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
Sep 18, 2009
The former head of Rwanda's tea industry has pleaded guilty to complicity in the 1994 genocide.
Michel Bagaragaza admitted playing a role in the massacre at the international Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) which sits in Tanzania.
He said he allowed a militia to use tea factory vehicles on their rampages.
The ex-tea boss had originally pleaded not guilty in 2005 to four counts of genocide charges, but has amended his plea as part of a plea agreement.
Source: Taegan Goddard's Political Wire
Sep 18, 2009
Larry Sabato notes that for eight consecutive elections -- since 1977 -- Virginia has voted for the gubernatorial nominee of the party opposite to the one controlling the White House.
"Here's the surprise: All the presidents except for Bill Clinton in 1993 and George W. Bush in 2005 had healthy national job-approval numbers, ranging from the mid-50s (several chief executives) to the 80s (George W. Bush after 9/11 in 2001). These moderately-to-strongly positive ratings for the
Source: Truthout
Sep 18, 2009
Buenos Aires, Argentina - On September 3, 2009, three aging, retired officials from Argentina's army entered a federal courthouse in Rosario, Argentina. The men - Pascual Guerrieri, Jorge Alberto Fariña and Juan Daniel Amelong - have been charged with the kidnapping, forced disappearance and torture of 29 people, and the murder of 17 of them during Argentina's last dictatorship.
The case in Rosario is the latest in a tidal wave of cases to reach a courthouse against the dictato
Source: ABC News
Sep 18, 2009
It's a story that will forever change the way you think of the phrase, "Get Out of Jail Free."
During World War II, as the number of British airmen held hostage behind enemy lines escalated, the country's secret service enlisted an unlikely partner in the ongoing war effort: The board game Monopoly.
It was the perfect accomplice.
Included in the items the German army allowed humanitarian groups to distribute in care packages to imprisoned soldiers
Source: The New York Times
Sep 18, 2009
Touring an archaeological dig site, you generally expect a glimpse of antiquities a little more antediluvian than a television antenna, a seven-inch single, a tailfin and a rotary-dial telephone. But an odd excavation site that recently opened to the public on Governors Island purports to offer just that: artifacts not of the Mesoamerican but of the midcentury variety, about 1954.
That is the year, at least according to Geert Hautekiet, the man in charge of exhibiting the site, that
Source: BBC
Sep 18, 2009
Events are taking place this week to commemorate the 47 men killed in Scotland's worst mining disaster of the last century.
It is 50 years to the day since an underground fire at Auchengeich Colliery in Lanarkshire.
A total of 41 women were widowed and 76 children lost their fathers as a result of the tragedy.
On Sunday a special remembrance service will be held and a new memorial statue will be unveiled.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 18, 2009
India's Gurkhas are preparing to unilaterally declare independence in a separate "Gorkhaland" state in the area around Darjeeling.
They claim they have been forced to take the step by decades of misrule which has siphoned away millions of pounds of government funds earmarked for them.
The Calcutta-based state government granted limited autonomy through the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council in 1988, but today's Gurkha leaders say it has no powers, and cannot even
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 18, 2009
Angry French farmers dumped millions of litres of fresh milk next to one of France's most famous tourist sites on Friday to denounce the slumping cost of milk and an EU plan to end production quotas, which could further drive prices down.
The Medieval island monastery is one of the most visited sites in France and is next to the Normandy and Brittany regions, which are both big milk producers.
While the European Union strongly subsidises agriculture, milk farmers' grou
Source: Fox News
Sep 18, 2009
Republicans are rejecting comparisons made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who came near to tears Thursday when she compared anti-government rhetoric over President Obama's health care proposals to tumultuous 1970s San Francisco.
Republicans are rejecting comparisons made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who came near to tears Thursday when she compared anti-government rhetoric over President Obama's health care proposals to tumultuous 1970s San Francisco.
Pelosi, though
Source: AP
Sep 18, 2009
A criminal investigation is focused on a 2006 decision by the Interior Department, then under Secretary Gale Norton, to award three oil shale leases on federal land in Colorado to a Shell subsidiary.
