In honor of our 100th year of global drug control efforts, the Boston Globe is running a new photo series highlighting anti-drug operations around the world. They’re very powerful – and upsetting -- images, and they cast efforts to control illegal drugs in a new light.
Switzerland is going to vote on a national referendum, banning the construction of minarets at Swiss mosques. There are only four minarets in the country, but the referendum argues that minarets are a sign of Islamic conquest, not religious faith.
The Philippines is bracing for a second typhoon, less than a week after a typhoon killed 277 people in Manila. Manila was remarkably heroic in the face of the first typhoon, rapidly organizing rescue teams and donations to people affected by the typhoon. A second one would severely test that resolve.
We wrote about this last week, and The New York Times reported yesterday that Saudi Arabia is going to ask every haj pilgrim to Mecca to take the oral polio vaccine in front of Saudi health officials. This is excellent public health news, but it also illustrates the ways that health and human rights come together in strange ways.