James Meek
James Meek works from Washington, D.C.. ABC News Investigative Reporter. Artist, photodog, war writer. Misc awards. Ex-Senior Counterterrorism Adviser @HouseHomeland. Tips: [email protected] James Meek has over 6016 followers on Twitter.
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/ 12 June 2006

Russia’s dirty war in Chechnya

Malika Labazanova crouched on the floor of her house at number 20, Third Tsimlyansky Lane, Grozny. A young man in camouflage fatigues held the muzzle of an automatic rifle against her head. Both were citizens of the same country, Russia, but he represented the government, and she did not.

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/ 15 September 2005

Berlin blues

In Car City, a chic, lavishly funded theme park in the Volkswagen company town of Wolfsburg in Germany, there is a museum, and in that museum, there is something from Britain. Among the waxed and buffed automobiles of all eras spread out over several floors sits a perky white model with familiar curves.

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/ 23 December 2004

What is Europe?

The European Union has grown to 25 diverse states, with five more waiting in the wings and at least another 14 sniffing around the periphery. Should Turkey be allowed to join the European Union? That decision has divided Europeans. But where does Europe end? James Meek finds that cases can be made for many other countries, from Tunisia to Iraq.

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/ 25 November 2004

Ukraine: Bold but bloodless

Driving through western Ukraine on a hot spring day in the mid-1990s, I passed an idyllic scene. Scores of Ukrainian army conscripts lay around a radar antenna, sound asleep in the rich long grass and flowers, soaking up the sun, expressions of pure serenity on their faces. Now, however, it is worth remembering how many times, and with how little fuss and blood, Ukraine has stepped back from the brink before.

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/ 6 August 2004

Buying into the unreal

In the software business, the games go by the indigestible acronym, MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games), but they are more easily understood as virtual worlds. Aden is a virtual world in an online game called Lineage, created and run by Korean company NCsoft. The allure of virtual games has software firms selling non-existent ”commodities” for thousands of dollars.

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/ 1 July 2004

The enigma of the Iraq ‘liberation’

Paul Bremer’s departure and the handover of limited sovereignty to an unelected Iraqi government was to be the end of military occupation and the beginning of independence. From London and Washington it may look that way. As the United States pulled out of Iraq this week it left behind 160 000 troops, an unstable government and a poorer nation crippled by debt.

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/ 19 December 2003

People the law forgot

Images of Camp Delta’s orange-jumpsuited, manacled detainees provoked international outrage. But the real horror they face is the threat of infinite confinement, without any rights, seemingly forgotten by the world at large. James Meek spent a month at Guantanamo.