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: BBC
Oct 31, 2009
Nelson Mandela was held prisoner on the island for most of the 27 years he was in jail, and it is now a World Heritage site and major tourist attraction.
But reports say thousands of feral rabbits are devastating local wildlife and undermining historic buildings.
The premier of the Western Cape has called for urgent action on the site.
Source: BBC
Oct 31, 2009
Beatrice And Virgil, a literary allegory for the Holocaust, will be published around the world in June 2010 - eight years after Life of Pi.
It will ask "profound and philosophical questions about the nature of love and evil", said the publishers.
The Canadian author's winning novel is one of the most successful Booker books to date.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 31, 2009
Since the Communist party came to power in 1949, it has worked hard to remove traces of the time when the city was carved up into concessions run by the British, French, Americans and Japanese.
History textbooks refer to the "century of humiliation" that China endured at the hands of foreigners after it lost the Opium War of 1840.
The elegant two-floor building at number 33 on the Bund, Shanghai's historic waterfront, was at the heart of British trade and in
Source: Time
Oct 31, 2009
Who knew there was so much fight in those dusty books? When Google announced plans in 2004 to scan millions of tomes tucked into library stacks across the country, admirers embraced the ambitious project as a digital undertaking as visionary as Magellan setting sail around the world. The project would throw open musty archives everywhere, putting hidden works on the Internet for all to use.
How things change. The library project is now embroiled in a ferocious legal free-for-all spa
Source: WSJ
Oct 31, 2009
In 2001, a few days before the Sept. 11 attacks, a German engineering student named Said Bahaji unexpectedly announced to his family he had a job waiting for him at a Pakistani computer company and he flew to Karachi, leaving behind his wife and infant son.
In the aftermath of the attacks, Mr. Bahaji, the Muslim son of a German mother and Moroccan father, was found to have rented and shared an apartment with two suspected World Trade Center hijackers, including Mohammed Atta, the be
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 31, 2009
In previously unreported plans, the Government is to downgrade protection on old buildings and those in conservation areas in order to “benefit developers” and “reduce the number of applications for planning permission rejected on heritage grounds.”
The professional body representing town planners today launches an unprecedented attack on the proposal as “fundamentally flawed”, “unfit for purpose” and a potential “charter for people who want to knock buildings down.” The president o
Source: Neatorama
Oct 31, 2009
Daylight Saving Time ends in most of the United States a 2AM on Sunday, November 1st (Hawaii and Arizona have been on standard time all summer). We remember which way to set our clocks by thinking “spring forward, fall back.” It makes you wonder how we ever got our clocks coordinated in the first place. Believe it or not, standard time and time zones were the railroad industry’s idea.
“In the early 19th century … localities set their own time,” said Bill Mosley, a public
Source: The Washington Post
Oct 31, 2009
About 900 World War II veterans die on average every day, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. But Blakey, Hoffman, Staler and other veterans who are still kicking and able to travel will be standing on the red carpet at Friday's dedication of a $60 million addition to the World War II museum, which was established in 2000 to tell the story of the American experience in the war that changed the world.
The addition contains three new attractions: the Victory Theater
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 31, 2009
The health of the Lockerbie bomber has "not deteriorated" since his release from prison three months ago – despite doctors' assessments that he would have died by now, a senior source has told The Sunday Telegraph.
The disclosure will reignite the row over the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds despite his conviction for the murder of 270 people when Pan Am flight 103 exploded in mid-air over Lockerbie in 1988.
Megrahi, who
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 31, 2009
Former US President George H.W. Bush joined Mikhail Gorbachev, the ex- Soviet leader and Helmut Kohl, the former German Chancellor, for the start of celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The three statesmen, who played key roles in the fall of the Wall, exchanged warm greetings as they met near the site of the Wall.
Age had taken a toll on the three - Mr Kohl was in a wheelchair while Mr Bush, who arrived with his wife Barbara, walk
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 31, 2009
Malta is preparing to launch an investigation into the evidence one of the key trial witnesses who helped convict Abdelbasset al-Megrahi over the Lockerbie bombing.
Government officials want to look at the claims of Tony Gauci, the shopkeeper who identified the Libyan as the man responsible for placing explosives on Pan Am Flight 103.
