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: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 7, 2008
She was found shot dead in the lift of her apartment block exactly two years ago on Tuesday. Nobody has been jailed for her murder.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, figures including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, playwrights Sir Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter, the political author Noam Chomsky and Vaclav Havel, the former president of Czechoslovakia, demanded: "We call again on the Russian government to bring to justice both those who killed Anna Politkovskaya and those who ordered
Source: http://www.factcheck.org
Oct 6, 2008
On August 21, tabloids and news organizations picked up reports from the Italian edition of Vanity Fair about George Obama, Barack Obama's half brother, living in Nairobi, Kenya. The magazine said George was "earning less than a dollar a day."
The Daily Telegraph in London trumpeted the news with this line:
Daily Telegraph: Senator Barack Obama's long lost brother has been tracked down for the first time living in a shanty town in Kenya, reports claimed.
Stat
Source: US News & World Report
Oct 6, 2008
Historian Robert Dallek sees some parallels to the failure of President Herbert Hoover to adequately address the economic meltdown of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Dallek points out that Hoover "couldn't let go of his ideology"—notably his belief that the markets would eventually correct themselves. That didn't happen, and Hoover became a figure of ridicule for generations. "In a crisis, you do need a strong and effective president," Dallek says. "And a president has t
Source: Independent (UK)
Oct 6, 2008
Jeanie and Isobel, who grew up on Pitcairn Island, were seven and nine years old when Brian Young, a neighbour, began assaulting them. He would call at the sisters' house and ask their mother's permission to take them off on his motorbike, supposedly to fetch firewood. Then he would drive them to an old hut in a remote part of the South Pacific island and rape them, one after the other.
The weekly attacks continued for two years, until Jeanie and Isobel's family moved to New Zealand
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 6, 2008
The Spanish government is to formally recognise individual victims of the Spanish Civil War and ensuing dictatorship of General Francisco Franco and is ready to award compensation to the families of those who were killed in the struggle for democracy.
The cabinet of Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero announced plans to strengthen legislation designed to "right the wrongs" of the past and heal wounds that still exist in Spain more than seventy years after the start of a conflict
Source: FoxNews.com
Oct 6, 2008
A lawsuit involving the three surviving children of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King is threatening to derail a $1.4 million deal for a book on their mother.
The New York-based Penguin Group agreed to pay $1.2 million plus royalties to King Inc., which controls the civil rights icon's intellectual property. The publisher would pay another $200,000 to the Rev. Barbara Reynolds, who taped conversations with Mrs. King before she died in January 2006.
This wee
Source: CNN
Oct 6, 2008
Evel Knievel never denied his scrapes with the law -- the late motorcycle daredevil often reveled in them. But even he objected to a 1970s FBI investigation of whether he was involved in a string of beatings.
According to documents, the federal government came close to charging Knievel, who in turn threatened to sue the FBI for alleging he was connected to a crime syndicate.
Neither followed through.
Knievel, who died last November in Clearwater, Florida, r
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 6, 2008
Oxford and Cambridge universities will allow students to download lectures directly onto their iPods.
The ancient institutions said they were making lectures, short films and interviews available on iTunes for the first time.
It follows similar moves by University College London and the Open University, which became the first institutions to make educational resources available this year.
Oxford said more than 150 hours of free audio and video podcasts has
Source: NYT
Oct 6, 2008
In the midst of a financial crisis, a towering figure of American business steps forward with his reputation and financial resources for public good and personal gain.
Their times and personalities are vastly different, of course. But J. Pierpont Morgan's role in the Panic of 1907 has its echo in Warren Buffett's actions during the current financial troubles.
"What Buffett is doing is similar in ways to what Morgan did in 1907," said Richard Sylla, an economis
Source: AP
Oct 6, 2008
Five state police officers were arrested in southern Mexico on Sunday in connection with a deadly raid to dislodge protesters from a Mayan archaeological site.
The five officers led an operation on Friday to remove hundreds of mostly indigenous villagers who had occupied the entrance to the Chinkultic ruins for nearly a month, the Chiapas state Justice Department said. The officers could face homicide charges.
