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: Times (UK)
Aug 25, 2009
A New Jersey town with a bitter experience of terrorism is in uproar at the prospect of Muammar Gaddafi pitching his air-conditioned tent there during his first visit to the United States.
The Libyan leader is considering making his Bedouin camp in the garden of a Libyan-owned mansion in Englewood, next door to a Jewish school and a famous rabbi, when he travels to New York to address the UN General Assembly on September 23.
Officials in the wealthy commuter town, 23
Source: BBC
Aug 25, 2009
North and South Korea are to hold talks on reuniting families divided by war in the 1950s, officials in Seoul say.
The programme, organised by the Red Cross, was suspended more than a year ago as inter-Korean relations soured.
The announcement that talks will resume this week is being seen as another sign of a thaw, correspondents say.
It follows North Korean envoys meeting South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Seoul ahead of the funeral of former leade
Source: BBC
Aug 25, 2009
Seventy years after the end of the civil war in 1939 in which more than 350,000 people were killed, Spain is still divided over how to deal with what the country calls its "historical memory".
Many people, especially the older generation, say that it has been so long since the war took place that now it is time to forget.
However, those related to victims of the Franco era, and the younger generation, say that it is necessary to know about the events of that
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 25, 2009
Much of our knowledge about Ancient Egypt comes from the elite’s tombs, the decoration of which was intended to ensure their smooth passage into the next life.
The tombs were not designed to be visited regularly by thousands of people.
Their burial chambers were meant to be sealed off for eternity, and any offering chapels which remained accessible above ground were to be visited only by surviving relatives and priests.
The extremely arid Egyptian climat
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 25, 2009
Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's Justice Secretary, who freed the Lockerbie bomber, has promised to publish all the submissions and evidence he received prior to making his decision.
His officials are writing to all those who made submissions and representations, including the British Government, asking for permission to make public the information.
There has been speculation, prompted by the Libyans, that the bomber was released as part of a trade pact agreed by Gordon Br
Source: AP
Aug 25, 2009
Officials in central Virginia approved a Walmart Supercenter early Tuesday near one of the nation's most important Civil War battlefields, a proposal that had stirred opposition by preservationists and hundreds of historians.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to grant the special permit to the world's biggest retailer after a majority of more than 100 speakers said they favored bringing the Walmart to Locust Grove, within a cannonball's shot from the Wilderness Battle
Source: CNN
Aug 25, 2009
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says documents released Monday support his view that harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects prevented attacks and yielded crucial information about al Qaeda.
Cheney also criticized the Obama administration's decision to ask a federal prosecutor to determine whether U.S. intelligence agents violated the law in interrogations that some have equated to torture.
The former vice president spoke after the federal government
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Aug 25, 2009
A few months ago, Obama administration officials were sounding the alarm about another 1929. These days, it's 1937 that has them in a sweat.
The Great Depression was W-shaped. The stock-market collapse led to a steep economic decline. But by 1933, the economy had rebounded. Then a series of monetary and fiscal blunders drove the country back into a deep recession at the end of 1937.
That episode is at the heart of the debate over how quickly the government and the U.S.
Source: The Anniston Star
Aug 24, 2009
More than 1,000 years ago, people walked the hills of what is now Calhoun County (USA). Most traces of them are gone, but the American Indians who called this land home left a few markers. Some are scattered on hilltops in the form of sacred mounds. One pile of stones on a particular hilltop evokes the curved body of a snake. And there are formations with purposes unclear and at times in dispute. All of these sites are part of a slowly unfolding story, one archaeologists hope to tell by learning
Source: NY Observer
Aug 24, 2009
David Gergen is working on a book about the Obama administration, according to Alice Mayhew, his editor at Simon & Schuster.
Ms. Mayhew declined to go into detail about Mr. Gergen’s project, but characterized it as as being about “watching an administration take hold.”
