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: National Security Archive
Sep 30, 2009
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today on “Advancing Freedom of Information in the New Era of Responsibility,” Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs reported on improvements in FOIA processing since the 2007 FOIA amendments went into effect, but said the most recent statistics demonstrated that excessive backlogs still plague the system. Citing requests as old as 17 years, Ms. Fuchs asked the Committee to look closely at FY 2009 data when it is reported to determine whether anything has
Source: National Paks Traveler
Sep 30, 2009
Horace Kephart is best-known for his role in raising public support for what became the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and as the author of two non-fiction books that have become classics. Tucked away for 80 years was a literary surprise: the completed manuscript for a Kephart novel. It's just been published by the Great Smoky Mountains Association and the timing is appropriate: this year is the park's 75th anniversary.
It's also appropriate because Horace Kephart figures into
Source: The Daily Beast
Sep 30, 2009
It's been nearly one year since the assault that killed 163 people in Mumbai last November, but the militant network that executed the terrorist attack is as strong and determined as ever. Vanity Fair's Marie Brenner captures the drama of the day in a must-read narrative piece describing India's 9/11. However, little has addressed the root cause of the bombing. According to Indian and Pakistan dossiers on the Mumbai investigations, The New York Times reports, the Lashkar network, which trained t
Source: Time
Sep 30, 2009
Late in August, Wikipedia announced that it was reining in its freewheeling ways. In several interviews, including many with TIME, officials at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that manages Wikipedia, explained that the user-edited online encyclopedia would soon impose restrictions on articles about living people. Under the new policy, anonymous Web editors would still be allowed to freely change biographical Wikipedia entries — but their changes would be made visible to readers only afte
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Sep 30, 2009
MOSCOW -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has presided over a doubling of the Kremlin's ownership of big business, on Tuesday signaled a return to more private ownership as the country faces its first budget deficit in a decade.
The verbal shift toward selling off shares, which follows years of increasing government control that began when Mr. Putin served as president, comes amid Russia's first recession since it defaulted on its debt in 1998.
Russia had pri
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 30, 2009
Ordinary Chinese citizens hoping to come onto the streets of Beijing to watch a triumphant military parade to celebrate 60 years of Communist rule have been ordered to "stay at home" and watch the event on television.
More than 850,000 volunteers, easily identified in Beijing by their red armbands, have been mobilised to maintain security ahead of the parade, which will show-off some of China's most advanced military hardware to the watching world.
They will
Source: Telegraph(UK)
Sep 30, 2009
A channel for Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager who died in a Second World War Nazi concentration camp, has been launched on YouTube.
The site contains existing and new images, including the only known video footage of Anne - a shot a few seconds-long of her leaning out of an upstairs window during the wedding of a neighbour in July 1941.
It also includes an interview with her father, Otto Frank, a preview of the new virtual museum of the Anne Frank House, and a series
Source: AP
Sep 30, 2009
Georgia's attack on its breakaway South Ossetia region marked the start of last year's war with Russia, which retaliated with excessive force, an EU-commissioned report said Wednesday.
The report on the five-day war in August 2008 lay blame on both sides, but cited Georgia as starting the conflict with its night shelling in South Ossetia — an act it said was not justifiable under international law.
The EU report went on to blame Russia for conducting a military campaign
Source: CNN
Sep 30, 2009
A senior American diplomat had high-level talks with the Cuban government in Havana, the State Department said Tuesday.
Bisa Williams, acting deputy assistant secretary, met this week with Deputy Foreign Minister Dagoberto Rodriguez during a six-day trip to Cuba, Assistant Secretary P.J. Crowley said.
Williams was in Havana to meet with Cuban officials about restoring direct mail service between Cuba and the United States. Crowley said she extended her stay to meet with
Source: Times (UK)
Sep 30, 2009
Entry to the mud-brick farmhouse that was the birthplace of Mao Zedong is still free. The queue snakes to the fish pond where as a child he discovered a love for swimming. In the doorway stands a paramilitary guard, clearly selected for the job because of his imposing height.
