Otto Warmbier

Wednesday

Paul Wood

War tourism is alive and well

In 2004, the BBC sent me to the Iraqi city of Karbala to report on the gathering of Shia pilgrims for the religious holiday of Ashura. American troops knew to stay well away. They were already fighting a Sunni insurgency and didn’t want trouble with Iraq’s Shiites as well. The insurgency’s leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — the butcher of Iraq — had just threatened to attack “the sects of apostasy,” as he called the Shia, and as we entered Karbala, militiamen searched us for weapons. The air hummed with tension. But at breakfast in the hotel, we ran into a gaggle of backpackers: Brits and Americans. Seeing the look on my face, a blonde woman in the group told me not to worry. “Things are much calmer now in Iraq, aren’t they?

tourism
North Korea
Oliver Jia

The Americans who defected to North Korea

Last summer, US Army soldier Travis King ran across the Korean Demilitarized Zone into the arms of the North Koreans. It wasn’t because of some mental break or as part of a spy operation. North Korean state media claims he was motivated by racism and mistreatment — of course they would. The DPRK’s outlets have previously criticized the US for its treatment of African Americans, around the same time they compared former president Barack Obama to a “wicked black monkey.” Like the six American servicemen who crossed the DMZ before him, King probably had a mixture of reasons for his flight. Unlike in the previous cases, however, King’s detention was a short one.

Wednesday

Paul Wood

The hostages’ president

President Trump has tweeted that, among other things he’s best at, he is ‘the greatest hostage negotiator in the history of the United States’. He was supposedly quoting his special envoy for hostages, but then there was no record of the envoy ever voicing this precise opinion, so it was really just the usual Trump boasting. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Trump really does seem to care about hostages. He certainly likes the Oval Office photo ops with Americans he’s helped to free, bathing in their gratitude and nodding along to the stream of compliments that such visits guarantee. He seems willing to do a deal with almost anyone, even ‘shithole countries’.

hostages