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 of Malta
Feb 27, 2009
Preliminary archaeological studies in St George's Square, Valletta have uncovered an undocumented network of underground passageways, which could possibly connect to the Palace.
Studies are being undertaken in St George's Square in preparation for the building of a one-storey underground car park and the subsequent embellishment of the square.
The project, piloted by the Works Division and the Valletta Rehabilitation Project, still needs to be given the green light by t
Source: IHT
Feb 27, 2009
A UN tribunal convicted a former Rwandan military chaplain on Friday of attempted rape and genocide for crimes that included killing people who had sought refuge in a seminary.
The three-judge panel sentenced Emmanuel Rukundo to 25 years in prison.
There was clear evidence that Rukundo, who is 50, directed the killings of Tutsi civilians in the central Rwanda area of Gitarama during the 1994 genocide, said Judge Joseph Asoka Nihal de Silva. The judges also considered Ru
Source: IHT
Feb 27, 2009
The damp mud falls away easily from the long thighbone jutting out of the dirt wall of the trench at the gentle prod of the shovel's tip. Beyond the mass grave filled with the skeletal remains of some 2,000 people, presumed to be Germans who died in the closing months of World War II, stands the red-brick fortress of the Teutonic Knights that was once one of Germany's greatest landmarks until it was forced to cede the territory to Poland after the war.
Until then, Malbork was the Ge
Source: IHT
Feb 27, 2009
Bosnian Serb leaders have threatened to pull out of state institutions and are pressing anew for independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina, threatening to throw the fragile, multiethnic country into political crisis once again.
Analysts and observers of the region said the situation could unravel the United States-brokered Dayton accords of 1995, which ended a savage war that killed more than 100,000 people, most of them Muslims, between 1992 and 1995. The pact divided Bosnia and Her
Source: BBC
Feb 27, 2009
A Turkish prosecutor has ordered the digging up of several sites where it is believed the bodies of Kurds killed in the 1990s may have been dumped.
Hundreds of people disappeared at the height of the fighting in the mainly Kurdish south-east.
Human rights lawyers say many were last seen with security forces members.
The Kurdish conflict, which began in the 1980s when insurgents started fighting for a separate Kurdish state, still continues today.
Source: AP
Feb 27, 2009
The Vatican said Friday that the apology issued by an ultraconservative bishop who denied the Holocaust was not good enough to admit him into the Catholic Church as a clergyman, the Vatican said Friday.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said Bishop Richard Williamson's statement "doesn't appear to respect the conditions" the Vatican set out for him.
In an interview broadcast last month on Swedish state TV, Williamson denied 6 million Jews were killed du
Source: AP
Feb 27, 2009
A rare 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence belongs to a Virginia technology entrepreneur, not the state of Maine, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled Friday. Richard Adams Jr. of Fairfax County purchased the document from a London book dealer in 2001 for $475,000. But the state of Maine claimed it belongs to the town of Wiscasset, where it was kept by the town clerk in 1776.
Virginia's high court said that a lower court did not err in its ruling in Adams' favor because Maine d
Source: Newsweek
Feb 27, 2009
Shedding the state's hillbilly image has become
a personal crusade of Gov. Joe Manchin, a charismatic Democrat who has
authorized a multimillion blast of cash and marketing aimed not only
at rehabilitating the region's reputation, but also stemming a
three-decade exodus of the state's best and brightest residents.
In the next few weeks he will announce a"Come Home to West Virginia"
spokesperson—the face of a new campaign to cast the state as a
destination for families, entrepreneurs
Source: Times (UK)
Feb 27, 2009
An 18th-century icon that was stolen from a Serbian Orthodox monastery 32 years ago has been returned to Belgrade by the Italian authorities.
“We had already lost all hope but thanks to international cooperation to return stolen art objects we have been able to recover this treasure, which will return to its native country,” the Serbian Ambassador Sanda Raskovic-Ivic said during a ceremony in Rome where the statue was handed over.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 27, 2009
A mock-up edition of the paper, named Lecher, also included photographs of students superimposed on pornographic images.
One story is said to talk of two students sexually abusing and killing babies while another includes a spoof image of a former editor of the paper dressed in a Ku Klux Klan costume making racially loaded remarks.
