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: Foxnews
Sep 2, 2009
Family members say the only man convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has been taken to intensive care after his condition worsened.
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi has terminal prostate cancer and Libyan officials have said his health has swiftly deteriorated since his release from a Scottish prison less than two weeks ago.
The family members, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said they have not been allowed to visit him. There was
Source: CNN
Sep 2, 2009
The Democratic National Committee is taking aim at Dick Cheney over his string of high-profile media appearances during which the former vice president has been highly critical of President Obama's national security policies.
In a new 30-second television ad set for national cable and local cable in Washington, the DNC asserts many of Cheney's statements have been incorrect — particularly those in which he has argued enhance interrogation techniques conclusively yielded intelligence
Source: CNN
Sep 2, 2009
The man charged with murder in the shooting death of a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was denied bail Wednesday and will undergo psychiatric testing against his will.
James von Brunn ignored the advice of the judge and his defense attorney and addressed the court during a hearing to fight any delays as prosecutors press their case.
Von Brunn, a self-avowed white supremacist, will remain in custody after the judge said there were no conditions for release th
Source: Independent (UK)
Sep 2, 2009
A British-based academic has uncovered a fragment of the world's oldest Bible hiding underneath the binding of an 18th-century book.
Nikolas Sarris spotted a previously unseen section of the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates from about AD350, as he was trawling through photographs of manuscripts in the library of St Catherine's Monastery in Egypt.
The Codex, handwritten in Greek on animal skin, is the earliest known version of the Bible. Leaves from the priceless tome are
Source: Independent (UK)
Sep 2, 2009
Watching a steam train full of waving passengers pull out of Prague station yesterday, the Meisl brothers recalled the wartime journey that had changed their lives forever.
Peter Meisl was evacuated from Czechoslovakia by a British stockbroker, Nicholas Winton, on the eve of the Second World War along with 668 other children, 22 of whom were on board the commemorative train yesterday as it left Prague in a cloud of steam to begin its four-day trip to London.
Czechoslova
Source: Truthout
Sep 1, 2009
Washington - The United States and Cuba will start talks this month on resuming direct mail service between the two countries for the first time in nearly half a century as the Obama administration continues to try to engage the communist island, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The negotiations, set for Sept. 17, will follow the resumption in July of talks on the legal immigration of Cubans to the U.S., according to the officials. The two sides agreed on the two sets of discussions
Source: The Art Newspaper
Sep 1, 2009
Beijing--The director of the Terracotta Army Museum (officially titled the Xi’An Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum) and other officials at the institution denied local media reports that a major discovery of 100 new terracotta warriors has been made.
China’s state news agency Xinhua, and the AFP, reported that archaeologists have found 100 figures in the “number three” excavation pit at the museum’s site in Shaanxi Province, where work started one month ago.
Directo
Source: Yahoo News
Sep 1, 2009
The top-selling Bible in North America will undergo its first revision in 25 years, modernizing the language in some sections and promising to reopen a contentious debate about changing gender terms in the sacred text. The New International Version, the Bible of choice for conservative evangelicals, will be revised to reflect changes in English usage and advances in Biblical scholarship, it was announced Tuesday. The revision is scheduled to be completed late next year and published in 2011.
Source: Fox News
Sep 1, 2009
It's no secret that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been gauging how Sen. Edward Kennedy's death affects the health care debate.
But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave an unusually blunt assessment in an interview with a local newspaper.
"I think it's going to help us," the Nevada Democrat told the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Democrats generally have used Kennedy's death as a rallying cry for health care reform, urging their colleagues t
Source: The Times Online
Sep 1, 2009
A facsimile of an historic document from the Vatican Secret Archives in which English peers appeal to Pope Clement VII to annul Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon is to be given to the Queen tomorrow.
The 95 x 46cm (37 x 18in) parchment, which dates from 1530 and bears 81 red wax seals, is a key document of events leading to the schism between Rome and the Church in England.
