The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo may have ended in 2004, but every week, hundreds of people continue to die, most from illnesses easily treatable in times of peace. In a country where cholera, ebola, malaria, and even the plague are endemic, war turned disease into a slow-burning weapon of mass destruction. James Nachtwey visited the DRC in the summer of 2005 and witnessed the pain and suffering of the Congolese, the horrors of war, the ravages of disease, the dead and the dying.
White House officials will not say whether Mr. Bush overruled the Secret Service in making the trip, or even if he was told not to go. But it is no secret that the service was in a state of anxiety during his time in Islamabad.
On his computer screen, Jake R. Sanowski scrutinizes a short video of a baby eating its first pickle. Next is a skit of a woman getting drunker over the course of a meal at which, it turns out, her dining companion is a dog. That is followed by a clip of a band playing a song, but the lighting is so dim that the screen is nearly black. “I feel really bad for it,” Mr. Sanowski said.
This, as it turns out, is a new revolution in games: the anti-HUD movement. Recently, several new games have renounced the HUD. In Doom 3, the ammo count for your chain gun is displayed not in a floating bar, but on the headstock of the gun. Peter Jackson’s King Kong doesn’t offer a scrap of onscreen artificial data: Adrien Brody’s voice calls out the ammo count each time you reload, and low health is denoted by shaky, blurry vision.
“All of us who run the TPB are against the copyright laws and want them to change,” said “Brokep,” a Pirate Bay operator. “We see it as our duty to spread culture and media. Technology is just a means to doing that.”
The only sign that something had happened was a gathering of die-hard loyalists outside the headquarters of his once all-powerful Socialist Party. They lit candles beside his portrait and scowled at the media.
Brenner’s strongest new fact comes near the end when a Hearst Corp. attorney reveals that the company was served with 42 subpoenas relating to reporters in the last six months of 2005, eight times the number in the same period the year before Here.
Asked if a civil war was developing there, Burns said, “It’s always been a civil war,” adding that it’s just a matter of extent. He said the current U.S. leaders there–military and diplomatic–were doing their best but sectarian differences would “probably” doom the enterprise. Here.
“Saddam was so secretive…that his top military leaders were stunned when he told them three months before the war he had no weapons of mass destruction.” Here.
From the NYT, Dr. Wafa Sultan: “They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, ‘God is great!’ ” she said. “At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god.” Here.
He’s the man in the mask. From the NYT: Ali Shalal Qaissi, an Abu Ghraib torture victim, and the advocacy group for former prisoners that he helped start. Here.