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Kremlin Power Politics: Khodorkovsy and Lebedev and Russia

Hope for Khodorkovsky, and for Russia? Amy Knight Alexey Sazonov/AFP/Getty Images Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev standing behind a glass wall in a Moscow courtroom, May 17, 2011 At first glance, it is hard not to conclude that the future looks dire for Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, the former Yukos executives who have been…

The Coca Cola Effect : Drugs & Crimes In Afghanistan Rob The Soul

The Lost Souls of Kabul: Photographs by James Nachtwey A man injects himself under a bridge near an open sewer in Kabul. While overall production has dropped thanks to aggressive eradication efforts, and a blight that destroyed almost half of last year’s harvest, more Afghans than ever are getting addicted to opiates. We’re used to…

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Mission To Kill: The Architect Of Ten Years Of Terror

  The weeks before President Obama ordered Navy SEALs into Pakistan in pursuit of Osama bin Laden, administration officials weighed using American warplanes to obliterate the terror mastermind’s fortified compound from the sky or sending commandos on a high-risk mission to assault the structure from the ground. But there’s one option the administration appears to…

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America Has Its Own Secret Police: The Creep Factor

Thursday, Mar. 10, 2011 Data Mining: How Companies Now Know Everything About You By Joel Stein Three hours after I gave my name and e-mail address to Michael Fertik, the CEO of Reputation.com, he called me back and read my Social Security number to me. “We had it a couple of hours ago,” he said….

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Gadafii Mercenaries paid between $300 and $2,000 a day

After decades of financing and training rebels and liberation movements, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi is accused of using his influence to amass an army of mercenaries from across sub-Saharan Africa. Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Chad, Mali and Zimbabwe: One only has to name a conflict, rebel group or despot in Africa to find someone the Libyan…