Category: Blog

If you’re thinking “Robert Mugabe,” you may be wrong. How about Teodoro Obiang? I wrote a short piece about him for Slate.

In November I will be a Regents Lecturer at UC Berkeley, which means, among other things, that I will give several talks. Come one, come all!

Oct. 29: “The Amazon v. Big Oil: In Ecuador, Chevron Faces Judgment Day.” 4-5:15 pm. 101 Morgan Hall.

Nov. 1: “From Saddam to Muqtada: A Writer’s ...  (Read more)

Back in 1996, Vanity Fair published a lengthy excerpt from my book, “Love Thy Neighbor.” I never received an electronic copy of the excerpt, so it wasn’t posted on this site (or anywhere on the web). In the past few months I received a number of enquiries about the excerpt, because ...  (Read more)

In a ramshackle courthouse in Lago Agrio, an oil town in Ecuador, a precedent-setting lawsuit is nearing its end after more than a decade. Who is to blame for the environmental mess that was triggered by the discovery of oil in the 1960s? The plaintiffs, who live in the region, are seeking billions ...  (Read more)

My latest essay, about the connection between North Korea’s nuclear weapons and nationalism on the Korean peninsula, is in this weekend’s issue of The New York Times Magazine. Click here or here.

The Los Angeles Times publishes a sad and evocative story (registration required) by one of its Iraqi reporters, who writes about day-to-day life in his neighborhood. Now, not only ...  (Read more)

Donald Rumsfeld, when asked about the looting that followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, memorably replied that “stuff happens.” Three years later, stuff is still happening. Salam Pax, in his resuscitated but occasional blog (he posts only slightly more frequently than I do), has ...  (Read more)

Last year, I was embedded with the U.S. military in Samarra and wrote a cover story about the rather dismal situation there, with Iraqi and American forces fighting what seemed to be a dirty war. In a riveting ...  (Read more)

As environmentalists in America battle to preserve a drilling ban in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, sensitive eco-systems in foreign countries are being drilled to provide oil for America. Is there a double standard at work, in which America outsources to less-fortunate countries the drawbacks ...  (Read more)