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This Happened

This Happened — February 1: The Saigon Execution

On this day in 1968, Nguyễn Văn Lém, a member of the Viet Cong, was summarily executed for alleged war crimes in Saigon during the Vietnam War. An Associated Press photographer captured the execution in one of the most iconic images in war reporting history.

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Who witnessed the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém?

When Nguyễn Văn Lém, a member of the Viet Cong, was summarily executed for alleged war crimes in Saigon during the Vietnam War, Võ Sửu, a cameraman for the U.S. TV network NBC, and Eddie Adams, an Associated Press photographer were there to witness and capture the event.

How did Eddie Adams photograph the execution?

Adams has said that at the time, he believed that Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, Chief of the Republic of Vietnam National Police, was just going to threaten Lém, and took out his camera to record the event. The photograph he captured showed the moment the bullet entered Lém's head.

What happened to the Saigon execution photograph?

After being shared worldwide, the photograph electrified the anti-war movement in the United States. The photograph became famous in contemporary American journalism, and won Adams the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.

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Israel

Bibi Blinked: Can Netanyahu Survive After Backing Down On Judicial Putsch?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu has backed down in the 11th hour on his plans to push forward on a major judicial reform bill that had sparked massive protests.

Bibi Blinked: Can Netanyahu Survive After Backing Down On Judicial Putsch?
Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

Benjamin Netanyahu played the sorcerer's apprentice and lost. By announcing Monday night the suspension of his judicial reform, which has deeply divided Israeli society and brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the nation's streets, he signed his defeat.

One thing we know about the Israeli prime minister is that he has not said his last word: the reform is only suspended, not withdrawn. He promised a "real dialogue" after the Passover holiday.

Netanyahu is not one to back down easily: he had clearly gone too far, first by allying himself with extreme right-wing forces from the fringes of the political spectrum; but above all by wanting to change the balance on which the Jewish State had lived since its foundation in 1948. His plans threatened to change the nature of the state in a patently "illiberal" direction.

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