Looks like someone’s finally catching on. This is the network my book is about: “#Horsemeat firms linked to Russian arms dealer #ViktorBout” http://t.co/e4xTQnls. Rebel militias, high street retail giants, Somali pirates, fashion brands, Peruvian drug lords, our own government, ready-meal makers, all depend on some of the same shady people, but we all get it…
Review: Why new Ukraine documentary film Maïdan is right to resist the voiceover
I was asked to review Sergei Loznitsa’s 2014 documentary film Maïdan for Radio 4’s Front Row programme earlier this week. You can listen to the review, in the form of a stimulating conversation with presenter Samira Ahmed, here. A year on from the massacre of Maidan protestors by president Viktor Yanukovich’s berkut officers,…
What’s not cool: The UNODC’s demand-side denialism on cocaine
A very quick reaction post this one. I just read through the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime’s World Drug Report 2014… and I’m unsure whether the writers are being disingenuous or intellectually dishonest, or how many revisions and blue-pencillings it went through on its way to publication. Consider this tweet. …
Are US mercenaries deploying in Ukraine? Or… is it bullshit? On Putin’s use of speculation as foreign policy.
Yesterday, Russian news agency RIA Novosti asked for my insight into Kremlin claims that US private military company Greystone is deploying mercenaries in Ukraine. Amid the chaos of eastern Ukraine and Greystone’s association with Blackwater/Xe Services, the Russian claims seem to be gathering momentum, regardless of evidence. There’s an added twist. RIA…
Premiere: Official preview clip from ‘The Notorious Mr Bout’
There’s a great documentary feature film on arms smuggler Viktor Bout at Sundance 2014 this week. I’m part of it, but don’t let that put you off – it’s by the team who made the award-winning Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer last year. There’s more detail below, but in the meantime, here’s the…
Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout linked to UK horsemeat scandal… And we’re, like, totally shocked
Looks like someone’s finally catching on. This is the network my book is about: “#Horsemeat firms linked to Russian arms dealer #ViktorBout” http://t.co/e4xTQnls. Rebel militias, high street retail giants, Somali pirates, fashion brands, Peruvian drug lords, our own government, ready-meal makers, all depend on some of the same shady people, but we all get it…
Comment: Reign of Errors – The Merchant of Death story ends the way we all figured. Or does it?
Free-Market Mercenaries: Matt speaking at Swansea University on 28th February
Matt will be talking transnational crime, Russian gunrunners and the deadly compromises between narco-mafias, FTSE 100 businesses, terrorists, ‘big aid’ and our own government at Swansea University on 28th February. The event, titled ‘Free market mercenaries: Cocaine traffickers, Somali pirates, and how the Soviet Union won the Cold War’ is organised by Swansea University’s Research…
Extract: Colombia, cocaine and the coastal paradise on a US blacklist
Today, the US finally blacklisted Belize and El Salvador for being major narcotics transhipment hubs – mainly for Colombian cocaine. Anyone who’s been to the former British Honduras, a tiny little country on the Central American coastline, will already know very well how much of it goes down there. Indeed, most are probably wondering, like…
Analysis: Chewbacca, Kurt Cobain & cheap thrills, or life in a post-Soviet West
What if…? is a popular parlour game among historians. How would the world look had World War Two ended differently? What would a Confederate-won Civil War have meant in a parallel 21st-century USA? What if the DDR’s army hadn’t wavered, and the Berlin Wall had never fallen? This week brought a chance to play…
Free download: Listen to Matt’s BBC 5Live interview
Download and enjoy the full 25min clip of Matt’s discussion of the anti-heroes of his book Outlaws Inc. with BBC Radio 5Live‘s Giles Dilnot! It’s an M4a/iTunes compatible soundfile. Download here