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Greece Is So Much More Than Its Recession

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More on the Greek Crisis:

I Spent an Extremely Stressful Night in the Greek Parliament
A Brief History of Greek Debt
We Asked an Expert if Britain Could Ever Collapse Economically Like Greece

This article originally appeared on VICE Greece

I was born and raised in Greece, but my entire adulthood has spent in the United States. As the Greek socioeconomic crisis intensified over the last four years, media outlets have bombarded us with images of turmoil, despair, and desolation. Some of these pictures cut like a blade for people like me—someone who has spent half of his life in Athens and half in the picturesque hillsides of Pennsylvania. Is this really what Greece has become? Athens was once the center of democracy, civilization, and the arts, but now it forces its elderly to beg for their pensions?

Obviously, these miserable images are implicitly related to the current socioeconomic situation. Nobody can doubt or undermine the power of these images, but the facts they represent are selective. Simply put, these pictures only represent a fraction of contemporary Greek society.


Related: Watch our documentary 'Shopping With Genesis P-Orridge'


With my latest series, I've strived to depict the crisis with undertones of the hope, humor, pride, and dignity that characterize Greek culture. Under the golden light that plummets over the Athenian plateau and beyond, I tried to document the transformed society that I was once a part of. As I walked the streets of my youth, feeling both familiar and at times alien, I experienced the diverse environs fluctuating between harmony and tension. Overall, I felt a sense of belonging.

Most photographic projects are personal, but to me Motherland is as personal as it gets. This body of work resonates with me emotionally and represents quite a significant part of who I am.


The Obscure Chinese Businessman Accused of Selling Ballistic Missile Parts to Iran

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Wanted poster via the FBI

They just don't make weapons of mass destruction dealers like they used to.

Back in the 1980s, men like Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan and Canadian artillery expert Gerald Bull set the benchmark for how much unfettered, globe-shaking damage can be done when engineers go rogue. Khan sold nuclear weapon blueprints to Muammar Gaddafi and centrifuges to Iran and North Korea through a network of flabby white-collar criminals from Germany and South Africa. Bull tried to build Saddam Hussein a "supergun" capable of lobbing large projectiles into orbit before being shot in the back of the skull by assassins as he fumbled for his apartment keys in Brussels.

Those two particular malfeasants exemplified the zero-morals glamour to which most arms dealers must surely aspire. When Pakistani authorities finally caught up with Khan in the early 2000s, he was placed under house arrest in one of his Islamabad villas. Echoing some sort of Bond villain, Bull's pre‑Saddam days reportedly involved setting up an experimental artillery piece on the tropical island of Barbados.

The WMD proliferation scene these days doesn't quite have the same level of intrigue. In fact, the closest there is today to an active WMD proliferators' hall of famer is a slightly pudgy Chinese businessman named Li Fang Wei (also known as Karl Lee) who's been irking the US government for much of the past decade.

At first glance, Li could well pass as one of the world's most boring people: He's believed to trade vegetable oil and graphite from a nondescript office block in the smoggy Chinese city of Dalian, and his most distinguishing feature, according to the FBI, is a mole on his upper lip.

Li's side gig is what makes him interesting: For the past ten years, he's allegedly supplemented his income by selling millions of dollars' worth of embargoed goods to Iran's UN-outlawed ballistic missile program. Pick any Iranian missile at random and open it up, and there's a good chance you'll find a part inside that was supplied by Li Fang Wei. From high-strength metals to gyroscopes, the dude supplies it all—and thanks to a weak Chinese legal system and the fact that his goods theoretically could be used legally, it's tough to envision Li going down any time soon.

On Motherboard: The Obsessive World of China's Amateur "Sherlock" Subtitlers

Despite his alleged role in keeping Iranian missiles flying—New York prosecutor Preet Bharara's office has described him as a "principal contributor" to Iran's missile program—Li's exact whereabouts remain a mystery. Indeed, he has kept a lower profile than AQ Khan or Gerald Bull ever did. As Matthew Cottee, a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told VICE, "Li is well known in nonproliferation circles for his chameleonic qualities. Despite sanctions restrictions and a significant bounty on his head, he has managed to adapt and continue supplying ballistic missile parts—a sensitive issue in the current Iran deal."

