Life Satisfaction and the Well-Being Gap

“Our data show what needs to be done to improve the level and distribution of happiness” globally, the authors of World Happiness Report 2016 argue ambitiously in their latest assessment across nations and continents. “Increasingly, happiness is considered to be the proper measure of social progress and the goal of public policy.” With Ministries of Happiness springing up in Venezuela, …

ISIS Colonel Was Trained by Blackwater and U.S. State Department for 11 Years By Cassius Methyl

A former police commander from Tajikistan was featured in an ISIS video recently where he admitted he was trained by the U.S. State Department and former military contractor Blackwater all the way up until last year. At a Blackwater facility in North Carolina, Col. Gulmurod Khalimov received “counter-terrorism training.” “From 2003-2014 Colonel Khalimov participated in five counterterrorism training courses in the United …

Beyond Blackwater Massacre, Renewed Concern Over Rise of Mercenary Armies – Lauren McCauley

Following the sentencing of four private security guards convicted in the notorious 2007 massacre of innocent Iraqi civilians, attention has shifted to the growing role such private mercenaries are having on battlefields throughout the world. On Monday, three former employees of Blackwater Worldwide were given thirty-year prison sentences while one guard, Nicholas Slatten, who fired the first shot, was sentenced to life …