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)
Sep 26, 2009
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was "hugely upset" by the criticism her daughter, the Queen, faced after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Friends of Queen Elizabeth have also revealed her shock at the public outpouring of grief over the Princess' death.
Sir Michael Oswald and his wife Lady Angela Oswald said Queen Elizabeth felt angry and defensive that her elder daughter was so widely criticised for her actions in the aftermath of the Princess's fata
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 26, 2009
Fidel Castro, Cuba's long-standing dictator, has fathered at least 10 children by a string of women, according to a new book.
Fidel Castro is renowned in Cuba for his verbosity and longevity. But his long-suffering compatriots know little about another sphere where El Commandante has proved prolific - his private life.
Discussing his womanising ways is strictly taboo on the Caribbean communist outpost, even on an island where the gossip grapevine flourishes in the abs
Source: BBC
Sep 26, 2009
A group of elderly South Koreans has made a rare journey across the heavily fortified border to visit long-lost relatives in the communist North.
Two hundred families were chosen to take part in the reunions after more than half a century of separation since the Korean civil war.
The two Koreas began reunions in 2000, but the programme was suspended two years ago because of political tension. The resumption is being seen as
Source: WSJ
Sep 26, 2009
DETROIT -- On a grassy lot on a quiet block on a graceful boulevard stands the answer to a perplexing question: Why does the typical house in Detroit sell for $7,100?
The brick-and-stucco home at 1626 W. Boston Blvd. has watched almost a century of Detroit's ups and downs, through industrial brilliance and racial discord, economic decline and financial collapse. Its owners have played a part in it all. There was the engineer whose innovation elevated auto makers into kings; the teac
Source: Yahoo News
Sep 26, 2009
PRAGUE – Pope Benedict XVI sought to reach out to the heavily secular people of the Czech Republic on Saturday, decrying the "wounds" left by atheistic communism and urging them to rediscover their Christian roots.
As he began a three-day pilgrimage coinciding with the fall of communism in this central European country 20 years ago, Benedict said Christianity has an "irreplaceable role" to play in their lives.
The Czech Republic is one of the most se
Source: NYT
Sep 26, 2009
HONOLULU (AP) — The Army is allowing the resignation of the first commissioned officer to be court-martialed for refusing to go to Iraq, his lawyer said late Friday.
The officer, First Lt. Ehren Watada, will be granted a discharge on Oct. 2, “under other-than-honorable conditions,” said the lawyer, Kenneth Kagan.
Lieutenant Watada told The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, “The actual outcome is different from the outcome that I envisioned in the first place, but I am grateful of
Source: AP
Sep 26, 2009
This fall, retired Harvard librarian Sylvia McDowell and the nonprofit wing of the cemetery are combing through historic funeral documents, gathering oral histories, and searching old maps to locate the Wilsons and other African Americans of Boston's past. McDowell and the Forest Hills Educational Trust say these people reflect New England's often overlooked ties to black history.
This is no small task: researchers are looking through records of more than 100,000 people buried throu
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 26, 2009
An official history textbook used by thousands of GCSE pupils contains embarrassing errors, including the assertion that the United States won the race to the moon in 1979.
The new book, written by examiners, also tells pupils that John F Kennedy was president of America in 1960.
Entitled History: The Making of the Modern World, the textbook for a new Edexcel GCSE history exam, the inaccuracies have been slammed by historians and teachers.
Source: BBC
Sep 26, 2009
People who rescued three RAF officers from a burning plane when it crashed-landed in a Bristol park during World War II have been honoured.
Relatives of those who risked their lives to save the crew of the Wellington bomber were at the service in St Andrews Park.
The crash, on 30 April 1941, was kept secret for national security reasons.
The memorial service, at 1230 BST, marked the first official acknowledgement of what happened.
Source: BBC
Sep 26, 2009
Sitting on the floor, with her suitcase in front of her, 100-year-old Kim Yu-jung is preparing for a remarkable journey.
Surrounded by four of her children, the youngest of them now in his late 50s, she is packing some winter clothes for the colder weather in the North.
The family is one of a small number given a rare chance to meet their long-lost relatives from the other side of the border that cuts this peninsula, and the lives of its people, in half.