Li's sales to Iran have caused no end of annoyance in Washington. Various tentacles of the US government have taken increasingly aggressive measures to try to stop the guy from doing business with Tehran. The US State Department has added several Li-affiliated companies—as well as Li himself—to its sanctions lists. The Treasury Department has seized millions of dollars from Li's bank accounts and outlawed him from doing business with US companies. US diplomats have made a number of appeals to Beijing to demand that Chinese authorities investigate Li's companies and their alleged violations of US export control laws.

Last April, the FBI raised the stakes, putting an unprecedented $5 million reward on Li's head. That's the most significant bounty ever offered for the capture of a WMD proliferator, according to Cottee. An arrest warrant was issued after Li was indicted, the feds charging him with one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, two counts of actually violating the Act, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, one count of conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, and two counts of wire fraud.

Apparently unfazed by those measures, Li has taken the legitimate side of his manufacturing business online. Delve into the world of Chinese e-commerce sites and you'll find that Li-affiliated companies are openly advertising many of the commodities like graphite that his Dalian factories churn out. Last year, e-commerce giant Alibaba.com swiftly removed one of these listings after it was discovered by researchers. Several other e-commerce sites, though, have been more reluctant, and VICE emailed one of them—GongChang—to find out why they continued to host a Li-affiliated company. A spokesperson replied via email, "We cannot consider the company [to be] illicit...the contact person is not Mr Li Fang Wei. Their products are not illegal too."

That's one of the brilliant things about the Li business model—his products don't scream illegal in the same way an AK-47 or a bag of MDMA might. Li specializes in trading "dual-use goods," which are things that could plausibly be used both by the public and by the armed forces (and are generally thought to carry military-grade price tags for shady buyers in Iran). Conveniently, they can be explained away as intended for boring industrial purposes if an e-commerce site ever asks any questions, or if the authorities come knocking. Li has long been believed to be the owner of a large Dalian factory that produces graphite, a material in hot demand in China's aluminum smelters that can also be used to make missile jet vanes, which help steer a missile by altering its thrust.

Aping the profit-maximizing methods of AQ Khan, Li has apparently moved into the even more lucrative business of developing and manufacturing his own high-tech missile parts. Researchers at King's College London (disclosure: one of us co-authored the report) have discovered that a business associated with Li, Dalian Xinhang Electromechanical Equipment Company, appears to be producing fiber optic gyroscopes, highly advanced components used in aerospace and missile guidance systems. These difficult-to-manufacture devices would be extremely sought after by Iranian missile-makers. After all, leaked cables show that Iran's missile industry has been sourcing gyroscopes from abroad for years, and fiber optic versions are some of the best available.

There is additional, anecdotal evidence that this gyroscope biz may be expanding. VICE has come across job advertisements for engineers with fiber optic-winding expertise that have been listed online by Li-affiliated companies over the past year. There are also indications that the US government may have already tried to take action to thwart this potential proliferation threat: in April 2014, the US Commerce Department blacklisted a Chinese scientist specializing in fiber optic gyroscope design, apparently on the grounds of his ties to Li Fang Wei.

Beijing's stated position on Li Fang Wei, unsurprisingly, is that it "resolutely opposes the US citing domestic laws to unilaterally impose sanctions on Chinese companies or individuals." US officials think that Beijing has not done enough to investigate Li, and therefore is not taking seriously its nonproliferation commitments. Chinese officials in turn resent what they think is Washington's heavy‑handed approach to the issue, and allege that the information the US has provided them about Li is incorrect or incomplete.

The fact that Li is still in business has led to allegations that he's being protected by the Chinese government, or else is exploiting Communist Party connections to stay afloat. "That's the biggest puzzle of what's left in the case," according to one Chinese-speaking analyst based in London who has been closely following Li's activities and is skeptical of the idea that he's working for paymasters in Beijing. "Li's operational security is so bad. Li leaves so many traces online that the idea that he might be working for the Chinese government is inconceivable."

A 2008 leaked US cable suggests that he may be a former government official. Newsweek has suggested he enjoys good family connections, with his grandfather reportedly having been a "legendary colonel" in the People's Liberation Army during the Korean War.

