanoi, Hanoi” — and on the sidewalk below, Nguyen Thi Thuy was selling red heart-shaped decals printed with the gold star of Vietnam’s flag....
With parades and concerts and flamboyant propaganda kitsch, Hanoi is celebrating its 1,000th anniversary on Sunday, and much of city life has stopped to make way for it....
A target of American bombing in the 1960s and 1970s, then a mori
Source: CNN
October 8, 2010
The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Liu Xiaobo, a leading Chinese dissident who is serving an 11-year prison term after repeatedly calling for human rights and democratization, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced.
Liu was sentenced in 2009 for inciting subversion of state power. He is the co-author of Charter 08, a call for political reform and human rights, and was an adviser to the student protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Liu's wife, Liu Xia, t
Source: BBC
October 8, 2010
The lives of women in Highlands high society in the 18th and 19th centuries are to be explored in a lecture by historian Dr Stana Nenadic.
Her talk, in Dornoch, draws on research of letters, memoirs and poetry written by the wives and daughters of lairds and noblemen.
The lecture will be dedicated to the late historian and feminist Sue Innes.
It forms part of the 10th annual Women's History Scotland event, hosted by Dornoch's UHI Centre for History....
Source: BBC
October 7, 2010
A set of John Lennon's fingerprints has been seized by the FBI from a New York memorabilia dealer.
Dealer Peter Siegel told the BBC the card was to be auctioned at a $100,000 (£62,621) minimum bid.
The prints were taken at a New York police station in 1976 when Lennon applied for permanent US residence.
An FBI official told the BBC the bureau believed the card was government property and was investigating how it landed in private hands.
Mr Sieg
