John Sweeney
The Shipping News
Outlaws Inc. Flying with the World’s Most Dangerous Smugglers
By Matt Potter
Sidgwick & Jackson 382pp £11.99
Say what you like about the Soviet Union, but they did know how to build machines that would run and run and run. The T-34 tank and its successors were stronger and more robust than anything the Nazis could cook up. The AK-47 is still the weapon of choice across the undeveloped world. And in the skies, the Ilyushin Il-76, as unglamorous, lumpy-looking and dogged as a tractor, can lift sixty tonnes of cargo, take off from a football pitch (admittedly a very long one), and land in an Afghan cabbage patch. Long after the fall of the Soviet Union, these features make the Il-76, or the Candid (its NATO codename), the favoured transport plane of the United Nations and the major aid agencies when flying anything into one of the world’s worst places: Somalia, Angola, Sierra Leone, Colombia.
The thing is, if you dump all the boring health and safety bits and some of the less interesting avionics, you can hide a further fifteen tonnes of cargo, much of it under the main cargo floor. So along with the aid, tents, food, and life-giving drugs, you
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Are iPhones ruining children's lives? A prominent American psychologist thinks so.
@tiffanyjenkins is not so sure:
Tiffany Jenkins - The Smartphone Pandemic
Tiffany Jenkins: The Smartphone Pandemic - The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an...
literaryreview.co.uk
India's 'festival of democracy', or general election, begins next month. Like every good festival, it looks likely to have its fair share of murders and arrests.
@OwenBennettJon probes the state of democracy in India:
Owen Bennett-Jones - New Delhi Confidential
Owen Bennett-Jones: New Delhi Confidential - The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India by Alpa Shah
literaryreview.co.uk
Where is the world's newest narcostate and why is it thriving?
@AdamBrookesWord investigates Asia's meth mecca.
Adam Brookes - Meth Comes to Myanmar
Adam Brookes: Meth Comes to Myanmar - Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Outwitted the CIA by Patrick Winn
literaryreview.co.uk