The most likely explanation for why Li remains free, however, is that his actions—despite being in breach of UN resolutions and US law—fall into a legal gray area in China. At least from the information available on the public record, it is not clear that Li's purported activities have crossed any Chinese laws, as opposed to US ones. The Chinese legal system is still coming to grips with cases involving exports of dual-use goods, and might not yet have the tools in place to prosecute someone like Li. A senior US State Department official hinted as much at a May hearing, where he said that the US and China's longstanding dialogue on Li has involved seeking to "understand better each other's information and the capabilities in our legal system—for example, why we are able to indict him in the United States and whether the Chinese would be able to do something similar in China." And Li is well-placed to exploit these legal loopholes—as another official stated bluntly at the same hearing, "Mr. Li has money and lawyers."

In any case, if Chinese authorities ever had gone after Li in earnest, he would likely have tied their investigations into knots with his tricky business practices. In an ongoing game of whack-a-mole, nearly every time the US government puts one of Li's companies on its sanctions lists, it seems like he registers a new one. A look at Chinese commercial and tax databases suggests that when these companies are not held under Li's name—or one of his many aliases—they been held under the name of his presumed siblings, and even his deceased mother.

For now, Li most likely remains in Dalian, building his business empire and taking advantage of the limits of American power. Unless he decides to take a holiday in Miami—or starts testing missile components in Barbados, Gerald Bull–style—there is little that the United States can do to punish him. One Chinese official rather hopefully suggested to VICE that Li has fled to South America, where presumably he would be living the lifestyle of some sort of 1950s Nazi fugitive. Unfortunately for China, though, Li isn't a character from a Tom Clancy novel, and Beijing retains the responsibility to deal with him.

Li cannot escape justice forever. As his business interests get more expansive and more audacious he will continue to attract attention from authorities around the world. The past has a habit of eventually catching up with these serial proliferators—and some, like Gerald Bull, don't always see it coming.

Nick Gillard and Daniel Salisbury are researchers at King's College in London. Follow Nick and Daniel on Twitter.

How I Learned to Live with Sleep Paralysis and the Terror That Comes with It

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The author in his bed. Photos courtesy of the author.

Laying paralyzed in bed has been a regular facet of my nocturnal life since primary school. When it happens, I'm stuck somewhere between sleep and consciousness; it feels as if my brain is wide awake but, for some reason, I'm completely unable to move or speak. It takes all my strength to simply muster a few feeble whimpers. For a long, long time, I had no idea what it was, but now I know it's sleep paralysis.

Sleep paralysis is a condition that typically affects people who suffer from one of the various forms of narcolepsy, but it can also happen to anyone. The condition is characterized by the paralysis of one's limbs during the initial stages of sleep, and at times while one is waking. Episodes of sleep paralysis can include hallucinations—the most common of which being an eerie sensation that someone else is present in the room with you. According to Webmd.com, as many as four out of ten people have experienced or will experience sleep paralysis at least once in their lifetime.

Read: Rodney Ascher's new documentary on sleep paralysis will give you the creeps

I've never really discussed the issue with my parents but I feel it has had a genuine effect on my personality. As a child, I would sleep in my mom's room and if she heard me groan, she'd call my name, waking me immediately. It used to reassure me—as if I had a shield of sorts. As the years went by, I ended up categorically refusing to sleep alone in my room; I needed someone to be there with me.

Sleep paralysis always rears its head right as I'm about to doze off. I just lie there feeling paralyzed and as if some dark and blurry presence is hovering slowly above me. The shadow floats about and inexorably draws itself closer and closer to my body until I manage to shut my eyes. I sweat profusely but there's also an inexplicable air of coolness that has nothing to do with the actual temperature.

For me, the "intruder" manifests itself as a feminine presence—some sort of "dark lady"—but there's been a handful of times when I've perceived it as a masculine energy, too. It's like clockwork: I hear a strange sound and then she arrives. Her shadow begins to gradually increase in size, quite slowly at the beginning, then violently. The shape sits on my chest and refuses to remove itself until I feel completely numb. Several minutes later, I somehow externalize my fear and inexplicably regain my ability to move.