Mr Gauci ran a clothes shop, in Swieqi, Malta in 1988, and claimed Megrahi purchased an incriminating piece of clothing found among the
Source: AP
Oct 31, 2009
Developers unveiled the restoration of a 650-year-old mosque in Cairo's old city, part of an effort to revitalize the impoverished district and boost tourism to the country's treasure trove of Islamic sites.
The three-year, $1.4 million project restored the Aslam al-Silahdar Mosque, built in 1344-1345 by Aslam al-Bahai, an amir or nobleman who rose to the position of "silahdar," or "swordbearer" for Sultan al-Nasir Mohammed, one of the most powerful of Egypt's Ma
Source: AP
Oct 31, 2009
World War II veterans of a Texas infantry regiment will reunite this weekend with a Japanese-American combat outfit that rescued them from German forces surrounding them.
On Oct. 30, 1944, the all-Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team broke through the German lines in the Vosges Mountains of northern France and relieved 1st Battalion, 141st Regiment, 36th Infantry Division.
Together, the veterans will mark the 65th anniversary of the rescue at a Sunday fundrais
Source: Austrian Times
Oct 31, 2009
Austrian archaeologists have found a Babylonian seal in Egypt that confirms contact between the Babylonians and the Hyksos during the second millennium B.C.
Irene Forstner-Müller, the head of the Austrian Archaeological Institute’s (ÖAI) branch office in Cairo, said today (Thurs) the find had occurred at the site of the ancient town of Avaris near what is today the city of Tell el-Dab’a in the eastern Nile delta.
The Hyksos conquered Egypt and reigned there from 1640 to
Source: Saffron Walden Reporter
Oct 30, 2009
A father and son team of treasure hunters, branded as the Essex 'Indiana Jones team' who were accused of illegally removing 3000 year old artefacts from an Uttlesford estate while acting as metal detecting "nighthawks", were today cleared.
They were found not guilty in a Crown Court test case prosecution which has been closely watched by treasure hunters throughout the country.
Today's verdict has implications for all who head out to the countryside with metal
Source: Truthout
Oct 30, 2009
Islamabad, Pakistan - After three days of encounters with America-bashing Pakistanis -- who rejected her contention that the U.S. and Pakistan face a common enemy -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that "we're not getting through."
Prominent women and tribesmen from the North West Frontier Province delivered the same hostile message that she'd heard the two preceding days from students and journalists: Pakistanis aren't ready to endorse American friendship d
Source: Time
Oct 30, 2009
... Alongside carefully arrayed mortar shells, short-range artillery equipment and a range of rifles is a pile of papers and documents. Among them are plans showing how to assemble an "impact grenade" and a "time delay" grenade. Other pieces of paper, handwritten in Arabic, apparently lay out instructions on how to rig another explosive device. Also among the documents are two European passports that purportedly belong to fugitive al-Qaeda members who are linked to the 9/11 a
Source: The Washington Independent
Oct 30, 2009
Here’s a somewhat surprising result from the new Fox News poll. Asked which president is “more responsible for the current state of the economy,” only 18 percent say President Obama. Fifty-eight percent say former President George W. Bush. Nine percent blame both of them. Republicans are the only subgroup of voters who blame Obama, and only by a six-point margin of 35 percent to 29 percent.
Source: Fox News
Oct 30, 2009
Damascus, SYRIA — It is fertile ground that bears unforgettable fruit. It has vineyards. Barbed wire. Bitter history. And an uncertain future.
The Golan Heights was seized by Israel in the 1967 war. Syria and Egypt attacked Israel in 1972 to try to get the Golan back but didn’t succeed. An armistice was eventually signed in 1974 and Israel pulled out of most of the city of Quneitra, the then regional seat of the Golan Heights, but kept the rest under its control. The U.N. monitors
Source: NYT
Oct 30, 2009
Former Vice President Dick Cheney denied in an interview with a special prosecutor investigating the C.I.A. leak case that he had played any role in the disclosure of the identity of Valerie Wilson as an intelligence officer, according to F.B.I. documents released Friday.
Some of the assertions by Mr. Cheney in his interview with the prosecutor on May 8, 2004, appeared to conflict with testimony at the 2007 trial of his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., who was convicted of perjur
