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
Aug 5, 2010
Former Iraqi deputy PM Tariq Aziz has staunchly defended Saddam Hussein in an interview with The Guardian newspaper.
Interviewed by the UK daily in his Iraq prison cell, Aziz said the West was wrong about the former Iraqi president.
In his first interview since he was captured shortly after the fall of Baghdad more than seven years ago, Aziz said that pulling out US combat troops before the country was stable would be lethal for Iraq....
Source: BBC
Aug 5, 2010
The Japanese city of Hiroshima is marking the 65th anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack.
For the first time, a representative of the United States, which dropped the bomb on the city, is attending.
Washington's decision to send its ambassador to Tokyo, John Roos, is being seen by some in Japan as a sign that President Barack Obama may decide to visit Hiroshima when he comes to Japan.
If so, he would be the first sitting US president to visit
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 5, 2010
The unspoken thought when Chairman's Mao grandson was appointed as China's youngest ever major-general last week was that revolutionary heritage had triumphed over martial prowess.
Now Mao Xinyu, 40, has confirmed that nepotism played its part in his appointment, admitting to a popular Chinese website that his family background was "definitely a factor" in the decision to add a second star to his epaulettes.
It is this enduring respect for his grandfather tha
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 5, 2010
Naomi Campbell, the model, told a war crimes tribunal that she gave alleged "blood diamonds" to the head of Nelson Mandela's children's charity.
The admission draws Mr Mandela, one of the world's most revered statesmen, into the centre of allegations surrounding the funding of the 1991 – 2002 Sierra Leone war, which was characterised by the use of boy soldiers and the mutilation of 20,000 people who lost arms, legs, lips and ears under machete attack.
Mr Tay
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 5, 2010
A US couple who gave their children Nazi-themed names, including Adolf Hitler Campbell, have been denied custody by a New Jersey court.
decision that there is insufficient evidence of abuse by the parents Heath and Deborah Campbell.
Their children – Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell – have been in foster care since January 2009.
The case first came to public attention after a supermarket refused to de
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 5, 2010
Pope Benedict XVI wanted to become a librarian 13 years ago but his request to quit the Vatican high office was rejected.
His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, declined his request to spend his last years as the archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives and as a librarian of the Vatican Library, according to the incumbent librarian and archivist Cardinal Raffaele Farina.
But he found his job “burdensome” and wanted to retire to academic study of ancient documents for the
Source: AP
Aug 5, 2010
The U.N. Security Council called on Iraq Thursday to address all outstanding issues related to Kuwait, oil-for-food program contracts, and disarmament so it can cancel sanctions and more than 70 resolutions adopted after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Iraq still has outstanding issues with Kuwait, including demarcation of the border, accounting for 600 missing Kuwaitis and the $24 billion debt Baghdad owes Kuwait as reparations for the invasion.
In May 2003, weeks after t
Source: AP
Aug 5, 2010
Reginald Levy, a pilot praised for his cool-headed bravery during a 1972 hijacking by Palestinian militants, has died at the age of 88, his daughter said Thursday.
Linda Lipschitz said her father died Sunday in Dover, southern England, of a suspected heart attack or blood clot.
Levy was a pilot for Belgian airline Sabena when he took off from Brussels bound for Tel Aviv on May 8, 1972 — his 50th birthday — with 90 passengers onboard. Mid-journey, the Boeing 707 was hija
Source: AP
Aug 5, 2010
Naomi Campbell testified before a war crimes tribunal Thursday that she had received some "dirty-looking stones" after a 1997 dinner party with former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor, but said she gave them to a children's charity -- a claim the group quickly denied.
Campbell, an extremely reluctant witness at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, was being questioned in Taylor's war crimes trial about claims made by actress Mia Farrow. Farrow had said Taylor gave the model an
Source: AP
Aug 5, 2010
Some 200 Germans have arrived in the Ukrainian capital to take part in actions aimed at apologizing for Nazi forebears' crimes in World War II.
A mourning procession from the German city of Tubingen walked Thursday along the so-called "death road" to the monument near Babi Yar ravine in Kiev, the site of one of the most horrific chapters of the Holocaust.
Processions by Germans also are expected in 15 other cities in Ukraine on Friday....
Source: CNN
Aug 5, 2010
President Obama, moving into campaign mode ahead of the midterm elections, has added new, sharper language to his stump speech – twice this week invoking the name of his predecessor.
