The Independent: Malaria interlude

In a world gone swine flu crazy, Johann Hari takes us to the Cambodian-Thai border where we may be losing the war against Malaria—already the biggest killer in the world after AIDS and tuberculosis. It infects 250 million people a year—the vast majority in Africa—and kills 1.5 million. Doctors have discovered that in South East Asia the malaria parasite is becoming resistant to Artemisinin, the most effective drug in treating malaria. Like in the 1960s, when the parasite outraced the best available treatment of its day, choloroquine, the loss of artemisinin will mean another “deadly interlude... it could last indefinitely.”

Rolling Stone: Remembering Woodstock

On the 40th anniversary of the music festival that defined an era, Rolling Stone catalogues the personal experiences of the musicians who were there. Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane remembers, “I was drunk, and I passed out on the roof of some automobile in a car caravan. When I woke up, I was at Woodstock. At the hotel, I played poker with the other musicians to pass the time. I remember Janis was winning most of the time. Janis, Hendrix, The Who, Sly, Crosby, Stills and Nash—all kinds of people would sit in for a few hands.”

The Guardian: Afghanistan’s ‘barbaric’ law

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands’ sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review. The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

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