A spoof story about a busker whose bagpipe music had annoyed Oxford residents joked that the instrument had been used as a means of torture
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 27, 2009
The ground-breaking model, which recognises and responds to human emotions, uses 31 motors and a patented flesh-like material called Frubber to make lifelike facial expressions.
Scientists hope it will defy the perception that human-like robots are "creepy" and could be the first step to making robots emotionally sensitive, preventing a "Matrix"-style war between man and machine.
Einstein, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist noted for his theory of rel
Source: International Herald Tribune
Feb 27, 2009
International judges handed down long prison sentences to five senior political, military and police officials in the government of the former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic for their roles in the 1999 war in Kosovo. But the court acquitted Milan Milutinovic, the wartime Serbian president, who had the highest rank of the men on trial but who was effectively a figurehead.
The trial held special significance as the closest that an international criminal court was likely to come
Source: BBC
Feb 27, 2009
Ingrid Betancourt, a former prisoner of Farc rebels in Colombia, was selfish and domineering in captivity, three fellow hostages say in a new book.
In their memoir, the three US military contractors describe their five-year ordeal in the jungles of Colombia.
One of them says that Ms Betancourt was even worse than the Farc guards.
Ms Betancourt, the French-Colombian ex-politician, received a hero's welcome upon her rescue last year. She has not commented
Source: BBC
Feb 27, 2009
A group of mothers of those killed in the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square has urged China's leaders to fully investigate the deaths. Their call was issued as the 20th anniversary of the massacre approaches, and days ahead of the annual session of the National People's Congress.
The Tiananmen Mothers want the government to name the dead, compensate families and punish those responsible.
In an open letter, Chinese leaders were also urged to "break the taboo&qu
Source: BBC
Feb 27, 2009
Richard Williamson said if he had known the full harm his comments would cause, he would not have made them.
He said that his opinions had been formed "20 years ago on the basis of evidence then available".
However, Jewish leaders said the bishop failed to address the issue of whether he believed the Holocaust was a lie.
Renzo Gattegna, the president of Italy's Jewish Communities, described the apology as "absolutely ambiguous".
Source: BBC
Feb 26, 2009
Israel is marking 30 years since its first peace treaty with an Arab state, although in the other signatory, Egypt, there is little public acknowledgement.
The Camp David Accord was sealed with a handshake on the White House lawn on 26 March 1979 between Israeli PM Menachem Begin and President Anwar Sadat.
The Israeli foreign ministry organised a reception with the Egyptian ambassador to Tel Aviv, Yasser Reda.
Relations have cooled over Israel's offensiv
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 26, 2009
US President Barack Obama will travel to France on June 6 to attend commemorations of the Second World War D-Day landings, the French presidency said on Thursday.
Mr Obama will travel to the Normandy coast for events marking the 65th anniversary of the allied invasion, said President Nicolas Sarkozy's chief of staff, Claude Gueant.
The US leader had hoped to make the visit to Normandy next week, but the plan was dropped due to scheduling problems.
Source: Foxnews
Feb 26, 2009
An eerie image of a figure at a Scottish castle has experts spooked.
The picture, taken in May last year, shows a spectral figure in 15th century dress peering out of a barred window at Tantallon Castle in Fife.
No mannequins or costumed guides are used at the castle and photo experts have confirmed that no digital trickery was used.
Even ghost sceptic Professor Richard Wiseman admitted to being puzzled.
“It is certainly very curious,” he said.
Source: CNN
Feb 26, 2009
Thirty years ago, on March 26, 1979, three couples sat down for a celebratory lunch in the White House.
President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his wife Aliza, and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and his wife Jehan, talked privately before greeting the hundreds of people who witnessed the signing of the historic peace treaty between Egypt and Israel that day.
Jehan Sadat remembers crying with joy that day at seeing
Source: Library of Congress Blog
Feb 26, 2009
A number of news outlets have been focusing on a statement by President Obama in support of the automobile industry in his State of the Union Address: “I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.” (One example is here.)A number of them are citing the Library of Congress as having definitively asserted that the car was actually invented