Source: BBC
Sep 26, 2009
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has denied any deal was done to secure the release of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
In a TV interview with Al Jazeera Colonel Gaddafi said no deal was done and that he now considers the matter to be closed.
Asked about any deal over the release, Col Gaddafi said: "No, no, it is very clear, he had this illness and consequently they were compelled to release him because of this disease. There was no deal or anything e
Source: Fox News
Sep 26, 2009
Muammar Qaddafi met with at least two of the relatives of the victims of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland at the U.N. Mission to the United Nations in New York this week.
The Libyan leader said it was a "friendly" gathering where he offered his condolences.
A woman whose brother died in the bombing said she and another victim's relative met with the Libyan leader.
Lisa Gibson said she and the other relative met with Qaddaf
Source: CNN
Sep 26, 2009
More than 80 years after his family was ordered from the country, the grandson of one of the last Ottoman sultans was buried Saturday as hundreds of admirers looked on.
Ertugrul Osman, grandson of Sultan Abdulhamid II and heir to the Ottoman throne, died this week in Istanbul of kidney failure at the age of 97, after having lived most of his life in exile in a humble third-floor walk-up apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Osman's funeral in the garden of the mammo
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
Sep 25, 2009
This week, Attorney General Eric Holder issued a memorandum instituting new Department of Justice policies and procedures making it more difficult for the government to assert the state secrets privilege in litigation. The state secrets privilege allows the executive branch to block discovery in civil litigation when the government believes that there is an unacceptable risk of disclosure of sensitive national security
Source: NYT
Sep 25, 2009
The White House diaries of former President Jimmy Carter, right, will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in October 2010, Jeff Seroy, a spokesman for the publishing house, said on Friday. While the diaries, covering Mr. Carter’s term from January 1977 to January 1981, amount to about 5,000 pages, the book will be about 512 pages of selections from the diaries and photographs. They will include Mr. Carter’s commentary and observations about the people and places that informed his presidenc
Source: The Washington Post
Sep 25, 2009
There is the ongoing review of the death of a man beaten by four white teenagers in a park in Shenandoah, Pa. The kids, all high school football players, shouted, "Go back to Mexico," before one punched him repeatedly with a metal shank balled up in his fist, according to witnesses. Then, another kicked him on the left side of his head so hard that the Mexican man's brain began to swell. He died two days later, his fiancee weeping at his side...
... Their issues are wrappe
Source: Yahoo News
Sep 25, 2009
HONOLULU – Most need wheelchairs. Their average age is 80.
Neither fact is stopping 11 elderly Hawaii leprosy patients from traveling 12,000 miles to the Vatican next month to watch as the Catholic Church canonizes Father Damien — a priest who cared for leprosy patients throughout the islands more than a century ago before dying of the disease himself.
Damien, who was born in Belgium as Joseph de Veuster, remains a beloved figure among many in Hawaii. In the 1870s, the
Source: Today's Zaman
Sep 25, 2009
A 5,000-year-old Venus figure has been found as part of an excavation being carried out in Chttp://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-187938-101-5000-year-old-venus-figure-found-in-canakkale.htmlanakkale's Ezine district.
The excavation began in the field three weeks ago in cooperation with Germany's University of Tübingen. Assistant Professor Rüstem Aslan, who is vice head of the excavation, told the Anatolia news agency that the aim of the dig is to find settlements outside Troy from
Source: The Evening Telegraph
Sep 25, 2009
A FUNDING crisis has put the future of one Peterborough's major heritage attractions in jeopardy.
Flag Fen Archaeology Park, one of Europe's most important Bronze Age sites, may not be able to reopen after its winter break because of cash flow problems.
It is believed the Bronze Age Centre and Archaeology Park, at The Droveway, off Northey Road, will need tens of thousands of pounds if it is to reopen next year, after it closes for its winter break in November.
F
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 25, 2009
Susan Atkins, one of the leading members of Charles Manson’s murderous cult, has died in jail at the age of 61.
Atkins was imprisoned in 1971 for her part in eight murders by the cult including the most notorious killing of actress Sharon Tate.
She had been suffering from brain cancer which had caused her to be paralysis and the amputation of one of her legs.
Three weeks ago she was wheeled into a parole hearing but prison officials rejected her request
