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)
Nov 27, 2009
The cover of Straight Speaking for Africa by President Denis Sassou-Nguesso proudly proclaims "Foreword by Nelson Mandela". Inside, Mr Mandela. 91, is purported to hail a man who came to power in a coup in 1979 and after losing elections regained power by winning a civil war as "one of our great African leaders".
But the anti-apartheid leader's foundation, which guards his legacy, last month threatened legal action over the "false claim".
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 27, 2009
The catastrophic defeat at Isandlwana on the Natal border in South Africa on Jan 22, 1879 has largely been overshadowed in Britain by the dramatic defence of Rorke's Drift later the same day, which featured in the Sir Michael Caine film Zulu.
That battle, which pitted a tiny garrison of fewer than 140 men against 3,000 heavily armed Zulus, came to symbolise the Anglo-Zulu war but distracted attention from the battle five miles away at Isandlwana, where a 1,750-strong British force
Source: BBC
Nov 27, 2009
Adolf Hitler's autobiography manifesto Mein Kampf is selling as well as Dan Brown's latest novel, The Lost Symbol.
The street vendors in Dhaka are found at every major road junction and intersection.
Most of the sellers are young boys and many compete with beggars to attract the attention of motorists.
Last week, Mein Kampf did unusually well because many bought the book to give it away as an Eid present.
Source: BBC
Nov 27, 2009
The New Place, in Stratford-upon-Avon, was built in 1483 and is thought to be where the playwright died in 1616.
The building itself was demolished in 1759, but it is thought remains of the old house are still underground.
Archaeologists will start initial tests on the site on Tuesday and a full dig could be carried out next year.
The experts from Birmingham Archaeology will be searching for the foundations of the New Place and will be looking through th
Source: Fox News
Nov 27, 2009
WARSAW, Poland — Poland's president has approved legislation that allows for people to be fined or even imprisoned for possessing or buying communist symbols, two decades after communist rule ended.
The new law says that people who posses, purchase or spread items or recordings containing communist symbols could be fined or be imprisoned for up two years.
The new law has drawn criticism from left-wing lawmakers and other observers who say it is ill-defined and will be
Source: Yahoo News
Nov 27, 2009
NEW YORK – Members of one of America's oldest Protestant churches officially apologized Friday — for the first time — for massacring and displacing Native Americans 400 years ago.
"We consumed your resources, dehumanized your people and disregarded your culture, along with your dreams, hopes and great love for this land," the Rev. Robert Chase told descendants from both sides. "With pain, we the Collegiate Church, remember our part in these events."
Source: National Parks Traveler
Nov 27, 2009
In 2010, the Park Service will accept grant applications for the second year under the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program. Earlier this year, NPS gave out the program’s first grants – nearly $1 million in 2-for-1 matching funds to 19 projects in a dozen states. The money can be used to help study, acquire, preserve and protect dozens of locations where more than 110,000 men, women and children, most of them American citizens of Japanese ancestry, were detained and forcibly relocat
Source: BBC
Nov 27, 2009
John Demjanjuk is due to stand trial in Germany accused of helping to murder more than 27,000 Jews at the Nazi death camp of Sobibor in occupied Poland. The BBC's Steve Rosenberg returns to the site of the camp with one man who survived its horrors.
In the Jewish cemetery in the town of Izbica, 84-year-old Philip Bialowitz shows me a battered gravestone among a tangle of bushes.
“ In Sobibor life was hell. But we took revenge. We escaped to tell the world what had happe
Source: Time
Nov 27, 2009
On a cold February night in 1951, South Korean troops moved swiftly to take a communist guerrilla stronghold on Bulgap Mountain, at a county called Hampyeong in the Korean peninsula's southwest corner. By the time they scaled the ridge, the rebels had fled. That's when the bloodshed began. Suspecting the villagers in the area had helped the enemy, the soldiers made them kneel in a trench, then shoved sharpened bamboo sticks down their throats and shot them.
Nearly 60 years later, ex
Source: New York Daily News
Nov 27, 2009
TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian authorities have confiscated Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi's medal, the human rights lawyer said Thursday, in a sign of the increasingly drastic steps Tehran is taking against any dissent.
In Norway, where the peace prize is awarded, the government said the confiscation of the gold medal was a shocking first in the history of the 108-year-old prize.
Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts in promoting democracy. She has long fa
Source: WSJ
Nov 27, 2009
WASHINGTON -- When five defendants are brought before a New York federal judge to face charges for the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the first question may be whether some of them are competent to stand trial at all.
Military lawyers for Ramzi Binalshibh, an accused organizer of the 9/11 plot, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, the conspiracy's alleged paymaster, say their clients have mental disorders that make them unfit for trial, likely caused or exacerbated by years of harsh confineme
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 27, 2009
The Queen demonstrated her gardening skills as she planted a palm tree in the grounds of Government House on the latest stage of her visit to Bermuda.
With shovel in hand the Queen, who was wearing a paisley turquoise skirt and jacket and matching hat, patted down the earth around the sapling, while officials from the building in Hamilton looked on.
The Queen first visited Bermuda in 1953, just five months after her coronation.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 27, 2009
Former Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch asked Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court on Friday to acquit and release him on the final day of arguments in his trial.
Following a query by shocked judges, Duch's Cambodian lawyer Kar Savuth confirmed that Duch was asking to be acquitted on the grounds that he was not a senior member of the Khmer Rouge hierarchy.
International prosecutors earlier this week asked judges to impose a jail sentence of 40 years on Duch - a former m
Source: AP
Nov 27, 2009
A man accused of murdering Dutch civilians as a member of a Waffen SS hit squad said at his trial Friday that he was proud about being chosen as a volunteer to fight for the Nazis.
Heinrich Boere, 88, made his first comments to the Aachen state court since his trial opened at the end of October. As part of that SS unit, he is charged with killing a bicycle-shop owner, a pharmacist and another civilian. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted.
Boere s
Source: CNN
Nov 27, 2009
A new group wants former Vice President Dick Cheney back in the White House.
The organization - "Draft Dick Cheney 2012" - launched on Friday, and unveiled their new Web site. Their aim: To convince the former vice president to seek the Republican presidential nomination in the next race for the White House. But there may be a major roadblock to the group's pitch - Cheney himself.
The former vice president has been a frequent outspoken critic of the Obama admi
Source: NYT
Nov 26, 2009
CINCINNATI — For more than 100 years, Gov. William Allen and President James A. Garfield have represented Ohio in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol in Washington.
But Mr. Allen, it seems, held beliefs about race that are now embarrassing.
“He wasn’t pro-slavery, but he was not pro-civil rights,” said Tom Reider, research archivist for the Ohio Historical Society. “He did not favor extending suffrage to African-American males through the
Source: Google News
Nov 26, 2009
WASHINGTON — Instead of rushing to stores the day after Thanksgiving, organizers of an oral history project are urging people to join the National Day of Listening.
The event began last year on the Friday after Thanksgiving. The New York-based StoryCorps project led thousands in interviewing their friends and loved ones about their lives and recording the conversations with home equipment.
The interviews can be uploaded to StoryCorps' Web site. Some will be broadcast on
Source: Times (UK)
Nov 26, 2009
Making amends for the sins of previous generations is now ubiquitous. Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, apologised ten days ago for the abuse of children who were sent to Australia between 1930 and 1967. Tony Blair made an equally profound gesture in 2006, in recognition of Britain’s role in the African slave trade, and it is 39 years since Willy Brandt, the Chancellor of West Germany, fell to his knees in Warsaw and declared Germany to be sorry for the Holocaust. Yet, despite all the h
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 26, 2009
Authorities enjoyed a cosy relationship with the Church and did not enforce the law as four archbishops, obsessed with secrecy and avoiding scandal, protected abusers and reputations at all costs, the report said..
Hundreds of crimes against children from the 1960s to the 1990s were not reported while police treated clergy as though they were above the law.
In a three-year inquiry, the Commission to Inquire into the Dublin Archdiocese uncovered a sickening tactic of ''d
Source: BBC
Nov 26, 2009
A throne built to a design used by the ancient Picts has gone on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
The seat was created by master furniture maker Adrian McCurdy who drew inspiration from stone carvings.
The Picts dominated Scotland north of the Firth of Clyde from the 4th to the 9th centuries AD.
Their symbol stones continue to intrigue historians.
The throne is part of a wider project investigating Scotland's early hi
