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
May 21, 2007
One of the most secret sites from the Vietnam War era is being opened to the world.
The caves at Viengxay, in north-eastern Laos, once hosted the country's communist revolutionaries as they plotted the final US defeat in Indochina.
Even in peacetime it takes two days to drive to Viengxay from either Vientiane, the capital of Laos, or Luang Prabang, its second city.
During the secret war in Laos it was almost impossible.The remoteness of
Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com
May 21, 2007
Pollard supporters are enraged at US Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones for his remarks Monday morning, implying that Jonathan Pollard committed treason or sold US secrets to Israel.
Speaking at a conference at Bar Ilan University on Israeli-American relations, Jones said, "Pollard took money and sold out his country... The fact that he wasn't executed shows that he was treated mercifully."
"Malicious incitement against both Jonathan and Israel" is
Source: ABC News
May 21, 2007
Although nearly three years have passed since the death of her husband, former President Ronald Reagan, former first lady Nancy Reagan is still healing emotionally, she told "Good Morning America's" anchor Diane Sawyer.
"I keep thinking of all those people who said time ... it'll be much better in time," Reagan said. "Well, not for me. If anything, -- it's gotten worse. ... I miss him more. I'm remembering more little things that we did together. It's harder
Source: ABC News series on slavery
May 21, 2007
[This is the story of one of an estimated 15,000 slaves in the US.]
Evelyn Chumbow was once a slave, but not in some distant country. She worked right here in the United States.
Chumbow, now 21, was brought to suburban Maryland in 1996 from her native Cameroon by Theresa Mubang. Mubang promised Chumbow's family that if 11-year-old Evenly came to America, she would have the prospect of a bright future and a first-rate education, as she had been a top student in her nativ
Source: NYT
May 21, 2007
Nothing rattles Washington quite like a good violation of unwritten rules, especially when the violator and the violated are both presidents (past and present, respectively).
Former President Jimmy Carter was cited for a doozy over the weekend when he called the Bush administration “the worst in history” for its impact around the world. Though Mr. Carter tried to take it back on Monday, saying on the “Today” show that his remarks were “careless or misinterpreted” and that he was “no
Source: WaPo
May 21, 2007
In their annual examination with the flexible retrospectoscope, medical experts last week took on the case of Abraham Lincoln at the 13th Historical Clinicopathological Conference, sponsored by the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs hospital.
Previous exercises have sought to diagnose illness or determine cause of death of famous people with incomplete medical records. They include Alexander the Great (typhoid fever complicated by Guillain-Barre syndr
Source: AP
May 21, 2007
ATLANTA -- Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday his remarks were ''careless or misinterpreted'' when he said the Bush administration has been the ''worst in history'' for its impact around the world.
Speaking on NBC's ''Today,'' Carter appeared to retreat from a statement he made to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for a Saturday story in which he said: ''I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history.''
Source: Guardian
May 21, 2007
Fire today ravaged the Cutty Sark, turning the 19th century tea clipper and one of Britain's most important maritime treasures into a blackened wreck.Firefighters were called at 4.45am to the ship's dry dock in Greenwich, south London...
The Cutty Sark, on the banks of the river Thames, has been closed since November 2006 for a £25m renovation and was due to reopen in 2009. The ship needed substantial repairs because sea salt had speeded up the corrosion of its
Source: Telegraph
May 21, 2007
Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan was notorious for his sexual as well as his territorial conquests. But the extent to which he captured women's hearts has now been revealed with research suggesting that he has 16 million Asian descendants.
Scientists traced a genetic trail believed to originate from the ruthless leader, who established the biggest empire the world as ever seen.
The work, conducted by Russian and Polish scientists, continued an investigation started three
Source: Guardian
May 21, 2007
Twenty-five years ago today the British won the Falklands war. Argentina did not surrender for another three weeks, but by nightfall on what the military called D-day, 3,000 Royal Marines and paratroopers had scrambled ashore at the little farm hamlets around San Carlos Water on East Falkland, and the game was up. They were still 90 miles from Stanley, but privately Argentinian commanders conceded that once the taskforce had secured the bridgehead, they could not be defeated.