The U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation into whether former Interior Secretary Gale Norton illegally used her position to steer lucrative oil leases to Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the company she now works for, officials with both departments confirmed to The Associated P
Source: AP
Sep 18, 2009
The only man convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing posted his legal defense to the Web on Friday, saying he hopes it will help convince people he had nothing to do with the terrorist attack that killed 270 people.
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi said the 353 pages of legal arguments are part of an appeal of his conviction that was dropped shortly before he was released from a Scottish jail last month. The documents are particularly aimed at Scots and the families of the bombing's victims,
Source: AP
Sep 18, 2009
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday lashed out at Israel and the West, questioning whether the Holocaust ever happened and claiming it was a pretext for occupying Palestinian lands, reiterating anti-Israel rhetoric that has brought him international condemnation.
The Iranian president said Israel was formed on a "false and mythical claim" and expressed doubts whether the Holocaust, when the Nazis killed 6 million Jews during World War II, was a "real event
Source: chron (Houston and Texas News)
Sep 18, 2009
AUSTIN — Christmas will stay in Texas textbooks, State Board of Education members said Thursday while reviewing early recommendations for new social studies standards.
The board will not approve the new curriculum standards for public schools until next year, but wanted to assure constituents they will not accept a recommendation to yank Christmas.
“We have heard quite significant feedback from parents, from people who are very disturbed that we are not going to continu
Source: artdaily.org
Sep 18, 2009
JERUSALEM.- A section of a stepped street paved in stone slabs, going south in the direction of the Shiloach Pool was discovered in excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Shiloach Pool Excavation at the City of David in the Jerusalem Walls National Park. The excavations are conducted in cooperation with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, funded by the Elad Foundation, under the auspices of Prof. Ronny Reich of Haifa University and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquiti
Source: The Daily Beast
Sep 18, 2009
Days before a visit to New York to address the United Nations, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is doing his best to isolate his country even further. Using a speech on Quds day, an anti-Israel holiday, Ahmadinejad questioned the Holocaust and blamed Zionists for using it as a false pretext for founding Israel as well. "If the Holocaust you claim is correct, why do you reject any research about it?" he said, according to the Los Angeles Times. "The Zionists are behind the ong
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Sep 18, 2009
Poland's fears that it is becoming a second-class U.S. ally whose interests come after those of Russia were reinforced by Washington's decision to reorient its missile-defense plans away from Central Europe.
While Polish government officials gave a cautious and generally upbeat assessment of the change in U.S. strategy Thursday, many nonetheless were concerned by what the shift said about the changing focus of the Obama administration.
"I don't like this policy. It
Source: NYT
Sep 18, 2009
Irving Kristol, the political commentator who, as much as anyone, defined modern conservatism and helped revitalize the Republican Party in the late 1960s and early ’70s, setting the stage for the Reagan presidency and years of conservative dominance, died Friday in Arlington, Va. He was 89 and lived in Washington.
His son, William Kristol, the commentator and editor of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, said the cause of death was complications of lung cancer.
Source: Times (UK)
Sep 18, 2009
More than 100 veterans of the Battle of Arnhem are travelling this weekend to the southern Dutch city to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the heroic and doomed struggle to capture and hold the “bridge too far”. It may be the last such commemoration.
The dwindling number of survivors among the thousands of British and Polish soldiers who parachuted into Arnhem or arrived by glider will be honoured by Dutch officers, children and some of the elderly civilians who sheltered the Alli
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 18, 2009
The correspondence from the First World War hero of the Arab revolt are to his financier Robin Buxton and he writes of his love of motorbikes that was eventually to kill him.
Speaking about one of his machines, he wrote: "It's a heavenly bike, goes like smoke and is as smooth as milk to ride."
Buxton financed T.E. Lawrence's seminal work The Seven Pillars of Wisdom and the letters include the author asking about how he can obtain more money.
Sc
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Sep 18, 2009
The Lockerbie bomber has launched a fresh bid to clear his name by publishing documents relating to his appeal on the internet.
Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, who is now back in Libya, has posted documents running to 300 pages online which he claims will prove his innocence.
Not content with being released back to his homeland on compassionate grounds, he is still adamant he wants to clear his name.
Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, had abandoned his appea
