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 22, 2009
Secret correspondence between the exiled Duke and Duchess of Windsor and their confidant Kenneth de Courcy has revealed a dastardly scheme to change the course of British history by denying Queen Elizabeth II the crown, says royal biographer Christopher Wilson.
It was the spring of 1946. The Second World War had drawn to a close, King George VI’s health was starting to fail and, from their homes in Paris and the south of France, the exiled Duke and Duchess of Windsor were having dee
Source: Fox News
Nov 22, 2009
Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the five detainees to be tried in New York would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but "would explain what happened and why they did it."
The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.
Critics of Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try
Source: AP
Nov 22, 2009
An auction house says it is selling a rare first edition of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" found in a family's guest lavatory in southern England.
Christie's auction house said Sunday the book — one of around 1,250 copies first printed in 1859 — had been on a toilet bookshelf at a family's home in Oxford.
The book will be auctioned on Tuesday — the 150th anniversary of the publication of the famous work. Christie's said the book is likely to sell
Source: AP
Nov 22, 2009
Leaked British government documents call into question ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair's public statements on the buildup to the Iraq war and show plans for the U.S.-led 2003 invasion were being made more than a year earlier, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Britain's Sunday Telegraph published details of private statements made by senior British military figures claiming plans were in place months before the March 2003 invasion, but were so badly drafted they left troops poorly equipped a
Source: Fox News
Nov 22, 2009
A stepped-up campaign by Iraq's prime minister against Saddam Hussein loyalists is alienating Sunni Muslims and stoking tensions between them and the majority Shiites ahead of key national elections.
In its latest anti-Baathist attack, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government put three men on state television Sunday to confess their alleged role in planning homicide attacks in Baghdad last month. The three, all in detention and dressed in orange prison jumpsuits,
Source: Zawya
Nov 21, 2009
RIYADH: The Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) handed over a number of Iraqi cultural artifacts smuggled to the Kingdom by an Arab expatriate recently.
The returned artifacts include statues of human beings and lions of varying sizes made of marble and other materials.
Hussein Abu Al-Hassan, assistant vice president of the SCTA, signed on Wednesday a statement returning five artifacts to the second secretary at the Iraqi Embassy in the Kingdom, Ahmad Al
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 21, 2009
Walter Myers, 72, a former State Department official with top-secret security clearance, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and two counts of wire fraud, according to the department.
His wife, Gwendolyn Myers, 71, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to gather and transmit national defence information to Washington's Cold War enemy Havana, and will serve between six and 7.5 years behind bars.
The pair also agreed to forfeit $1,735,054 – the total salary Myers ear
Source: BBC
Nov 21, 2009
In a speech to international socialist politicians, Mr Chavez said "Carlos", a Venezuelan, was not a terrorist but a key "revolutionary fighter".
He is serving a life sentence in France for murders committed in 1975.
Mr Chavez also hailed Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
Source: Journal Star
Nov 21, 2009
Thanksgiving is heavily steeped in traditions.
But as sometimes happens with history and facts, myths can get in the way.
James W. Baker, senior historian at Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Mass., has some thoughts on why that is with Thanksgiving.
“It is an invented tradition,” he said. “It doesn’t originate in any one event. It is based on the New England Puritan Thanksgiving, which is a religious Thanksgiving, and the traditional harvest celebrations of
Source: NYT
Nov 21, 2009
CAIRO — For years, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri criticized Iran’s supreme leader and argued that the country was not the Islamic democracy it claimed to be, but his words seemed to fall on deaf ears. Now many Iranians, including some former government leaders, are listening.
Ayatollah Montazeri has emerged as the spiritual leader of the opposition, an adversary the state has been unable to silence or jail because of his religious credentials and seminal role in the founding
Source: BBC
Nov 21, 2009
Pope Benedict has invited international artists, sculptors, architects, musicians, film directors and even a solitary Italian prima ballerina to meet him under the soaring vaulted ceiling of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel in the Vatican on Saturday to begin a new dialogue between the Catholic Church and the arts.
