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 24, 2009
Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, is writing his autobiography to “proclaim his innocence” by disclosing new information behind Britain’s deadliest terrorist attack, The Times has learnt.
Abdurrhman Swessi, Colonel Gaddafi’s official envoy to Scotland, disclosed yesterday that al-Megrahi was working on a book that would detail his life behind bars and reveal all he knows about the bombing in 1988 of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people.
The freed b
Source: BBC
Aug 24, 2009
In the third of a series of articles marking the outbreak of World War II 70 years ago, the BBC Russian Service's Andrei Ostalski analyses media coverage of the events that led to conflict.
On 21 August 1939 the Soviet government newspaper Izvestiya published a short article entitled On Soviet-German Relations in its middle pages, between pieces on the development of Soviet agriculture and the legal system.
Just a few lines in length, it was to have the effect of an ex
Source: Gulf Daily News
Aug 23, 2009
Ancient burial mounds in a Bahraini village, which the government hoped to have recognised as a World Heritage Site, will be bulldozed to make way for a new road, houses and a public park. Councillors have successfully argued that 62 mounds in Buri, which date back as far as 4,000 years, were standing in the way of development. However, heritage chiefs are insisting on excavating the area, near Hamad Town, before allowing the bulldozers in. Any mound found to be of particular
historical signifi
Source: http://medievalnews.blogspot.com
Aug 23, 2009
Dozens of medieval castles in Germany will soon be receiving more than 320 million euros to help with restoration work, with the money coming from the countries economic stimulus package.
The latest cash injection was announced earlier this week when the federal government and the states of Berlin and Brandenburg pledged €155 million for the Foundation of Prussian Palaces and Gardens for the period through 2017. The government has already made 150 million euros available for the pre
Source: Truthout
Aug 23, 2009
Richmond, Kentucky - Behind armed guards in bulletproof booths deep in the Kentucky woods, workers have begun pouring the foundations for a $3-billion complex designed to destroy America's last stockpile of deadly chemical weapons.
The aging arsenal at the Blue Grass Army Depot contains 523 tons of liquid VX and sarin -- lethal nerve agents produced during the Cold War -- and mustard, a blister agent that caused horrific casualties in World War I...
... About a third o
Source: Observer (UK)
Aug 23, 2009
British scientists are to begin work on a revolutionary project to record three-dimensional models of world heritage sites so that they can be re-created if they fall victim to climate change, natural disaster, war or terrorism.
The team of six – from Historic Scotland and the Glasgow School of Art – will team up next month with an American company, CyArk, to shoot laser beams at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, creating a 3D model accurate to within 3mm, digitally preserving the car
Source: Times (UK)
Aug 23, 2009
The alleged crimes and abuses carried out under the Bush Administration will take centre stage today with the release of a report detailing brutal CIA interrogations, a document that could trigger criminal investigations later this week.
The 2004 report, which has been suppressed until now, documents in grim detail interrogations of terror suspects at secret CIA “black site” prisons between 2002 and 2004, including mock executions, such as threatening a prisoner with a gun and powe
Source: Huffington Post
Aug 23, 2009
Even as the issue of torture appears likely to burst back onto the public agenda next week -- thanks to the much anticipated release of an internal CIA report -- one of the most progressive voices in Congress is arguing that the Obama White House has a legal obligation to investigate the Bush torture legacy.
New York Congressman Jerry Nadler, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told the Huffington Post that he believed that President Obama would be breaking the law i
Source: BBC
Aug 23, 2009
A Norwegian team is set to embark on an expedition to find the submerged wreck of a plane which carried Norway's great polar explorer Roald Amundsen.
Amundsen was aboard a Latham 47 sea plane when the aircraft disappeared over the sea on its way to the Arctic island of Spitsbergen in 1928.
Two ships will set sail from the Norwegian city of Tromso on Monday to begin the two-week expedition.
The team will use an underwater robot to scan for the plane using so
Source: BBC
Aug 23, 2009
A village is holding a memorial service to mark the 65th anniversary of an RAF Wellington bomber crashing into the river, killing four crew members.
The crew were on a training night flight over the Irish Sea when they had engine trouble and ditched into the Teifi near Cenarth, Ceredigion.
Local historian Graham Elliott, BEM, researched many of the details and is in contact with the two survivors.
