What We’re Reading

Preeti Aroon

• “Can Greed Save Africa?“, by Roben Farzad in BusinessWeek. Investors are flocking to sub-Saharan Africa to develop businesses, and they may bring about the improvements that billions of dollars in foreign aid haven’t.

Christine Chen

• Slate’s Jack Shafer is calling it “the smartest drug story of the year.” But you should read the original itself, “How America Lost the War on Drugs,” in the latest Rolling Stone. In a gripping narrative, Ben Wallace-Wells traces the failure of U.S. drug policies from the late 1980s to the present. He also quotes Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance and author of “Think Again: Drugs” from the September/October issue of FP.

Blake Hounshell

• “In Praise of Somaliland: A Beacon of Hope in the Thorn of Africa,” by Peter Tatchell in the Autumn 2007 issue of The Liberal. Somaliland is getting many things right, and it’s doing so in an extremely dodgy neighborhood. So why doesn’t the international community reward its success by recognizing its independence?

Adam Lewis

• “Hooray for Bollywood,” by Jason Overdorf in the Dec. 10 issue of Newsweek. No longer content to produce films for the Indian market, movie house UTV is reaching beyond the subcontinent. The production company’s owner, Ronnie Screwvala, has inked large investment deals with mega-movie houses such as Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures in what industry insiders see as a growing trend in global cinema.

Prerna Mankad

• “Inside India’s trade in human remains,” by Scott Carney in Wired. Ever wonder where medical students around the world get their clean, white human skeletons? They may just be from skull and bone smugglers in India, who export them out of the country illegally.