The country provides the vast majority of the world’s heroin. The longest war in US history has done nothing to arrest this. In fact, as I examined during my visit there last year and show in my forthcoming book, Profits of Doom, drug addiction is a major problem for men, women and children. Wired details…
Category General
Keeping human rights violations in Sri Lanka on the agenda
I’ve been on the advisory council… of the British-based Sri Lanka Campaign… for a number of years. I was interviewed by 278 Magazine about the group and raising awareness of the ongoing abuses in Sri Lanka: How long have you been on the advisory board for SLC? 2-3 years What initially attracted you to joining the board?…
Building a Nazi-style utopia in Paraguay
Intriguing and eerie story (via the New York Times) that highlights the timeless fascination some people have with a utopia lifestyle. From the mad to the bad and the racist to the religious, the quest for some kind of unattainable perfection persists: The year was 1887 when two of the best-known German anti-Semites of the…
The naked love affair between the CIA and #ZeroDarkThirty
The pro-torture, pro-US and pro-war on terror film… is given deeper meaning with the release, via Gawker, of a document that confirms what many of us suspected; the CIA wanted a propaganda film and the film-makers were apparently happy to comply: Kathryn Bigelow’s Osama bin Laden revenge-porn flick Zero Dark Thirty was the biggest publicity coup…
Why standing up for human rights, against the tide, matters
Salman Rushdie writes in the New York Times on 27 April: We… find it easier, in these confused times, to admire physical bravery than moral courage — the courage of the life of the mind, or of public figures. A man in a cowboy hat vaults a fence to help Boston bomb victims while others flee…
Dr Strangelove at the White House over Syria
This would be comical if the situation in Syria wasn’t so serious. This reporting, via the New York Times, shows the complete inability to understand that Washington isn’t the arbiter of what happens inside Syria. Nor should it be. This is ineptitude framed as serious policy. Besides, there are countless forces backing the “rebels” and…
What torture at Guantanamo Bay feels like
Powerful statement by the campaigning British group Reprieve: Younous Chekkouri, a detainee who has been cleared for release but remains held in Guantanamo, has given the first inside account of… the raid carried out by prison authorities on Saturday 13 April. Speaking to a lawyer from human rights charity… Reprieve… via an unclassified phone call, Mr Chekkouri has…