Dilip Simeon's blog

Farrukh Dhondy, who was Charles Sobhraj’s arm’s-length friend for much of his corpse-strewn career, leaves what the reader really wants to know for the epilogue: “How did he manage to seduce so many women ― is he really charismatic and charming?” Dhondy reports that he is “an average bloke”, but “there was something in his gaze which was vaguely compelling”. Elsewhere, he comments on his “joyless” eyes, but declines to play Freud or Desmond Morris. Hawk and Hyena; reviewed by Pratik Kanjilal It’s a pity, because Dhondy is one of the very few people who can explain the weird animal magnetism which still draws millions to the Sobhraj canon. He has maintained relations with the serial killer since 1997, when Sobhraj approached him at Channel 4 to get a book published and a movie made on his life. Dhondy introduced him to Giles Gordon of Curtis Brown, who fled rapidly. In Hawk and Hyena, Sobhraj says that he wants to write like Jean Genet, but since his life is essentially a series of fail...

Around the world, many countries are  becoming less democratic . This backsliding on democracy and “ creeping authoritarianism ,” as the U.S. State Department puts it, is often supported by the same industries that are escalating climate change. In my new book, “ Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis ,” I lay out connections between these industries and the politicians who are both stalling action on climate change and diminishing democracy. It’s a dangerous shift, both for representative government and for the future climate. Corporate capture of environmental politics:  In democratic systems, elected leaders are expected to  protect the public’s interests , including from exploitation by corporations. They do this primarily through policies designed to secure public goods, such as clean air and unpolluted water, or to protect human welfare, such as good working conditions and minimum wages. But in recent decades, this core democratic principle th...

A historical study of the opium and heroin trade and its political context, based on primary and secondary sources, including interviews with some of the key players of the developments in Indochina in the 1950s through 1970s. Alfred W. McCoy; The Politics of Heroin : CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, Central America ; (Revised, 2003) The book falls into four main parts. Following a preface that illuminates the fascinating story behind the story and a brief introduction on the history of heroin, the first part deals with the cross-Atlantic heroin trade from the 1940s through 1970s, with special emphasis on the Mafia and Marseille based Corsican syndicates. The second part, taking up some 300 out of 530 pages (not counting the notes), describes in great detail the development of the Asian opium trade from colonial times up to the end of the Vietnam War. In the third section McCoy critically reviews the U.S. wars on drug from Nixon to Clinton, while th...

According to police in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, it was suicide. The young Muslim man they had brought into their custody had, out of despair, killed himself in the police station toilets. But, as photos of the scene emerged, so too did suspicions. The 22-year-old man, Altaf, was 165cm (5ft 5in) tall and weighed 60kg (9.5 stone), but the toilet tap he had supposedly hanged himself from was just 76cm off the ground and made of flimsy plastic. And why, as the police later claimed in court, was the CCTV in the police station mysteriously not working that day? Family and friends tell a very different story: that Altaf, a Muslim man living in the town of Kasganj, was in love with and planned to marry a Hindu girl. That powerful local Hindu vigilante groups  opposed to interfaith unions  found out and reported him to the police. And that on 9 November 2021, Altaf was arrested and tortured to death in police custody and his family pressured to keep quiet. “The police mur...

How do the banks continue to get away with it? The  latest revelations  about Credit Suisse provide yet another glimpse into the corrosive nexus of banks, corporations, accountants, lawyers and financial intermediaries that enables the wealthy and political elites to profit from illicit practices. The bank itself is no stranger to predatory practices. Since 2001 it has been  fined at least 47 times  by the US authorities and paid fines totalling $10.7bn. Since 2010, it has also been fined on at least six occasions by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and paid fines  totalling  more than £300m. The fines have become just another cost of doing business, and are passed on to customers. Credit Suisse is not alone. The roll of dishonour shown by the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Pandora Papers, HSBC leaks, Luxembourg leaks and others shows that virtually every major bank is involved in predatory practices. All these leaks have provoked a public deba...