Scrinium, a Venice-based publisher that promotes the historic and cultural wealth of
Source: Jerusalem Post
Sep 1, 2009
Although Egyptian-Israeli relations have been frosty in recent years, ties between the two lands were vibrant around 3,000 BCE during the Early Bronze Age - at least according to Tel Aviv University and University College London archeologists who discovered a rare, four-centimeter-long stone fragment at the point where the Jordan River exits Lake Kinneret.
The piece, part of a carved stone plaque bearing archaic Egyptian signs, was the highlight of the second season of excavations
Source: CNN
Sep 1, 2009
WESTERPLATTE, Poland--On a sand swept stretch of Afghanistan, a high-ranking Polish general put his country's mission there into perspective.
He explained to a NATO delegation that Polish troops remind Afghan locals of two things about the mission: They are not Soviets and they know how difficult it is to live under foreign occupation.
It is hard to ignore the incomparable price Poland paid during World War II. It was attacked by Germany, invaded by the Soviets, and bec
Source: NYT
Sep 1, 2009
The Turkey-Armenia border, closed for more than 15 years, will be opened to trade once diplomatic relations are established, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Tuesday...The protocols also call for the formation of an international history commission to study the Armenian genocide, the central dispute between the countries.
Source: NYT
Sep 1, 2009
MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, in Poland to mark the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II, praised Polish soldiers and citizens on Tuesday for their wartime bravery, even as the Russian government unveiled what it said were previously classified documents showing prewar Polish cooperation with Nazi Germany.
Mr. Putin’s remarks appeared aimed at dampening a row between Russia and Poland over each country’s role in the war, a dispute that grew heated in the weeks
Source: Dawn Media Group
Sep 1, 2009
ISLAMABAD: Taxila valley does not just boast country’s rich heritage, it has been a source of enduring pride for the people. But it has been under stress from continuous quarrying and blasting in its surroundings.
Archaeologists and environmentalists are again voicing outrage at substantial harm to this irreplaceable cultural heritage – ancient structures, archaeological sites, and priceless artifacts – from continuous quarrying.
The archaeological remains and en
Source: CNSNews.com
Sep 1, 2009
A letter written by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) in 1971 reveals that he then opposed abortion and supported giving rights to the unborn.
“While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life,” Kennedy wrote on Aug. 3, 1971 in response to a letter sent to him by Thomas E. Dennelly, wh
Source: CNN.com
Sep 1, 2009
At least 20 world leaders gathered Tuesday in Poland to commemorate the start of World War II 70 years ago -- a conflict in which 6 million Poles died.
Germany's pre-dawn invasion began when the battleship Schleswig-Holstein fired on the Westerplatte military base in Gdansk harbor on September 1, 1939.
The attack set off a chain of events that eventually embroiled all of the world's major powers in the war. The conflict lasted until September 2, 1945 when Germany's ally
Source: telegraph.co.uk
Sep 1, 2009
British agents foiled a desperate German plot to monitor troop movements just days before D-Day, according to newly-released MI5 files on the Nazis.
During the Second World War, Iceland became tactically important for both sides and Germany sent a series of spies to gather weather information about the area to send back to the Luftwaffe.
But by May 1944 they had become convinced that any naval assault on their forces would be launched from Iceland, MI5 files released on
Source: Times (UK)
Sep 1, 2009
British spies spent more than a decade checking supposed sightings of Martin Bormann in what became a comical and pointless hunt for Adolf Hitler’s right-hand man, according to secret intelligence files released today.
Various towns in Switzerland, a Franciscan monastery in Italy and even a mountainside in Brazil were among the places where he was allegedly spotted. One man who approached the British Embassy in Paris in 1947 even claimed that Hitler was alive and living with monks
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Sep 1, 2009
It was almost the 'sorry' that Poland has waited seventy years for.
But just as Vladimir Putin inched towards an apology for Russia's invasion of Poland in the wake of the Nazi-Soviet pact in 1939, he pulled back from the precipice, placing the blame for the outbreak of the Second World War squarely on Britain and France.
At a ceremony marking the outbreak of the war in Gdansk, Poland today, Mr Putin downplayed Russia's responsibility, emphasising instead the Soviet Un
