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 22, 2006
Dozens of heads of state and government are arriving in Hungary to mark the 50th anniversary of the uprising against Soviet rule.
Major events are planned for Monday, including the unveiling of a huge monument in Budapest's Heroes Square to those who died in the events of 1956.
Bloody battles were fought in the streets of Budapest as Soviet troops quelled the uprising.
Source: D.D. Guttenplan, who is writing a biography of Stone, in a letter to the editor of the NYT Book Review
Oct 22, 2006
In his review of “ ‘All Governments Lie’: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone” (Oct. 1), Paul Berman suggests that Myra MacPherson “accidentally hanged” her man by repeating Oleg Kalugin’s remark that Stone was “willing to perform tasks” for the Soviets. As the first reporter to investigate Kalugin’s charges in the course of researching my own biography of Stone, to be finished later this year, perhaps I can supply some context:
Kalugin originally made reference to an
Source: WaPo
Oct 21, 2006
If 40 percent of Americans refuse to believe that humans evolved from earlier hominids, how many will accept that the book we know as the Bible evolved from earlier texts and was not handed down, in toto, by God in its present form?
The fossil evidence for human evolution is permanently on display at the American Museum of Natural History. Hard evidence that the Bible took its present shape over centuries will be on display for the next 11 weeks, from today through Jan. 7, across th
Source: AP
Oct 21, 2006
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- In 1970, nine black Syracuse University football players became rebellious outcasts when they quit the team to protest racial injustice.
Now, 36 years later, the university is officially recognizing them for their courageous stand.
On Friday, they received Chancellor's Medals, one of the university's highest honors. Chancellor Nancy Cantor called the men "emblematic of the values we want for our students and for ourselves when we face critical i
Source: BBC
Oct 21, 2006
In Timbuktu, camel trains, that for millenia have been trudging around the Sahara with their valuable cargoes, are being replaced by the much less exotic lorry.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 21, 2006
Art restorers in Italy have launched a desperate appeal for money to help rescue hundreds of works of art still caked in mud from devastating floods in Florence 40 years ago.
The frescoes, paintings, statues and wooden crosses, some dating back to the Renaissance, are lying in crates in cavernous storerooms across Tuscany.
They have been untouched since they were rescued from galleries and churches in Florence in 1966, after water from the River Arno swept through the c
Source: AP
Oct 21, 2006
A Brigham Young University physics professor who suggested the World Trade Center was brought down by explosives has resigned, six weeks after the school placed him on leave.
"I am electing to retire so that I can spend more time speaking and conducting research of my choosing," physics professor Steven Jones said in a statement released by the school.
His retirement is effective Jan. 1, 2007.
Jones recently published theories about U.S. govern
Source: AP
Oct 21, 2006
Two decades after the space shuttle Challenger exploded, city officials opened a playground dedicated to an astronaut killed in the accident.
The ribbon cutting took place Friday, on the eve of Ronald E. McNair's birthday. The $2 million playground in Harlem is near where McNair grew up. His father owned an auto body shop next door to the site.
The one-acre McNair Playground has a space theme. Jupiter is represented by a granite ring circling the park's green turf. A
Source: Guardian
Oct 21, 2006
On February 19 1945 Thomas McPhatter found himself on a landing craft heading toward the beach on Iwo Jima.
"There were bodies bobbing up all around, all these dead men," said the former US marine, now 83 and living in San Diego. "Then we were crawling on our bellies and moving up the beach. I jumped in a foxhole and there was a young white marine holding his family pictures. He had been hit by shrapnel, he was bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth. It frightened me
Source: Guardian
Oct 21, 2006
Conservation experts from the United Nations are visiting the Tower of London to judge whether it should be placed on its Heritage in Danger list, Unesco has said.
Unesco, the UN's cultural organisation, fears that the 900-year-old Tower has become so overshadowed by skyscrapers and other modern buildings that its historic value is being damaged.
They have warned the UK to make greater efforts to protect the Tower, which is one of just 830 locations around the globe to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 21, 2006
Villagers were celebrating victory yesterday in a "feudal" row with a baron's son who fenced off a common and claimed it as his own.
