Anti-drugs operation, Ayacucho, Peru. Credit: Alberto Cifuentes. All rights reserved.The international drug control system has caused much greater damage than the substances it targets. Gross human rights violations have been committed in its name. And after five decades of harsh legal enforcement, criminalisation and militarisation (largely outside the consumption centres of Europe and north America), it has failed to reduce the drug trade. In the articles, videos and personal stories we are publishing, we look at the consequences of this punitive approach in different parts of the world, the myths involved, the gender and race implications, security structures and economic links. We also begin to explore alternative policies. This six-month…

President Donald Trump’s obsession with optics should come as no surprise. Throughout his time in the limelight he has made it clear he likes to be seen as powerful, pulled together, and as “very, very rich.” According to a new report, he likes the women in his life to look a certain way, too.  According to a new report from Axios, Trump particularly likes women working on his campaign and in his office “to dress like women.” According to the source, Trump additionally notes, “Even if you’re in jeans, you need to look neat and orderly.” This mandate stretched far beyond Melania, Ivanka, and Kellyanne. The report notes that even the women…

President Francois Hollande attends Memorial Service for victims. Demotix/ Yann Korbi. All rights reserved.There are three sectors of the conflict with Isis – the war zones of Syria-Iraq, the regional states which provide most of the backing for the wars and where most refugees are based, and western Europe where refugees now aim to come and whose cities Isis is attacking. There are also three levels of the conflict. The armed conflict is now spreading from the war zones to Europe. The civilian experience of harm is massive in Syria-Iraq, the refugee camps and the Mediterranean, and now shocking in Europe as hundreds are massacred. Finally, in the political-media conflict,…

On August 30, 1865, Andrew Johnson, the first president to be impeached, made a different first: When he hosted the Brooklyn Atlantics and Washington Nationals amateur baseball clubs at the White House, he originated the custom of sports teams visiting the president. Today, President Donald Trump (insert impeachment joke here) continued the tradition by hosting the Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots. But the festivities had some notable absences. Tom Brady cryptically announced this morning that he would skip for “family reasons,”​ but the other Pats not attending have been more than open about why they didn’t want to head to Trump’​s White House for a photo op. Running back…

All rights reserved. ¿Do you remember Sophia Calvo Aponte? Possibly, your answer is no. Certainly her family does, and keeps her memory alive. It was Sophia who, in August 2014, assembled approximately 4.000 people in the atrium of the San Lorenzo cathedral in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, in demand of peace. Sophia Calvo Aponte was another victim of feminicidio (femicide). Her loss prompted a huge rally in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, attended by civil society and the media. And yet, within a few months, she was all but forgotten, falling into oblivion along with many other women who have gone through a similar horrific fate. To the…

On Tuesday, In a 51-to-50 vote, the Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos as Trump’s education secretary despite the Democratic Party’s efforts to block her appointment. As expected, the vote fell largely along party lines, with all 48 Senate Democrats opposing DeVos along with Republicans Lisa Murkowski from Alaska and Susan Collins from Maine. Vice President Mike Pence voted in support of DeVos to break the tie. According to the The New York Times, this is the first time in history a cabinet nomination required a vice president’s vote to break a tie. DeVos, a Michigan billionaire and steadfast Trump supporter, has spent much of her career promoting “school choice” programs, which support…

Police investigations outside the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, November 14. Demotix/ Jonathan Tessier. All rights reserved.It was like spring in autumn. The weather had been turning warm, day after day, in this early November 2015 in Paris. One month later the town will host the UN Climate Conference COP21… Such unseasonable weather, the hottest November ever, must for sure have something to do with climate change. It was an evening of football, with France vs. Germany at the Stade de France, in Saint Denis, north of Paris. Meanwhile the café’s terraces on the 11th arrondissement, the “swinging quarter” of the City, were packed with people enjoying the equable temperature.…

Misquoting great historical figures has practically become an art. And one of the most misquoted leaders of all is Abraham Lincoln. Of course, we’d expect a little more from the group that literally calls itself “The Party of Lincoln.” But the official Twitter account of the Republican Party showed just how much they’d moved from the party of Lincoln to the party of Trump, by tweeting a fake quote from the former president and then refusing to take it down nearly a full day even as it seemed like the entire Internet was collapsing upon them with hilarious memes. The misquote was first exposed by CNN journalist Jake Tapper, who…

Bedouins from the Negev protest in front of the Israeli Knesset. Mahmoud Illean/Demotix. All rights reserved. In Israel’s Negev desert, ethnic cleansing is once again rearing its ugly head. The unrecognised Bedouin village of Umm Al Hiran faces demolition and replacement with a Jewish town, Hiran. Seven hundred villagers face displacement, and only because they are of the wrong ethnicity. Umm Al Hiran is one of tens of unrecognised villages in the Negev, inhabited by descendants of the Abu al-Qian tribe. Located in the area of Wadi Attir, the village is divided into two areas: Umm Al Hiran and Attir. Attir is also facing demolition in order to expand a…

Scott Pruitt just can’t win. The Environmental Protection Agency head has the impossible task of running an agency that directly contradicts his own long track record of denying climate change and the proposed solutions to combatting it. But Pruitt at least must have thought he’d catch a break from settled science when he stopped by Fox News for an interview. Not so fast. During a surprisingly tough interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, the former Oklahoma attorney general was forced to contend with those pesky facts once again. Pruitt began the interview by rattling off some of his talking points before Wallace quickly interrupted, playing a video of Pruitt denying that…