SPIEGEL Surfs the Web What Iraq Is Really Like
Iraq, it seems, is all over the news. Hardly a day goes by without news of a car bomb, an American offensive against insurgents or the latest in the Baghdad political soap opera. But what actually makes it into the papers, is far from the whole story. Everyday, there are dozens of attacks in the country and electricity and fuel are still far from a given. And millions of Iraqis are faced with almost insurmountable difficulties as they struggle to get on with their everyday lives. On Tuesday, the BBC offers detailed coverage of those hundreds of untold stories. Not only are they posting hourly news updates and features about individual Iraqis on their Web site, but they have also created a forum for Iraqis themselves to talk about what it's really like to live in such a war-torn land.
The Climate of Man
In a recent three-part series just released online by the American bastion of investigative journalism, the New Yorker, journalist Elizabeth Kolbert travels to the biggest flash points of climate change: Alaska and Greenland. In Alaska, she reports , global warming is causing the permafrost under Fairbanks to melt, causing the destruction of homes. Rising temperatures are also causing major problems for the heavy equipment used by big oil companies to extract petroleum from the US state's tundra areas. With the permafrost melting, the number of days each year the equipment can be operated has been reduced by 50 percent since 1970. Increasing evidence suggests that Greenland's ice sheet is already starting to melt. "The signs are not encouraging," Kolbert recently said. If it does, it has the capacity to raise global sea levels by 23-feet. The series also takes a strong look at the computer modeling systems currently being used by scientists to determine the scope and effects of climate change. And in its final installment, it looks at possible solutions and takes US President George W. Bush to task for his singular goal of "standing in the way of progress" towards reducing greenhouse gas-creating emissions.
Bob Woodward Tells All
Perhaps this is one of those stories that only journalists are really interested in. But Deep Throat -- Bob Woodward's well-placed source that helped bring down US President Richard Nixon -- has that touch of cloak and dagger that everyone is (or at least is thought to be) interested in. So, just days after our first Deep Throat link, we bring you Bob Woodward's article in the Washington Post outlining how he managed to end up with such a well-placed source (second-in-command at the FBI, no less) and about some of the methods he used to protect his informer's identity once the story began to break. It's the chapter that was missing from "All the President's Men."
