Word: dec
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...aviation security screening has come under deserved criticism in the wake of the attempted bombing of Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day. After telling journalists on Dec. 27 that the failure of the attack showed that the security system had effectively worked, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano backtracked on Monday, telling the Today show, "Our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that...
...almost shockingly - well. Almost overnight, cigarettes vanished from offices, restaurants, cafés and train stations as the French dutifully took their glowing butts outside - the only place where smoking was still permitted. But this being France, a backlash was almost certainly inevitable. According to a report released on Dec. 17 by an anti-smoking group, the initial obeisance of French smokers has now given way to people increasingly flaunting the law by lighting up indoors...
Boxing Day has been a national holiday in England, Wales, Ireland and Canada since 1871. For years in which the holiday falls on a weekend, the celebration is moved to make sure workers still get a day off (except in Canada, where it remains Dec. 26), but since visits to Grandma and other family obligations are fulfilled on Christmas, there isn't anything left to do on Boxing Day except eat leftovers, drink and watch TV. Just as Americans watch football on Thanksgiving, the Brits have Boxing Day soccer matches and horse races. If they're particularly wealthy or live...
Aceh did exist, of course, but with 166,000 dead or missing it had borne the brunt of the Indian Ocean tsunami, triggered by a 9.15-magnitude earthquake off the Indonesian coast on Dec. 26, 2004. It was a truly international catastrophe: the tsunami struck 13 countries, killing 226,000 people of 40 nationalities. Five years later, a first-time visitor to the worst-affected countries - Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand - might find the wave's terrible path hard to detect, thanks to a multinational, multi-billion-dollar reconstruction effort. Across Aceh, thousands of houses were built with foreign...
...against the enemy of the Chinese state came down on Christmas Day, not a particularly significant holiday in the calendar of the People's Republic but one that perhaps meant that Beijing wanted as little attention on it as possible in the West. Following a two-hour trial on Dec. 23, the literary critic Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison in Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court. His crime: writing a series of essays questioning the monopoly on power of the Communist Party as well as compiling a manifesto demanding political reform and increased democracy...