Source: Guardian
May 21, 2007
NEW YORK -- Former US president Jimmy Carter unleashed a torrent of criticism against George Bush and Tony Blair over the weekend, in which he accused the Bush presidency of being the "worst in history" and said Mr Blair's support had been abominable and subservient.Even for a former politician with a reputation for plain talking, Mr Carter's blazing criticism took observers by surprise and had the Republican leadership responding in equally harsh measure. The Whit
Source: NYT
May 20, 2007
Ossining IN the time it has taken for the proposed Sing Sing Historic Prison Museum to get off the drawing board, you could have served a sentence for a violent felony inside the prison’s walls. It has been more than a decade since the idea was first floated to build a museum inside this town’s most infamous institution.
Since then, there have been multiple market studies, grant applications, meetings, news releases and a foundation established to raise money for the proposed museum
Source: http://www.norwaypost
May 20, 2007
An old leather shoe discovered in the Jotunheimen Mountains, and first estimated to be around 1000 years old, turns out to be more than 3,000 years old. The shoe was found in an old snowdrift in August last year.
We first believed that the shoe was only 1000 years old, but to our great surprise the analysis of the leather showed it to be 3,400 years old, says Oppland County Archaeologist Espen Finstad to Aftenposten. This means that not only is it Norway's oldest shoe, but also the
Source: http://www.charlotte.com
May 20, 2007
Declaration Whether history or hoax, it reflects spirit of Mecklenburg in 1775, when people were ready to fight for freedom Mention the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence and listeners split into two camps:
Believers: They point to ample evidence -- including statements from participants -- that 27 freedom-loving men met in Charlotte on May 20, 1775, and reacted to news of battles in Lexington and Concord, Mass., by declaring their independence from King George III.
Source: Bryan Burrough in the NYT Book Review
May 20, 2007
I have no idea what book wears the crown of longest nonfiction title ever published. Whoever holds the record, it is about to be challenged by Vincent Bugliosi, whose new work, “Reclaiming History,” a cellular-level re-examination of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, clocks in at 1,612 pages. That’s not a typo. One thousand six hundred and twelve pages. Plus notes. On a CD-ROM. Bugliosi, best known as the prosecutor of Charles Manson and a co-author of the best seller “Helter Skelt
Source: Washington Post
May 20, 2007
Two intelligence assessments from January 2003 predicted that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and subsequent U.S. occupation of Iraq could lead to internal violence and provide a boost to Islamic extremists and terrorists in the region, according to congressional sources and former intelligence officials familiar with the prewar studies.
The two assessments, titled "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" and "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq," we
Source: AP
May 20, 2007
HUAY NAM KHAO, Thailand -- When Lao Teng and his wife, members of Laos' ethnic Hmong minority, fled their homeland last June, they had hoped that they could leave their fear of persecution behind.Harsh reality quickly set in when they were arrested for illegal entry into Thailand upon their arrival at Huay Nam Khao, where about 8,000 other Hmong refugees have been living in limbo, wondering if their future holds a forced return to Laos.
Thailand classifies them
Source: AP
May 20, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The Republican patronage machine was in full motion early in the Ronald Reagan era, filling countless positions with the faithful. From his high perch at the Justice Department, Rudy Giuliani was not always willing to go along.Senators accustomed to having their way with certain administration appointments when their party took power bristled when Giuliani put candidates for U.S. attorney on ice. Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Arlen Specter complained directly to Presid
Source: AP
May 20, 2007
MADRID -- Authorities in Spain are looking into whether a U.S. company can be charged with stealing Spanish heritage for excavating colonial-era treasure from a sunken British warship.Odyssey Marine Exploration said Friday it had discovered the ship —- along with gold and silver coins worth an estimated US$500 million (€371 million) —- somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean...
Spain's Culture Ministry said it thought the statement was "suspicious," after Odys
Source: AP
May 20, 2007
BAD AROLSEN, Germany - Looking back at the first weeks after World War II, a French lieutenant named Henri Francois-Poncet despaired at ever fulfilling his mission to establish the fate of French inmates of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
For the living skeletons who survived the Nazi terror, the Displaced Persons camp set up two miles away offered little relief from misery.
A bleak picture springs with stark immediacy from typewritten reports by the Allied office
