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This is a "headsup" for selected reviews/presentations about WWII and the Cold War that will appear on BookTV (C-Span2) this weekend of Jan. 13/14, 2007. Links to the segments of specific reviews (and their broadcast times) will be posted below. The "Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston..." might be pretty good. The author also produced "Last Stand of The Tin-Can Sailors" about Taffy 3 (Battle of Samar). The links below are for other WWII and Cold War topics that might be interesting.

He was too sick to eat, and Min Min Chan’s chest ached with each breath he sucked. It didn’t matter: The Thai captain warned him to get back on deck and start hauling fish onto the trawler or be tossed overboard. As a 17-year-old slave stuck in the middle of the sea, he knew no one would come looking if he simply vanished. Less than a month earlier, Chan had left Myanmar for neighboring Thailand, looking for work. Instead, he said a broker tricked and sold him onto the fishing boat for $616. He ended up far away in Indonesian...

The South Side lakefront jewel where Barack and Michelle Obama held their wedding reception vs. a rare, open downtown field set against Chicago's majestic mountain range of skyscrapers. These are just a few of the preliminary offerings area universities plan to present to the president, the first lady and the few confidants helping them as they begin to weigh where to locate the Obama presidential library and museum. Meanwhile, the University of Hawaii, where the president grew up, has said it wants to build the library on oceanfront property in Kakaako, a commercial and retail district of Honolulu between Ala...

On Monday evening, President Obama decided to stop by D.C.’s Friendship Park to surprise some Little Leaguers who were warming up for their game. Many of the young ball players weren’t exactly impressed, though, mostly because they apparently didn’t know who he was. Allow us to repeat that: the President of the United States of America just dropped by to say hey, and they didn’t know who he was. While parents reached for their phones to snap pictures, many of the children held back, skeptical about this strange man who they apparently had never seen before.

A woman allegedly gang-raped in Indonesia's Aceh as a punishment for sleeping with a married man may still be caned for the affair under the province's laws, an fficial said Tuesday. A group of eight men allegedly carried out the sex assault last week on the 25-year-old widow at her house in Langsa in East Aceh district, and also beat up the man with whom she is accused of having an affair. After the attack, which also saw the couple doused with sewage, the pair were handed over to officials. Ibrahim Latif, head of Langsa's Islamic Sharia law office, said...

An Indonesian woman who was gang raped after being accused of having an extramarital affair reportedly is facing a public caning for the offense. “We want the couple to be caned because they violated the religious bylaw on sexual relations,” Ibrahim Latif, the head of the Shariah office in the town of Langsa, said, according to Jakarta Globe. The woman reportedly was raped by eight men and three have been arrested, including a 13-year-old boy. The woman and the man she reportedly had the affair with were hit with sewage.

After Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 veered off its course, civilian air-traffic controllers spent precious predawn hours in befuddled exchanges with counterparts in nearby countries in an effort to locate the jet, according to documents released by investigators Thursday. A series of missteps began less than an hour after the plane disappeared around 1:20 a.m. on March 8.... Through that first stretch, the carrier's operation center continued to advise controllers that the plane was in "normal condition," remained in contact with ground facilities and was flying somewhere in Cambodian airspace—an area that was never on its flight path from Kuala Lumpur...

The former hedge fund of one of the Democratic Party’s most important donors was involved in a scheme to defraud foreign investors out of tens of millions of dollars, according to documents filed in a Texas court. Farallon Capital Partners L.P., a fund run by Farallon Capital Management, the multibillion-dollar hedge fund founded by Democratic donor Tom Steyer, became a limited partner in a project to build a large shopping mall near Seattle, Wash., in the mid-1990s after it guaranteed a line of credit for the project.

An Israeli hacker team published on Tuesday images and personal details of members of the Anonymous hacker collective who participated in the OpIsrael attack against Israeli sites earlier this week, Israel’s Channel 2 reported. Israeli Elite Force gained access to the computers of 16 Anonymous members and was able to capture screenshots and photos of the anti-Israel hackers with their own webcams. The Israeli team published the information in a Dropbox document via their Facebook page, saying, “Anonymous, next time do not mess with us.” The file includes the names of the attackers, their countries of origin, and usernames and...

The National Archeological Excavation Center has found more evidence of the existence of the Sailendra civilization, believed to have prospered during the 7th century in Ngreco hamlet, Kesongo village, Tuntang district, Semarang regency, Central Java. Previously, a team found pieces of bricks, artifacts and a jaladwara waterway segment, while recently it discovered a foundation believed to have been used for a temple structure. A jaladwara was a water sewage system commonly found in bath houses during ancient times. The tip of the jaladwara is usually the shape of a dragon’s head. The finding is strengthened by the discovery of soil...

