"No iron can enter the human heart as chillingly as a full stop placed at the right time." - Isaac Babel
An examination of the relationship between football hooligans and nationalism in Macedonia and Serbia. The “ultras” believe their violence serves a political cause, and will not be punished by the courts. However, the politicians deny any links with the violent hooligans. Report by Aleksandar Manasiev. My edit for BfJE/Balkan Insight and The Guardian.
Top story for Vanity Fair’s homepage: “In 2008 The Hurt Locker introduced the Americans who defuse explosives in Iraq. Now that all US troops will be gone by 2012, meet the Iraqi soldiers left carrying the fuse.”
Photograph by Kamaran Najm/Metrography
Kirkuk’s anti-terrorist police ride around in battered pickup trucks, keeping a nervous lookout for the bombers that have killed scores of their colleagues. With the American military eying an exit from Iraq, the force has become a central player in a seemingly intractable conflict over land and oil.
I accompanied the officers as they carried out overnight raids in pursuit of an insurgent cell linked to al-Qaeda.
Photographs by Kamaran Najm/Metrography
A police crackdown sets the clock ticking for Christiania, the Copenhagen hippie haven accused of functioning as “a state within a state”. BBC News, March 2004
Neil Arun 
