Category: News
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The Gangs of Port Moresby and Suicide Bombers in Gaza
Digital Journalist: Plagued by 60 percent unemployment and chronic poverty, crime in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in Oceania is rampant, earning the city a reputation as being one of the most dangerous places in the world. Much of the violent crime – armed robbery, rape, and carjackings – is committed by young gang members…
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In Washington, Contractors Take on Biggest Role Ever
NYT: The most successful contractors are not necessarily those doing the best work, but those who have mastered the special skill of selling to Uncle Sam. The top 20 service contractors have spent nearly $300 million since 2000 on lobbying and have donated $23 million to political campaigns. “We’ve created huge behemoths that are doing…
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The camera operator’s testimony
Providence Journal: Feb. 20, 2003, was a busy day for Brian Butler, a camera operator at Channel 12. He raced around to a handful of stories: A chess club event. The opening of a play. A man whose prayers for his son’s health had been answered. A pedestrian hit by a car. A brothel that…
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US 'victory' against cult leader was 'massacre'
Another view of Iraq Waco, from the Belfast Telegraph: The cult denied it was involved in the fighting, saying it was a peaceful movement. The incident reportedly began when a procession of 200 pilgrims was on its way, on foot, to celebrate Ashura in Najaf. They came from the Hawatim tribe, which lives between Najaf…
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Cult had dug in for massive battle
LA Times: But the camp itself, amid lush groves of eucalyptus and palm trees, offered a trove of details about the members of Heaven’s Army. They had plenty of food. Each fighter had his own supply of chocolate and biscuits. They were prepared: A 6-foot dirt berm and an equally deep trench surrounded the 50-acre…
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Bush Is Not Above the Law
Op-Ed by James Banford, NYT: LAST August, a federal judge found that the president of the United States broke the law, committed a serious felony and violated the Constitution. Had the president been an ordinary citizen — someone charged with bank robbery or income tax evasion — the wheels of justice would have immediately begun…
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BAD CRIPPLE
Daily Sun, Nigeria’s King of the Tabloids: Nemesis has caught up with a cripple in the Ibadan area of Oyo State, whose stock-in-trade was to charm his victims before dispossessing them of their money. The 24-year-old cripple, who was identified as Mumini Yusuf, allegedly duped his supposed helper of N27,000 before he was caught by…
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I, Columbine Killer
Wired: When you actually get to the school and begin the attack, things become subtler yet. As you wander through the hallways, the little pixilated victims scurry around in semi-random paths, and any time you cross paths a battle is triggered. You encounter the same six or seven kids over and over again: the “Jock…
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In S. Africa, Cash Machines Prove a Big Hit With Bombers
Washington Post: Hours before dawn on the last day of 2006, a gray van pulled up to the ATM housed in a steel shed just outside T.P.T. Supermarket in this run-down township. The store’s security guard, posted about 30 feet away, said he saw four hooded men jump out of the van, stuff something into…
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War On Drugs In Afghanistan
Photo essay by Paolo Pellegrin, Magnum Photos: In Afghanistan opium fuels everything from the culture, the politics, the economy and the resurgent Taliban fighters. Paolo Pellegrin went to the remote southern provinces where the war on drugs, alongside that with the insurgency is raging. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (D.E.A.) is working in Afghanistan alongside…
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The Naked Guy
NYT: Eventually the media tired of Andrew Martinez. And so did Berkeley: in the fall of 1992, the school instituted a dress code mandating that students wear clothing in public. Martinez quickly ran afoul of the rule, and after he showed up naked for a disciplinary hearing, he was expelled. Martinez stuck around the city,…
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Islamist Forces in Somalia Are on the Retreat
NYT: But all that changed last Wednesday at dawn when the Islamists attacked Baidoa from two directions. Witnesses said that their waves of young fighters were summarily mowed down by the more experienced (and older) Ethiopian-backed troops. On Saturday, the Islamists announced that Somalia was now open to Muslim fighters across the world who wanted…
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Ethiopian Warplanes Attack Somalia
NYT: “The Ethiopians are blowing things up all over the place,” said Mohammed Hussein Galgal, an Islamist commander in Beledweyne, near the Ethiopian border. “Civilians have been killed, people are fleeing. But don’t worry, we won’t be defeated.” Here.
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Holocaust Conference Brings Disbelief on All Sides
Washington Post: They sent congratulatory telegrams to Hamas, their rabbis advised Yasser Arafat (and took a fee for their trouble), and they stood outside the White House wagging signs — “Judaism Has No Right to Rule over ANY PART of the Holy Land” — to protest a November visit by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.…
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Bait Cars Help Reel In Thieves
Washington Post: But not always. In one Loudoun incident that has become infamous among area police departments, a man stole a bait vehicle and was able to drive it from Leesburg to Southeast Washington because of technical difficulties. Police eventually got the suspect, minutes after the camera caught him smoking crack and masturbating. He had…
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The 6th Annual Year in Ideas
The New York Times Magazine’s Year in Ideas issue is always a fascinating read. A lot of these topics were already posted here on my blog from other news sources as the year went on, but I want to highlight some of my favorites with links to the Magazine: Bicycle Helmets Put You at Risk…
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Inside Terrorism’s Tangled Web
NYT: The eight-part series, which begins on Sunday on Showtime and will be shown on consecutive nights, is smart and suspenseful and teeters just this side of seditious. It doesn’t condone jihad or the hate that fuels it, but it tries to show why they hate us, and in doing so goes further than any…
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Skinhead Sentenced to 3 1/2 Years
The Moscow Times: Skinhead leader Ruslan Melnik was sentenced Tuesday by St. Petersburg’s Pushkinsky District Court to 3 1/2 years in prison for his role in the violent group Mad Crowd. Mad Crowd members have been charged with beating and killing several dark-skinned foreigners. The district court also found Melnik, 22, guilty of organizing specific…
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Prisoners of Sex
NYT Magazine: Egypt’s most famous crackdown got under way at a neon floating disco, the Queen Boat, docked on the wealthy Nile-side island of Zamalek, just steps from the famously gay-friendly Marriott Hotel. In the early-morning hours of May 11, 2001, baton-wielding police officers descended upon the boat, where men were dancing and drinking. Security…
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The House of Death
The Observer: These documents, which form a dossier several inches thick, are the main source for the facts in this article. They suggest that while the eyes of the world have been largely averted, America’s ‘war on drugs’ has moved to a new phase of cynicism and amorality, in which the loss of human life…