Under pressure from Arab nations, the United Nations Human Rights Council has rejected a U.S.-backed choice to replace its outgoing point man on Palestine, and is now eyeing two candidates who share a long history of alleged anti-Israel bias. The current front-runner to replace Richard Falk, a 9/11 truther who once praised Ayatollah Khomeinei and was reliably anti-Israel while serving as the council's special rapporteur on Palestinian rights, is Christine Chinkin, a law professor at the London School of Economics. Chinkin authored the Goldstone report, an infamous UN study on the Gaza conflict that was repudiated by Israel. A dark...

<p>Darren Aronofsky’s Noah dominated the U.S. box office on its opening weekend and won critical acclaim, but not without controversy. The film, based on the biblical story in Genesis of Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood, arrived amid a deluge of outrage from religious groups. Some Christians fumed at the film’s straying from biblical Scripture. Meanwhile, a host of Muslim-majority countries banned Noah from screening in theaters because representations of Noah, a prophet of God in the Koran, are considered blasphemous. Such images “provoke the feelings of believers and are forbidden in Islam and a clear violation of Islamic law,” read a fatwa issued by Cairo’s al-Azhar University, one of the foremost institutions of Sunni Islam. Egypt has not banned the film, but Indonesia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have. “It is important to respect these religions and not show the film,” lectured the main censors of the UAE.</p>

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 flew around Indonesian airspace apparently to avoid detection after vanishing from radar screens on March 8, a media report said today, suggesting the possibility of a more sinister reason behind the jet's disappearance..... After reviewing radar data provided by neighbouring countries, investigators have now found that the jetliner curved north of Indonesia before turning south toward the southern Indian Ocean, CNN quoted a Malaysian official as saying. The official also suggested the possibility of a more sinister reason behind MH370's disappearance a month ago. The plane's flight path clearly showed that someone on the plane was...

Three more Ethiopians killed by Saudi police. The killing of Ethiopians continues in Saudi Arabia Three more Ethiopians killed in Saudi Arabia Three more Ethiopians have been killed in Saudi Arabia. Thousands of Ethiopians are leaving the middle east country after scores have been killed in the past few days. Hundreds more injured and women are being raped in front of their families. It is astounding and mind boggling the international community is so silent about this shameful actions of the Saudis. "The act of killing innocent civilians is uncalled for, we condemn that," Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti told...

According to Indonesian media JakartaGreater, citing the Chief of Indonesian Navy, a new 63 meters Stealth Fast Missile Patrol Vessel (FMPV) trimaran will be ordered from shipbuilder North Sea Boats (PT Lundin). The first vessel, KRI Klewang-625, was destroyed in a fire in September 2012 shortly after its launch. The Fast Missile Patrol Vessel (FMPV) was officialy launched on Friday 31st August, 2012 at PT Lundin’s shipyard facility in Banyuwangi, East Java. In 2009 PT Lundin signed a contract to build a one of the most advanced “stealth” warships for TNI-AL (Indonesian Navy). This was the result of an intensive...

This Thursday, Mr. Obama will meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican after a three-decade divergence with the church. By the late 1980s, the Catholic hierarchy had taken a conservative turn that de-emphasized social engagement and elevated the culture wars that would eventually cast Mr. Obama as an abortion-supporting enemy. Mr. Obama, who went on to find his own faith with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s Trinity United Church of Christ, drifted from his youthful, church-backed activism to become a pragmatic politician and the president with a terrorist “kill list.” The meeting this week is a potential point of...

The search for MH370 enters a new phase based on new satellite data received, said Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. He told a press conference on Saturday that the search and rescue operations at the South China Sea has ended and all assets will be focussed on two new corridors. “A northern corridor stretching approximately from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, or a southern corridor from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean,” he said. Najib said based on satellite data, MH370’s last communication with the satellite was in one of two possible corridors. Najib said the...

My order is inevitable for it is simply The Father's will concisely done in full view and commitment of My Witness that is My spirit in you . . . Acts 17:28 28 For in him we live and move and are! As one of your own poets says it, ‘We are the sons of God.’ John 14:12 I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father. Job...

Germany is to offer Israeli citizens consular assistance in states such as Indonesia or Malaysia where Israel has no official diplomatic representation, under a new deal to be signed by Angela Merkel when she visits Jerusalem next week.

Great family Soetoro, Obama Close Relatives in JakartaWednesday, November 5, 2008, 10:16:00 Lolo Soetoro large family, caring stepfather of Barack Obama in Indonesia, the tremendous pride had close relatives who would lead the most powerful country in the world. Though thousands of miles apart, they gathered yesterday to pray that Barry Soetoro, nicknames senator from Illinois while living in Menteng, Jakarta, it won the presidential election in the United States. "We believe the Barry win, but we fret because there are a lot of death threats nggegirisi (scary)," said Ir Heri Purnomo, cousin Maya Kasandra Soetoro (Obama's sister), the Jawa...