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 News
Aug 10, 2010
The former agent of supermodel Naomi Campbell has denied lying in her testimony at the war crimes trial of ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor.
Under cross examination, Carole White repeated allegations that Ms Campbell received diamonds from Mr Taylor after a dinner in South Africa in 1997.
Defence counsel Courtenay Griffiths called her account "a complete pack of lies" made up to assist a lawsuit over breach of contract with Ms Campbell.
"
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 9, 2010
A treasure trove of rare and valuable Aboriginal art has been found languishing in the back of a school store cupboard in Canberra.
The bark paintings, which are estimated to be about 25 years old, were unearthed during a spring clean at Dickson College in the Australian capital.
The artworks were found by stunned staff members who had been emptying parts of the school in preparation for renovations.
The 12 paintings, which were well preserved in the dark
Source: hurriyet (Turkey)
Aug 9, 2010
A piece of obsidian (volcanic glass) dating back 4,000 years and believed to have been used as a scalpel for surgery has been unearthed during excavations carried out in the Black Sea province of Samsun.
Speaking to the Anatolia news agency, Professor Önder Bilgi, the chairman of the excavations, said that the work in the ruins of the İkiztepe village in Samsun’s Bafra district had begun in 1974.
“During this year’s excavations, which started July 15, we discov
Source: The Local (Germany)
Aug 9, 2010
The German government said Monday it believed there may be a way to bring to justice an SS hitman who has lived as a free man in Germany since escaping from a Dutch prison in 1952.
ustice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger asked her employees upon taking office last year to examine the case of Klaas Carel Faber, 88, convicted after World War II in the Netherlands of murdering 22 Jews.
"The result of the enquiry is that there will perhaps be a possibility t
Source: NYT
Aug 9, 2010
The white fortress loomed above the fields, a crumbling but still imposing redoubt perched on a rock mound above a plain of golden rapeseed shimmering in the morning light.
A battle here in 1904 changed the course of Tibetan history. A British expedition led by Sir Francis E. Younghusband, the imperial adventurer, seized the fort and marched to Lhasa, the capital, becoming the first Western force to pry open Tibet and wrest commercial concessions from its senior lamas.
Source: AP
Aug 9, 2010
North Carolina's claim that it lost the most men during the Civil War is getting a recount from a state historian who doubts the accuracy of the accepted, 144-year-old estimate.
Howard is reviewing the military records of every Tar Heel who served in the 1861-65 conflict, as the state prepares to mark its sesquicentennial, The News & Record of Greensboro reported Monday.
Since shortly after the war ended, North Carolina has boasted that it sacrificed more men to th
Source: BBC
Aug 9, 2010
Japan has marked the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945.
The attack killed more than 70,000 people and led to Japan's surrender less than a week later.
The United States sent its ambassador for the first time to the memorial ceremony in Hiroshima last week, but not to Nagasaki.
A choir of survivors of the nuclear attack performed a song as the ceremony began, called Never Again.
At two minutes past eleven a bell toll
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 9, 2010
The Statue of Liberty will be closed for security upgrades from October 2011, depriving tourists a chance to visit the crown, base and pedestal for up to 12 months.
Visitors to one of New York's most popular attractions will still be able to visit the park surrounding the statue on Liberty Island but the security upgrade will restrict access to the statue.
The Statue of Liberty celebrates its 125th anniversary on October 12, 2011....
Source: Fox News
Aug 9, 2010
Naomi Campbell's former business agent told a war crimes court Monday that the fashion model flirted with former Liberian President Charles Taylor at a 1997 dinner and he arranged to send her a gift of uncut diamonds.
The testimony from Campbell's former agent, Carole White, contradicts the British model's statements at the Sierra Leone Special Tribunal, in which she said she received a pouch of "dirty-looking diamonds" from unknown men.
The prosecution calle
Source: AP
Aug 9, 2010
Scottish lawmakers have demanded the country's government release full details of the medical advice that led to the release from jail of the Lockerbie bomber almost a year ago.
Opposition Labour Party legislators called for the prognosis made of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi's health before he was freed on compassionate grounds — and the names of the doctors who made the assessment — to be made public.