Protesters fought back with sticks, rocks and machetes, the
Source: Press Release
Oct 6, 2008
Ever wonder what it would have been like to have attended the fall harvest feast of 1621? Now thanks to Plimoth Plantation, history is actually coming home for one lucky eBay auction winner this Thanksgiving! The famed non-for-profit, living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, dedicated to the indigenous Wampanoag and the colonial English of 17th Century Plimoth Colony, is putting two of its world-renown interpreters up for auction, for 10 days on eBay, beginning TODAY, at 16:21 pm, (4:2
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 6, 2008
The controversial dolls are on display at the Wizzard shop, part of the Albert Dock complex in Liverpool.
Officials at the International Slavery Museum, also based at the site, said it was "shocking" and called for the dolls to be removed from sale.
Richard Benjamin, head of the International Slavery Museum, said: "These dolls reinforce out-of-date racial stereotypes which are deeply offensive to many people, particularly within the black community.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Oct 6, 2008
The most famous shrine to Holocaust suffering in the world – the attic where Anne Frank hid with her family in Amsterdam – was nearly torn down by the Dutch government after WW2 because it was 'not an historical monument'.
Now the house is visited by millions each year and the foundation that supports it has become central to rebutting the lies of Holocaust deniers wherever they are.
Anne Frank hid with her family in the Amsterdam apartment from 1942 to 1944. Betrayed, the family wer
Source: Independent (UK)
Oct 6, 2008
One of the main streets in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, has been renamed in honour of the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, a former separatist rebel who now pledges allegiance to Moscow and has rebuilt Chechnya using Moscow's money, said: "Today I can say with certainty, that 99 per cent of the population of Chechnya trust Putin and support the Russian leadership," he said. "As a sign of the Chechen people's gratitude Vi
Source: Independent (UK)
Oct 6, 2008
Hadrian's Wall and the National Maritime Museum have secured £9m funding, the Heritage Lottery Fund announced today.
The funding will be used to transform the sites and improve the facilities for visitors.
Hadrian's Wall, in Northumberland, will use £4m to build an education centre and new galleries for displaying ancient artefacts.
The Vindolanda Trust, the archaeological body in charge of the project, will also release a collection of items which have
Source: BBC
Oct 6, 2008
A serial sex attacker convicted of killing two mothers whose bodies have never been found, has been jailed for life at the Old Bailey.
Derek Brown, 47, denied murdering Xiao Mei Guo, 29, and Bonnie Barrett, 24, after taking them back to his flat in Rotherhithe, east London.
He picked up his victims in the Whitechapel area, famously stalked by Jack the Ripper in the 1880s.
Brown, who showed "no remorse", was ordered to serve a minimum of 30 year
Source: BBC
Oct 6, 2008
The world's oldest surviving Bible is in bits.
For 1,500 years, the Codex Sinaiticus lay undisturbed in a Sinai monastery, until it was found - or stolen, as the monks say - in 1844 and split between Egypt, Russia, Germany and Britain.
Now these different parts are to be united online and, from next July, anyone, anywhere in the world with internet access will be able to view the complete text and read a translation.
For those who believe the Bible is th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 6, 2008
In a speech in London, Mr Bloomberg said that the global economy was "facing the worst confidence crisis in our lifetime", adding that "the pain is going to be spread far and wide".
He told an audience in the City of London: "It is going to affect anyone who wants to borrow money to buy a car or a house or to expand their business or take out a student loan.
"Millions of people are just not going to be able to do those things - and millio
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 6, 2008
The cabinet of Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero announced plans to strengthen legislation designed to "right the wrongs" of the past and heal wounds that still exist in Spain more than seventy years after the start of a conflict that tore the nation apart.
Those who were persecuted, imprisoned, or executed during the 1936-39 conflict and ensuing four decade fascist dictatorship will be officially declared "victims" and their relatives will be able to apply to the co
Source: MSNBC
Oct 5, 2008
A new remote sensing technology has peeled away layers of mud and rock near Peru's Cahuachi desert to reveal an ancient adobe pyramid, Italian researchers announced on Friday at a satellite imagery conference in Rome.
Nicola Masini and Rosa Lasaponara of Italy's National Research Council (CNR) discovered the pyramid by analyzing images from the satellite Quickbird, which they used to penetrate the Peruvian soil.
The researchers investigated a test area along the river Nazca.