“It’s early days,” Ms. Mayhew said by phone this afternoon. “He’s writing about this administration and how it takes office, but he’s writing from the perspective of Gergen, which is unique, I think,
Source: Spiegel Online
Aug 24, 2009
It was a sweltering summer day when Alan Adyrkhayev, a doctor, received a letter from his 11-year-old daughter Emilia. It was an unusual letter, because, for one thing, the father and daughter live in the same house in Beslan, a small, dusty city in North Ossetia, nestled in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. But Emilia's request was sufficiently important to merit writing a letter.
"This is dedicated to our mother Ira," the girl had scrawled in her child's handwriti
Source: WBIR.com
Aug 24, 2009
UT archaeologists have uncovered a significant piece of Civil War history at the future construction site of the school's Sorority Village.
"It's part of our heritage. Just being here, it's like going to Gettysburg on a smaller scale," said Jeff Chapman, director of UT's Frank H. McClung Museum.
Military maps from almost 150 years ago placed confederate artillery during the Battle of Fort Sanders at the location of the planned village near the corner of Kingst
Source: Truthout
Aug 24, 2009
Kabul, Afghanistan - A young Afghan whose six-year detention at Guantanamo came to symbolize many of the problems of the Bush administration's war on terror detention policies arrived in his home country today, less than a month after a federal judge in Washington ordered his release.
Mohammed Jawad, whose confession to throwing a hand grenade that wounded two U.S. soldiers in 2002 was rejected as coerced by torture, was helicoptered into Kabul from Bagram Air Base and taken to the
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
Aug 24, 2009
Rocky ocean cliffs and tangles of green foliage. Crowded Edgartown restaurants, large yachts, and even larger gray-shingle mansions. These are the images that many people equate with Martha’s Vineyard.
What is less known is that the island has a long-enduring African-American history as well.
President Obama, who arrived Sunday on Martha’s Vineyard with his family for a week-long vacation, is helping to highlight that history.
Source: Deutsche Welle
Aug 24, 2009
With its most modern airplanes flying in formation overhead, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko deliverd a speech in Independence Square where he said that Ukraine needed strong institutions to ward of threats to its future prosperity.
"I choose a strong state, strength and dignity, to put in their place not only our local feudals but also foreign overlords who want to set down how we should live," said Yushchenko during his 25-minute address. He also added that, "
Source: Montpelier
Aug 24, 2009
ORANGE, Va.— James Madison’s Montpelier today will celebrate the legacy of slave and freedman Paul Jennings with an exclusive White House visit and walking tour of Washington, D.C. for his descendants. Family members of the former slave, who helped First Lady Dolley Madison rescue the portrait of George Washington before the White House burned in 1814, will gather on the 195th anniversary of its rescue to learn more about their ancestor from one of the nation’s leading Paul Jennings experts. The
Source: The Washington Post
Aug 24, 2009
President Obama has approved the creation of an elite team of interrogators to question key terrorism suspects, part of a broader effort to revamp U.S. policy on detention and interrogation, senior administration officials said Sunday.
Obama signed off late last week on the unit, named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. Made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the interrogation unit will be housed at the FBI but will be overseen b
Source: AP
Aug 24, 2009
Scottish legislators gathered Monday for an emergency meeting on the government's decision to release the Lockerbie bomber as critics claimed the act could severely damage relations with the United States...
... "I understand the huge and strongly held views of the American families, but that's not all the families who were affected by Lockerbie," Salmond told the BBC. "A number of the families, particularly in the U.K., take a different view and think that we made th
Source: NYT
Aug 24, 2009
The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.
The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Depar
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Aug 24, 2009
Survivors of the 2002 Bali bombings are devastated over plans to build a new nightclub at the site in the tourist district of Kuta.
Indonesian businessman Kadek Wiranatha, who took out a 30-year-lease on the site of the Sari Club last year, says he plans to build a nightclub and restaurant there.
His proposal opposes plans to lay out a 'peace park' in memory of the 202 that died in the attack.
