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
Oct 15, 2008
South Africa's Robben Island is to be closed for two weeks while authorities cull rabbits that have overrun the site where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.
The rabbits are so numerous that they threaten the island's vegetation and historic buildings, an official said.
Mr Mandela, who became South Africa's president after the end of apartheid, was held on Robben Island for 18 years.
The UN World Heritage site has become one of the country's most famous tour
Source: BBC
Oct 15, 2008
The Lockerbie bomber has won the latest round of his long-running legal battle to overturn his conviction.
Appeal judges refused to put a limit on Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's list of objections to the trial which convicted him of Scotland's worst mass murder.
Al-Megrahi was convicted of the 1988 atrocity, which killed 270 people.
The 56-year-old Libyan has already lost an appeal against his 2001 conviction but the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (S
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Oct 15, 2008
A war veteran who survived a terrifying U-boat attack that killed more than 800 has had his dying wish granted as his ashes were laid to rest in the sunken ship.
Royal Navy divers placed the wooden casket containing the remains of Flight Sergeant Fernleigh Judge in the hull of HMS Royal Oak, which lies 90ft beneath the waves of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands.
The 29,000-tonne dreadnought went down after being struck by a salvo of torpedoes which scored three perfect h
Source: Times (UK)
Oct 15, 2008
A long-running row over the rights to a rooftop section of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre could bring the entire structure tumbling down, destroying Christendom’s holiest site.
While renovations are needed across the church, the small Deir al-Sultan monastery on its roof has reached an “emergency state”, according to engineers who completed an evaluation this month.
The Times has learnt that in 2004 the two chapels and twenty-six tiny rooms that comprise the monaste
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 15, 2008
The late Pope John Paul was wounded by a knife-wielding priest in 1982, a year after he was shot in St Peter's Square, but the injury was kept secret, his former top aide says in a documentary film.
Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz also discloses that when John Paul II was unable to pronounce words several days before his death in 2005, he told his aides that if he could not speak any more the time had come for him to die.
Dziwisz, who is now cardinal of Krakow, Poland, was John P
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 15, 2008
Aspiring Blofelds will have to shell out a cool £5 million for the mile-long, James Bond-villain style, warren of tunnels buried 100 feet below High Holborn.
The Kingsway Tunnels have a history that could grace the pages of any Ian Fleming or John le Carré novel.
Built in 1940 as deep air-raid shelters, they have since been used as a "reserve war room", a Public Records Office repository - for 400 tons of secret documents - and the telephone exchange which co
Source: Ralph Luker at HNN blog, Cliopatria
Oct 15, 2008
Robbie Brown,"Dr. King's Children Battling Over Book," NYT, 13 October, and Brian Feagans,"Auditor to help Kings catalog MLK love letters," AJC, 14 October, bring you up to date on the struggle between Dexter King, on the one hand, and his surviving siblings, Martin an
Source: AP
Oct 14, 2008
Chattanooga-area officials are working to lure tourists to lesser-known Civil War sites over the next few years as the region looks ahead to the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which begins in 2011 and runs for four years.
The Southeast Tennessee Tourism Association has plotted dozens of historic sites on a driving tour and produced a brochure highlighting some lesser-known Civil War landmarks, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
The brochure, "Tenne
Source: Politico.com
Oct 14, 2008
With visions of a massive liberal majority in the next Congress and the power to remake economic policy for the next generation, Democrats are dusting off their New Deal history books and openly discussing the idea of re-engineering Depression-era agencies for the 21st century.
Several lawmakers want to bring back the Home Ownership Loan Corp., and others have discussed resurrecting the defunct Reconstruction Finance Corp., a federal program that made direct loans to businesses. Ot
Source: International Herald Tribune
Oct 14, 2008
QAHTANIYA, Iraq: When an American platoon rolled into this dusty town in the country's northwest corner, a few miles from the Syrian border, the soldiers were greeted by dozens of people holding out pink and yellow Post-it notes. The notes appeared so quickly it seemed that people must have been carrying them at all times, just in case. On each was a name, written carefully in the Roman alphabet, and each came with a question: Can you tell me where this person is?