Visitors are flooding to the southern village of Shaoshan in record numbers as the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule approaches. More than 2.5 million people came here to venerate its founding father in
Source: Times (UK)
Sep 30, 2009
Georgia launched a pre-emptive strike yesterday on a European Union report that is expected to criticise its role in last year’s war with Russia over South Ossetia.
Denying that a dozen Russian peacekeeping troops were killed in South Ossetia during an assault by Georgian forces, the Government in Tbilisi released evidence submitted to the EU commission investigating the war’s causes in order to get its side of the story heard first. It accused the Kremlin of spreading “patently fa
Source: Times (UK)
Sep 30, 2009
Barack Obama is failing as President and the US is in danger of sliding into a military dictatorship, says Gore Vidal, the American essayist and intellectual.
In an exclusive interview with The Times, Vidal, 83, reveals that he regrets switching his allegiance from Hillary Clinton to Mr Obama during last year’s campaign to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I was hopeful,” he said of Mr Obama. “He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position
Source: Times (UK)
Sep 30, 2009
The last self portrait by one of the very greatest of all portrait painters will be offered for sale this winter after almost 300 years in one family's collection.
Few artists have exerted more influence, for good or ill, over British art than Sir Anthony van Dyck, the dashing Flemish painter who became the official portraitist for Charles I’s court.
Modern detractors argue that van Dyck is to blame for 400 years of flattery and airbrushing in depictions of the famous
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 30, 2009
Any thoughts that a spontaneous, flag-waving crowd might gather to cheer on the 180,000 marchers as they process through Beijing's Tiananmen Square have been scotched by security fears ahead of Thursday's anniversary.
"People who can go to watch the parade are invited guests with tickets," said Ji Lin, the vice-mayor of Beijing, "For other citizens the parade will be screened live and the citizens can watch it via TV."
More than 850,000 volunteers,
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Sep 30, 2009
Labour caused outrage yesterday by inviting Martin McGuinness to its annual conference in Brighton - the scene of the IRA's murderous attack on Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet.
The former IRA commander made clear that he had no remorse for the Grand Hotel bombing.
His visit came less than two weeks before the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Tory conference in Brighton.
Five died and 34 were injured in what was one of the worst Provisional IRA outrages
Source: Yahoo News
Sep 29, 2009
Rumors of the"birther" movement's death appear to have been greatly exaggerated. The group has been demanding for months that President Obama produce a"valid" birth certificate to prove he's a natural-born citizen of the U
Source: The Phnom Penh Post
Sep 29, 2009
THE missing piece of an ancient sculpture of the Buddhist deity Hevajra, the bust of which is on display in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, has been recovered from a historic site in Siem Reap province.
The legs of the sandstone carving, which dates back to the 12th century, were stumbled upon by a British archaeologist this summer. He had been trying to find the spot where French archaeologists first discovered the sculpture’s remains in 1925 near Angkor Thom, the walled cit
Source: ABC News
Sep 29, 2009
Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., announced today that his Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution will hold a hearing “Examining the History and Legality of Executive Branch 'Czars'” on Tuesday October 6.
Earlier this month the liberal lawmaker asked the White House to identify the czars' "roles and responsibilities, and provide the judgment(s) of your legal advisors as to whether and how these positions are consistent with the Appointments Clause" in Article II, section 2
Source: BBC
Sep 29, 2009
The first scientific autopsy on an ancient Egyptian mummy probably got the cause of death wrong, research suggests.
Dr Augustus Bozzi Granville caused a sensation when he described the autopsy to the Royal Society of London in 1825.
He concluded the mummified woman, Irtyersenu, died of ovarian cancer.
But a University College London study, published in the Royal Society journal Biological Sciences, strongly suggests she died of tuberculosis.
Source: BBC
Sep 29, 2009
Did the Varian Disaster, which took place exactly 2,000 years ago and stunned the Roman Empire into a temporary paralysis, mark a turning point in its all-conquering mindset? Does the slaughter in the Teutoburger Forest still affect us today?
Adrian Murdoch believes it was a decisive moment in the development of the West.
The importance of the battle to modern Germany is such that the anniversary has been marked by three separate exhibitions on the battle, opened by G
