CIA director John Brennan admits mistakes but says interrogation did 'save lives'
CIA Director John Brennan acknowledged that the CIA detention and interrogation programme "had shortcomings and that the agency made mistakes".
But he denied that the agency misled anyone about it and said the agency's own review indicated that detainees who were subjected to harsh interrogations "did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives".
Brennan was responding to a report by a US Senate committe released on Tuesday that accused the CIA or routinely misleading the White House and Congress over its harsh interrogation programme for terrorism suspects and said that its methods, which included waterboarding, were more brutal than the agency acknowledged.
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Dutch to begin assembling flight MH17 wreckage for investigation
Crash investigators will try to reconstruct the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July from wreckage that was brought by truck to a Dutch air force hangar on Tuesday.
Members of the national Safety Board will piece together the remains of the plane on a frame to determine exactly what brought down flight MH17 and killed all 298 people on board.
It will take several months to complete the reconstruction and a final report on the cause of the crash is not expected until mid-2015, Safety Board head Tjibbe Joustra said. The task will not be easy, with some parts of the aircraft having been destroyed by fire.
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British royals visit 9/11 memorial in New York
Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate visited the 9/11 memorial in the pouring rain on Tuesday, placing a bouquet at one of the reflection pools on the final day of their New York tour.
It was a sombre start to the day after a night spent hobnobbing with American basketball superstar LeBron James and chatting to music power couple Beyonce and Jay-Z at an NBA game in Brooklyn.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge paused for a moment of contemplation at one of the memorial's two reflecting pools, shielded from the chilly rain by large black umbrellas.
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Football: Basel thwart Liverpool to reach last 16
Steven Gerrard scored in vain as Basel ended Liverpool's Champions League campaign with a 1-1 draw at Anfield on Tuesday that consigned his side to the Europa League.
Gerrard's exquisite late free-kick cancelled out Fabian Frei's 25th-minute opener, but with Liverpool reduced to 10 men by the dismissal of substitute Lazar Markovic, Paulo Sousa's Basel held on for a point that took them into the last 16 alongside Group B winners Real Madrid.
It was yet another English scalp for Basel, who knocked Liverpool out of the tournament in 2002, eliminated Manchester United in 2011, put Tottenham Hotspur out of the Europa League two seasons ago, and beat Chelsea twice in the Champions League last year.
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Winnie-the-Pooh illustration sells for record price
The original drawing of an iconic literary illustration depicting Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends playing "poohsticks" sold at auction in London on Tuesday for a record-breaking £314,500 (S$647,537).
The sale of EH Shepard's ink drawing of the much-loved AA Milne characters Pooh, Christopher Robin and Piglet broke the world record for any book illustration in the sale at Sotheby's auction house.
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