On the evening of
Source: FoxNews.com
Oct 14, 2008
An unholy dispute over the rights to a rooftop section of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre could bring the entire structure tumbling down, destroying Christendom's holiest site.
While renovations are needed across the Church, the small Deir Al-Sultan monastery on a part of the Church's rooftop has reached an "emergency state", according to engineers who completed an evaluation earlier this month.
The Times has learnt that the two chapels and 26 tiny rooms whic
Source: 7 News (WHDH-TV), Boston
Oct 14, 2008
BOSTON -- Newly discovered audio tapes provide a look inside the life of John F. Kennedy just as he was getting his 1960 presidential campaign started.
The audio was recorded at a dinner party at the Kennedy home in Georgetown.
Two journalists asked the young senator about life, health, and politics.
The tapes were recorded just over three months before Kennedy's assassination in 1963.
Source: AP
Oct 14, 2008
- Officials say four former Bosnian Serb police officers have been arrested for allegedly having participated in the wartime execution of 200 civilians.
The Prosecution office of Bosnia's war crimes court said Tuesday it ordered the arrest of Milorad Skrbic, 48; Milorad Radakovic, 46; Gordan Djuric, 40; and Ljubisa Cetic, 39. They are accused of crimes against humanity.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 14, 2008
Royal Mail has been criticised for releasing a stamp honouring Marie Stopes, the birth control pioneer who is accused of being a racist and a Nazi sympathiser.
Stopes, who is best known for opening Britain's first family planning clinic in 1921, will feature on the new 50p stamp as part of a commemorative series celebrating women of achievement.
Others honoured with black and white photographs in the new release include the Labour cabinet minister Barbara Castle, for he
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 14, 2008
But the area around a 900-year-old temple, where both countries claim 1.8 square miles of territory, remains tense and the two sides continued to offer conflicting accounts of the situation on the ground.
On Monday, Hun Sen, the Cambodian prime minister, gave a 24 hour ultimatum for 80 Thai troops allegedly inside Cambodia to withdraw. On Tuesday morning, the Cambodian commander, General Yim Pim, claimed the soldiers had moved back inside Thailand.
"The tense situa
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 14, 2008
A war ensign and a range of swords and daggers are among the other Third Reich items on sale.
Managing director Jonathan Humbert, the managing director of J P Humbert Auctioneers in Northamptonshire, said that they had received "an influx of Nazi items" after German Second World War objects uncovered during a council house clearance were sold at a recent auction. Items including a Nazi officer's cap sold for a total of £2,600.
"We have had a very large
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 14, 2008
Nguyen Tien Tran said: "We never tortured McCain. On the contrary, we saved his life, curing him with extremely valuable medicines that at times were not available to our own wounded."
Mr McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, who was a Navy pilot during the Vietnam war, regularly refers to his experiences after being captured when his plane was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967.
He was taken to Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton"
Source: Spiegel Online
Oct 14, 2008
A new computer program will allow the curious to see Cologne, Germany's fourth-largest city, as it was almost 2,000 years ago, when it was a major northern outpost of the Roman Empire.
"Now, for the first time, people will be able to visualize what an amazing city Cologne already was in antiquity," said Hansgerd Hellenkemper, the director of the city's Romano-Germanic Museum.
The city's history stretches back to 38 B.C. After Julius Caesar pushed the empire n
Source: BBC
Oct 14, 2008
Khem Ngoun had swaggered into Phnom Penh's Municipal Court as if he were considering buying the place.
He stood slightly apart from the other four defendants and held a fuchsia-coloured hand towel to mop his brow.
Even his blue, prison-issue pyjamas were of a different design and a better fit than those his former Khmer Rouge colleagues were wearing.
His initial appearance at the court earlier this month suggested that Khem Ngoun still saw himself as a p
Source: BBC
Oct 14, 2008
A valuable engraving by the Spanish master Francisco de Goya has been found a month after it was stolen from an exhibition, Colombian police say.
The work, entitled Sad Premonitions, was found in a Bogota hotel room after a tip-off, investigators said.
The engraving is part of Goya's "Disaster of War" series which he created between 1810 and 1820.
It was on loan from Spain and reportedly insured for 80,000 euros($108,000; £64,000).