Obama frequently criticizes Republican policies on the economy – that is certainly nothing new. But the latest wrinkle in Obama's rhetoric is that until now, he has avoided referring to former President Bush by name. That changed this week.
Thursday marked the second time in a week that Ob
Source: CNN
Aug 5, 2010
Solicitor General Elena Kagan was easily confirmed Thursday as the next associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, completing the 50-year-old native New Yorker's climb to the peak of the American legal profession.
The 63-37 vote was mostly along party lines. Five GOP senators backed Kagan, and only one Democrat -- Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska -- opposed her. Republican leaders offered spirited floor opposition to the nominee, but were unable to muster a prolonged delay or filibuste
Source: NYT
Aug 5, 2010
One day last week, the novelist Peter Quinn (“I’m actually a lapsed historian”) was walking west on 45th Street, beyond Eighth Avenue, when he stopped outside the old home of a vanished Broadway restaurant called Billy Haas’s Chophouse.
“This is it,” he said, nodding at the graceless apartment building that had, in the local manner, risen to take its place. “He comes out here” — Mr. Quinn pointed at the curb — “and a tan cab is heading west. He’s wearing a double-breasted coat. He’s
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 5, 2010
An early piano believed to have been played by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has surfaced in Germany and could be worth millions of pounds.
Public broadcaster SWR said the instrument was built in 1775 and acquired in the 1980s by piano manufacturer Martin Becker in the southern German city of Baden-Baden from an antiques dealer in Strasbourg, eastern France.
When Mr Becker decided to auction off the fortepiano, a music historian noticed the offer and "had a hunch that it
Source: Fox News
Aug 5, 2010
Three weeks ago 88-year-old World War II Veteran Bob Simon got on a Southwest flight with his son, Jay and off to their "home away from home” Buffalo, New York.
But Tuesday, when they went to get on their return flight, a Southwest employee told them Bob couldn't get on because he didn't have the right kind of doctor's note addressing his medically necessary oxygen tank.
On Wednesday, after a few contacts of theirs made calls to Southwest hinting of media coverage,
Source: CNN
Aug 5, 2010
The president nominates officers for important promotions all the time, but Wednesday, he nominated John D. Lavelle, a two-star major general, to be promoted all the way up to a four-star general. What makes this nomination different is that Lavelle died 31 years ago.
The story began amid the controversial Vietnam War, while Richard Nixon was president.
In 1972, Lavelle was a four-star Air Force general. But, according to the Pentagon and historical record, in April of
Source: BBC News
Aug 5, 2010
An exhibition of late works by artist Salvador Dali opens this weekend in Atlanta, including several pieces not seen in the US for half a century.
The collection of 40 paintings - plus films, sculptures and photographs - focuses on the period from 1940 to 1983.
Works have been brought in from countries around the world - including Canada, Scotland and Japan.
The exhibition runs at Atlanta's High Museum of Art until 9 January.
"It's become
Source: BBC News
Aug 5, 2010
Model Naomi Campbell has testified that she was given some "dirty-looking stones" after a 1997 dinner attended by ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor.
Speaking at Mr Taylor's war crimes trial in The Hague, she said late that night, two unidentified men appeared at her room and gave her the stones.
However, she had no proof that the stones were diamonds or came from Mr Taylor, as a fellow guest suggested.
Linking him to illegal "blood diamond
Source: BBC News
Aug 4, 2010
President Alvaro Uribe may go down as one of Colombia's greatest presidents, with his policies for tackling guerrillas and drug-traffickers now a permanent fixture in the country.
"We were on the point of being a failed state," said Maria Victoria Llorente of the think tank Fundacion Ideas para La Paz.
"There was only one item on the political agenda and that was the rebels and security. He was the man for the job."
But for some, the suc
Source: Florida Times-Union
Aug 4, 2010
Navy Capt. Vernon L. “Mike” Micheel, an unassuming but heroic naval aviator who downplayed his feat of bombing two Japanese aircraft carriers on the same day during the Battle of Midway, died Thursday at Fleet Landing in Atlantic Beach. He died two weeks short of his 93rd birthday.
A reception in his honor will be held at 10:30 a.m. Aug. 21 in the Coleman Center at Fleet Landing, 1 Fleet Landing Blvd.
When he retired in 1972, Capt. Micheel had spent his last five years