Five hundred invitations were sent out to leading figures in the arts around the world last September, and more than 250 acceptances have been received at the Vatican.
Source: NYT
Nov 21, 2009
ISTANBUL — Few here doubt that the case began with something threatening: in June 2007, 27 hand grenades and fuses were found in the attic of a house in an Istanbul slum. Investigators claimed they were stashed there by an ultranationalist retired officer and they were later linked to an elaborate coup plot.
But the question many are asking, inside and outside Turkey, is whether the Islamic-inspired government is exaggerating the threat in order to wage a much larger battle against
Source: Fox News
Nov 21, 2009
Justice Ministry spokeswoman Katharina Jahntz on Saturday confirmed a report in Der Spiegel that a German observer would attend the trial to ensure that no evidence provided by Germany would be used to apply the death penalty.
A German government official says the nation will send an observer to the upcoming trial in New York of the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and four accused henchmen.
Three of the four suicide pilots who carried out the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 21, 2009
The latest initiative by our "Children's Secretary", Ed Balls, is to abolish what remains of fact-based teaching of history and geography in our schools. He plans to "roll them together into themed lessons on social issues such as global warming" (funny how that seems to seep into everything nowadays).
The ruthless drive of educational progressives to eliminate history-teaching from schools has been under way since the 1960s. The aim is to ensure that children kn
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Nov 21, 2009
A cigar smoked by Prime Minister Winston Churchill as he planned D-Day has been discovered - after being hidden for more than 60 years.
Christian Williams, 33, was given the artefact when he was just 12 by his grandfather Ronald Williams, a WWII veteran who served as the British premier's butler.
At more than 6in long, the cigar has never been touched by its owner, who keeps it safe in a sturdy wooden box.
It was taken from the historic Casablanca Conferenc
Source: Time
Nov 21, 2009
... China's concerns, of course, have dramatically expanded in recent years, as was emphasized by Beijing's anxiety over the implication for its own dollar-denominated wealth of U.S. budget deficits. At the same time, Beijing is in no hurry to play the "other" global superpower rule vacated by the Soviet Union two decades ago.
Herewith, three key lessons to draw from the visit:
1. China's Star Has Risen and America's Has Ebbed, But the U.S. is 'Too Big to Fail
Source: BBC
Nov 21, 2009
Letters sent by a Battle of Britain fighter pilot to his sweetheart in Norfolk have sold at auction for £2,100.
Sgt Eric Arthur Redfern wrote to Joan Preston, who would later become his wife, while serving in the RAF under the command of Douglas Bader.
The collection also included a letter informing her of his death in action in 1942, a few months after their wedding.
Photographs and medals were also sold at Ely in Cambridgeshire.
Source: Fox News
Nov 21, 2009
A German auction house says it has withdrawn from sale a painting that the Max Stern estate claims was one of hundreds the Jewish art dealer was forced to sell off by the Nazis.
Karl-Sax Feddersen, responsible for legal affairs at the Duesseldorf-based Lempertz auction house, said the picture by Alexander Adriaenssen had been pulled from Saturday's sale and its owner notified.
The estate claims it is one of some 400 works from Stern's collection sold under duress betwee
Source: Spiegel
Nov 20, 2009
In Czechoslovakia, it all started with the students.
By late autumn of 1989, the Berlin Wall had already fallen, the border between Hungary and Austria had become porous and Poland had long since held largely free elections. But in Czechoslovakia, the communist government was still doing what it could to maintain a firm grip on the reins of power. It wasn't to last...
... 'Slave to Capitalism'
This week, the Czech Republic is marking the 20th anniver
Source: Fast Company
Nov 20, 2009
Part of the point of a presidential library is that it's a monument to a leader's legacy--his style, his enduring affect on the world, even his reading habits...or lack thereof. Speaking of which, Laura Bush unveiled the design for her husband's book joint this week, and the ultra-traditional structure that nods to Washington but bows to the rest of Southern Methodist University's campus isn't winning any points with architecture critics. But how does W's design stack up against his predecessors