James Kelly, community safety spokesman for the Labour Party in Scotland,
Source: AP
Aug 9, 2010
Monks in the southern Italian town that was home to Padre Pio say would-be thieves damaged a display case in a chapel holding some of the saint's relics.
Father Stefano Campanella told The Associated Press that after the attempted theft the relics, consisting of clumps of the Italian mystic's hair, fabric used to dry his bloody wounds, which some believers say were like those suffered by Christ, and a pair of his gloves, were taken to the monks' convent for safekeeping.
Source: CNN
Aug 9, 2010
One American president's legitimacy was questioned because he was accused of wearing women's underwear.
Another's qualifications were questioned because he got drunk at an inaugural ball.
A third president didn't belong in office because critics said his rich daddy stole the election.
A recent CNN poll revealed that one out of four Americans doubt that President Obama is a citizen. Many are "birthers" who believe he is an illegitimate president be
Source: CNN
Aug 9, 2010
Kim Shin Jo is a protestant minister - the gentle leader of his church. But the 69-year-old is best known by history as a trained killer.
Three decades ago, he and 30 others slipped from North Korea into Seoul to kill the South Korean president.
He was the face of evil and terror for a generation of Koreans - a North Korean commando fighter who came into Seoul to assassinate the South Korean president at the time, Park Jung Hee.
Kim later worked for the Sou
Source: AP
Aug 9, 2010
Israel's prime minister defended the deadly commando raid on an international flotilla protesting the Gaza blockade before an internal inquiry commission Monday, suggesting that Turkey had sought the violent confrontation on the high seas.
Benjamin Netanyahu told the commission that Ankara had rejected Israel's prior appeals to halt the flotilla and refused to intervene despite the prospect of violence between Israeli troops and the Turkish Islamic charity that organized the mission
Source: Fox News
Aug 9, 2010
CIA doctors who oversaw enhanced interrogation techniques violated medical ethics, researchers say.
A report out this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association claims that physicians in the CIA Office of Medical Services (OMS) violated medical ethical standards by approving and overseeing enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.
"According to OMS guidelines, physicians and other health care professionals performed on-site medical evaluat
Source: BBC News
Aug 9, 2010
German police have shut down the Hamburg mosque where the 9/11 hijackers met before their suicide attacks on the US in 2001.
Police said they believed the Taiba mosque was again being used as a meeting point for extremists.
The cultural association that runs the mosque has also been banned.
A German intelligence report last year said radical Muslims had travelled to military training camps in Uzbekistan after associating at the mosque.
"We
Source: BBC News
Aug 9, 2010
Oscar-winning US actress Patricia Neal has died aged of 84 from lung cancer.
Neal won an Academy Award for her role in the 1963 film Hud, but gave up acting two years later at the age of 39 after suffering a series of strokes.
But she returned to the screen after rehabilitation to earn a further Oscar and several Emmy nominations.
The star, who was born in Tennessee, was married to author Roald Dahl for 30 years and is the grandmother of model and TV presen
Source: BBC News
Aug 9, 2010
Actress Mia Farrow has testified that model Naomi Campbell said she got a "huge diamond" from men sent by ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor.
Ms Farrow's testimony directly contradicts Ms Campbell's account that she received two or three stones and did not know who sent them.
Linking Mr Taylor to illegal "blood diamonds" is key to the prosecution's case at his war crimes trial in The Hague.
Mr Taylor denies all 11 charges.
Source: Monsters and Critics
Aug 8, 2010
Wearing nothing but a loincloth, history student David Vogelbacher stood in an ancient amphitheatre near Vienna on a recent morning, sparred with a sword and went about learning a new occupation - gladiator.
He and 19 other students have embarked on an experimental archaeology project in the former Roman city of Carnuntum near the Austrian capital, in an effort to find out how these fighters trained and battled in their bloody spectacles.
The group of young men from Reg
Source: Canada Free Press
Aug 8, 2010
We, who have seen war, will never stop seeing it. In the silence of the night, we will always hear the screams. So this is our story, for we were soldiers once, and young…..” “We Were Soldiers Once… and Young:” Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway (Random House -1992)
I will call him Jim—though that isn’t his real name. He is elderly now, a reserved gentleman who doesn’t speak much anymore about something that happened over half a century ago when he was a youth bo