NB: The criminalisation of the state in the USA has been fairly obvious for some decades now. But our op-ed fraternity persists in spinning American interventions abroad (for example in this editorial ) as attempts to 'remake other societies in the name of US global leadership.' Were the 1953 coup in Iran , the prolonged bombing of Vietnam after a staged provocation (the Gulf of Tonkin incident) in 1966; or the murderous coup-d'etat in Chile in 1973 ; or the assassination of Mujibur Rahman in 1975  - were all these 'efforts to remake' these societies? Or were they outright attempts at terrorist intimidation for the purpose of enforcing American interests? Criminal behaviour by ruling establishments is now a global trend which no-one attempts to hide any longer. There is a global breakdown of law and restraint. Only a concerted international satyagraha can confront it. DS At times during the last five or so years, some of us have been living in the future. Sometimes...

Indian anti-smuggling intelligence officials have seized nearly three tonnes of heroin - reportedly worth around $2.7bn (£1.9bn) - in a major operation at a port in Gujarat state. Forensic testing is still under way to determine the exact value of the seized drugs, officials told the BBC. Two people have been arrested and several others are being investigated, a statement said. The shipment originated in Afghanistan, where it was declared as talc stones. It was shipped to Gujarat's Mundra port from Iran.  The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) said that it received intelligence that a shipment from the Bandar Abbas Port in Iran was suspected to contain narcotics.... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58634575 YANN PHILIPPIN - Sale of French Rafale jet fighters to India: how a state scandal was buried Anne Michel and Simon Piel - Rafale case: Fresh moves towards a corruption investigation Bharat Bhushan - Scania Scandal: Need to step up to the challenge Cutlet ...

When Jonathan Steele moved to Moscow for the Guardian in 1988, the story of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms was getting “hotter and hotter”. But with all the restrictions on foreign journalists in the Soviet Union, the question was how to report it. The sources were mainly local journalists authorised to speak to foreigners or dissidents. The phones were likely to have been bugged. You could not travel more than 25 miles out of Moscow without permission and travel plans needed to be sent to the foreign ministry in advance by Telex. “It was very annoying because you wanted to go to someplace because there was a story, but because there was a story they didn’t want to give you permission,” Steele recalled.  Over the next six years, until he left in 1994, the veteran foreign correspondent reported on the collapse of a superpower and the birth of a new politics, as reporters gained access to many corners of a crumbling empire. “I often say that I came to  Russia  as a political...

In April 2018, a large group of policemen arrived at the  Delhi  flat of Rona Wilson, a 47-year-old human rights activist. They had travelled from Pune in the western state of Maharashtra, and appeared, accompanied by Delhi police officials, at Wilson’s single-room flat at 6am. For the next eight hours, they scoured the modest premises, searching the files on Wilson’s laptop and rifling through his books. Annoyed and short of sleep, he asked that they be put back in place after they had been scrutinised. When the police eventually left, they took away Wilson’s Hewlett-Packard laptop, a SanDisk thumb drive and his mobile phone. Seven weeks later, the police were back at Wilson’s flat, this time to arrest him. He was accused of conspiring to assassinate the prime minister,  Narendra Modi , and planning to overthrow the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. Evidence of these crimes had allegedly been found on his laptop. Wilson was flown to Pune, charged under In...

NB : In the midst of an unprecedented global catastrophe, political leadership is engaged in ruthless quest for power, destruction of democratic institutions, clampdown on honest journalism, instigating communal and racial hatred, and increasing defence budgets. Whenever society faces mortal danger, we attack the poor, invent enemies and scapegoats on all sides, and engage in verbal abuse and physical violence. Even the capacity to speak is being destroyed. We live in the era of Rule by Political and Ecological Imbeciles. There is no more time to waste. We need a new internationalism devoted to collective action on global warming, preservation of liberty and firm regulation of corporate capitalist enterprise (armaments, aerospace, oil, coal, nuclear power, plastics, pharmaceuticals, etc.). Without this the future will be devastating for the coming generations. And we will have no one to blame but ourselves. DS The IPCC report is clear: nothing short of transforming society will avert c...