Word: opiumeators
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...plying the Indian Ocean. Its crew speaks a babble of English, Portuguese, Hindustani, Malay, Tamil, Chinese - and yet, through "the alchemy of the open water," as Ghosh writes, they communicate sufficiently well to sail this great wooden hulk. Language animates the Ibis, as well it should: loaded with migrants, opium and the dreams of unwitting pioneers, it is intended to be the vessel for a whole trilogy of novels. Sea of Poppies is the impressive first installment...
...imperial bravado. But this won't do for Ghosh, a veteran postcolonialist. He instead depicts India as it most likely was under the thumb of Britain's East India Company. Its once bounteous countryside is now run by Company edict, with farmers ordered to grow poppies to feed colossal opium factories, in whose noxious environs even monkeys slump in "a miasma of lethargy." Their fields given over to drug cultivation, thousands of starving, impoverished villagers leave for new pastures as indentured labor in Mauritius, a place so remote that it is thought to be a "demon-plagued land...
...Afghanistan may sound suspiciously like the Iraqi “surge”, but the primary aim in this case would be development rather than security. The focus in Afghanistan right now needs to be on building infrastructure. In a country riddled with poverty, landmines, and a thriving opium trade, a little carefully directed and managed funding goes a long way. More investment in agriculture, energy, roads, education, and health—in conjunction with forces deployed to uphold and enforce these developments on a community level—will do more to build the Afghani government and foster morale...
...Home to President Felipe Calderon, Michoacan state is used by cartels to harvest and traffic narcotics, including marijuana and opium. In recent years, the region has spawned a particularly brutal gang known as "La Familia," who once threw five severed human heads onto the dance floor of a disco. When Calderon took office in December 2006, the bespectacled lawyer began a national crackdown against organized crime, starting the campaign in Michoacan, where he sent soldiers into mountains to burn crops and seize safe houses. And the cartels have responded with a violent counteroffensive, killing more than 500 police, soldiers, judges...
...next day's hangover will be ministered to in a private spa suite, and on a reserved "opium bed" at the hotel's Oasis Beach Club, from which you can contemplate the six-course dinner for eight that will be prepared for you in your suite that evening. And if there aren't any paparazzi staking out your floor, well, maybe the hotel can arrange that, too. For more information, call...