Source: BBC
Aug 23, 2009
Archaeologists have won a £48,000 Heritage Lottery grant to carry out an extensive dig at a Cumbrian abbey.
Holm Cultram Abbey in Abbeytown was the largest monastic house in Cumbria and founded by Cistercian monks in 1150.
Members of West Cumbria Archaeological Society will use the cash to search for abbey foundations in a nearby field.
The investigation of the size and layout of the site is hoped to result in the production of a plan of the entire monast
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 23, 2009
Baltic states have marked the 20th anniversary of the day two million people joined hands against Soviet rule.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania held a 375-miles relay race to remember the Baltic Way human chain.
The Baltic human chain was organised on August 23, 1989 amid a drive to restore independence from Moscow.
It saw two million people from a total population of seven million in the three states hold hands in an act of solidarity and defiance.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 23, 2009
A new photograph of Fidel Castro has been published in Cuba's state-run Communist Youth newspaper, apparently showing the ailing former leader in improved health.
The photograph in Juventud Rebelde, showed Mr Castro talking to Rafael Correa, the visiting Left-wing Ecuadorean president.
Mr Castro, 83, was dressed in a white shirt instead of the tracksuit he has worn in recent photos. The meeting with Rafael Correa occurred on Friday.
Source: The Huffington Post
Aug 23, 2009
They go by such nicknames as "Fat Cat" and "Tomboy." Their simmering power struggles once drove them into the streets, guns blazing. They rule their crime families with steely determination, and also raise the kids and stir the pasta.
Move over, Don Corleone. Godmothers are rising in the ranks of the Camorra, the Naples' area crime syndicate.
Women have long played a strong role in Camorra crime families, muscling, sometimes murdering, their way to t
Source: CNN
Aug 23, 2009
South Korea bade farewell to former President Kim Dae-jung Sunday in a ceremony attended by thousands of citizens, dignitaries and politicians.
The solemn Sunday afternoon ceremony was held outside parliament, with a large portrait of Kim placed on a shrine surrounded by flowers.
The funeral followed six days of mourning for Kim, who died Tuesday of a heart failure.
Source: Arthur Milnes in the Globe & Mail
Aug 22, 2009
Even a leader of the free
world deserves a break, so
tomorrow U.S. President
Barack Obama and his family
start their summer vacation.
His predecessor just loved to
get away. George W. Bush
spent one-sixth of his presidency
at his ranch in Texas
and took more days off – 1,020
– than any other occupant of
the White House.
The Obamas are raising eyebrows
as well, but for a different
reason – because, to the
surprise of many in these penny-
pinching times, they are going
in such
Source: CNSNews.com
Aug 22, 2009
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now tells CNSNews.com it will not destroy archaeological artifacts from the site of the largest British fort in the American colonies – at least not yet.
As CNSNews.com reported last week, an EPA-mandated project to remove pollutants from the Hudson River recently dislodged the potentially toxic artifacts -- two large timbers from the site of Fort Edward in upstate New York . The dredging destroyed most of the historic site.
EPA
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 22, 2009
Sunday is the 64th anniversary of the crash that killed the crew of the 356 Squadron Liberator KL654 while on a resupply sortie over Negeri Sembilan in central Malaya.
Japan had announced its surrender only eight days earlier and part of the crew’s mission was to search for prisoners of war still held in camps in the jungle.
The site of the crash was first discovered in the 1950s and reported to the authorities, but no action was taken. Another appeal was made in 1970
Source: The Daily Beast
Aug 22, 2009
The International Committee of the Red Cross will now know the identities of prisoners kept in secret in Iraq and Afghanistan camps, in a reversal of the Pentagon's policy. The move will begin to dispel some of the secrecy surrounding the government's remaining overseas prisons. The Red Cross has been fighting for access to the information, but the military previously said disclosing prisoners' names would tip off other insurgents. The New York Times reported in 2006 that in one detention camp i
Source: NYT
Aug 22, 2009
A Central Intelligence Agency inspector general’s report set to be released Monday provides new details about abuses that took place inside the agency’s secret prisons, including details of how C.I.A. officers carried out mock executions and threatened at least one prisoner with a gun and a power drill.
C.I.A. jailers at different times held the handgun and the drill close to the detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, threatening to harm him if he did not cooperate with his interrogator