The two-year battle between Robert Harbord-Hamond – son of the 11th Baron of Suffield and a descendant of William the Conqueror – and the 100 villagers of Hanworth Common, Norfolk, ended with a judge deciding the people had won "hands down".
Judge Patrick O'Brien ruled at Norwich county court that not only did the villa
Source: Independent (UK)
Oct 21, 2006
A RUSTY old banger, the Fiat Premier Padmini, is the standard taxi of Bombay and one of the city’s enduring icons.
The ubiquitous black and yellow cabs crawl along congested streets, often overloaded with passengers hauling goods short distances at a starting fare of just 13 rupees (15p).
Despite offering a hot and dusty ride, often with a view of the road through gaping holes in the chassis, they are a step up from the crush of the bus or the train.
Now
Source: NYT
Oct 21, 2006
GAMAL AL-BANNA is 85, and for much of his life he has been overshadowed by his famous brother, Sheik Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist political party and antecedent of a host of militant Islamist organizations, from Al Qaeda to Hamas.
That seems to have suited him just fine, though. He liked to write, read and think. His sister left him a lot of money, and so for decades, that is exactly how he spent his days.His bedroom is at
Source: NYT
Oct 21, 2006
Sigmund Strochlitz, a Holocaust survivor who worked with his close friend Elie Wiesel to create the National Holocaust Memorial Museum and who led the way in starting the annual “day of remembrance” now observed in every state, died on Oct. 16 at his home in New London, Conn. He was 89.
The museum confirmed his death.
Mr. Strochlitz found success as a Ford dealer, but he could not and did not wish to forget his awful experience in Nazi camps. In an interview with The Ha
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 20, 2006
President George W Bush last night conceded for the first time that there were parallels between the current fighting in Iraq and the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War.
Mr Bush was asked in a television interview whether he agreed with a newspaper columnist that the current bloodshed in Iraq may be the equivalent to the 1968 Tet Offensive, generally considered a key turning point in the American war in Vietnam.
“He could be right,” Mr Bush said. “There’s certainly
Source: AP
Oct 20, 2006
YORKTOWN, Va. -- French and Americans marched together to mark their shared victory over the British 225 years ago, but France's defense minister told the crowd that the countries' bond must be one of mutual respect.
Friendship means "to talk to one another quite candidly" and to listen to one another with "no attempt to dominate," French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told the crowd that gathered Thursday to commemorate the Battle of Yorktown's 225th ann
Source: Independent (UK)
Oct 20, 2006
Many of the people of Aberfan still cannot bring themselves to speak of it.
Forty years on from the disaster some parents, now in their seventies, still secretly hope their children will come home from school.
Others tell of the grief and trauma visited on their tiny community by the huge slag heap which slid from a hill above Pantglas junior school, killing 116 children and 28 adults.
Only 25 children survived the catastrophe. Now in their forties and fif
Source: Independent (UK)
Oct 20, 2006
For those with an interest in the history of multiculturalism, the name Norwell Roberts has an enduring resonance. He was, most people agree, the first black police officer in the UK after joining the Metropolitan Police in 1966.
But Mr Roberts, who had a 30-year career with the Met, rising to the rank of detective sergeant, and who also contributed to the seminal film about black Britain, The Windrush Years, found himself upstaged yesterday when it was revealed that the son of a C
Source: WaPo
Oct 20, 2006
LA PLATA, Argentina -- Argentina is putting its past on trial this year, probing the memories and consciences of those who lived through its bloody "dirty war," which pitted a military government against thousands of dissidents in the 1970s and '80s.
The past -- or a frightening shadow of it -- has come back to life.
Long-standing legal protections that shielded former military personnel from prosecution were removed last year, allowing a series of trials rela
Source: aftenposten
Oct 20, 2006
The discovery was made during archaeological examinations of the Nordheim Farm, which is near the Hedrum Church in Larvik. The examinations were ordered in connection with the pending expansion of the cemetery around Hedrum Church, which is located a few hours' drive south of Oslo.
Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported that archaeologists also found indications that another ship is buried in the same area.
Archaeologist Knut Paasche has been examining the area around No