Related: Watch our documentary 'Stopping HIV with the Truvada Revolution'


I can't count the amount of times this has happened. I'd be lying if I said that I'd grown used to it, but I've managed to learn to live with it. It's like a mathematical equation that you're never quite capable of solving. As a kid, I used to think that this only happened to me, so I never really talked to anyone about it. It was only years later, as a teenager, that I began trawling the internet for answers and realized that I wasn't the only person to experience sleep paralysis.

Through my own research, I learned that the condition has had various names throughout different cultures. The Chinese call it gui ya chuang—which roughly translates to something like "the ghost in bed." In Muslim countries, it is often referred to as djinns, a type of mythological supernatural being. In Cambodia, where my family comes from, people often talk about the feeling of being crushed or of an evil presence. Throughout the Middle Ages, women-shaped demons—known as succubi—were said to seduce men in their sleep. These creatures were said to serve Lilith, the first wife of Adam, according to the Talmud and the Kabbalah.

The author as a child, in his room.

If I am to look logically at all of this, it's obvious that the more stressful my days are, the more agitated my nights will be. When I'm feeling confident and relaxed, I experience these sorts of disturbances much less.

I've also learned to tame my fear. These days, I try to look at the dark shape and communicate with it—I even get aggressive sometimes and start to insult it. I used to need a while to gather my wits so I could fall back asleep again, but now I just wait for the manifestation to disappear and then immediately drift off.

Still, I will always remember my teenage years—a time when the phenomenon took on terrible proportions and occupied a huge part of my life. One time, while sleeping in a shared room with friends the presence arrived again—only this time it was masculine. It might sound crazy, but I was convinced that it was going to rape me. I bolted up out of bed to see my friends staring at me with the most worried of looks. I tried to tell them what had happened but then just gave up. Explaining everything would have taken far too long.

Follow Mathieu on Twitter.

It Could Be Months Before We Know Why a Chinese-Owned Pipeline Burst in Alberta

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It Could Be Months Before We Know Why a Chinese-Owned Pipeline Burst in Alberta

VICE Vs Video Games: Photographing the People of Los Santos: A ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ Gallery

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All screen shots courtesy of the author, produced via the Rockstar Editor

With each sequel, Grand Theft Auto's imaginary cities grow ever more complex. In little over a decade we've gone from GTA III's blocky, low-polygon Liberty City to the sprawling, intricate metropolis of Los Santos in GTA V. The latter is the most lavish open-world city ever seen in a game: a dizzying, hand-crafted parody of Los Angeles that's packed with the kind of micro-detail only Rockstar's infinite budget will allow. Detail that many, if not most, players will have missed.

You're always moving in GTA, whether you're speeding through the streets in a sports car, sprinting between cover in a shootout, or buzzing the skyline in a helicopter. It moves past you in a blur: cars, people, signs, buildings. But if you stop and study your surroundings, and the faces of the people around you, you'll discover a whole new world of absurd, granular detail representing the toil of hundreds of artists. They may only be window dressing, and the unfortunate victims of countless hit-and-runs, but the citizens of Los Santos have a remarkable amount of personality.

Walk the sands of Vespucci Beach and you'll see muscle-heads flexing in front of unimpressed sunbathers. Downtown you'll pass homeless people rooting through the trash, their weary eyes and sallow, ragged faces painting a vivid picture of a hard life on the streets. Hooded figures lurk on the shadowy corners of South Los Santos, drinking liquor from brown bags and giving passing patrol cars the finger. Tourists waddle down Vinewood Boulevard, cameras slung around their necks. Starlets bray into phones about auditions. Dock workers mill around cargo ships, unloading containers and scribbling in clipboards. The sheer variety of life pulsing around you is staggering.

Los Santos is also an unflattering snapshot of contemporary city life. Assault someone on the street and passers by won't rush to help: they'll pull out their phones and snap photos. Everywhere you go people are entranced by glowing rectangles, tapping out text messages, taking selfies, and posting inane crap on social media. They sip coffee from cardboard cups, casually dropping them at their feet when they're finished, adding to the detritus that already litters the sidewalks. Frustrated drivers scream abuse and honk their horns at innocent pedestrians. It's a funhouse mirror reflecting the very worst of modern urban living. A sprawled-out, disconnected mass of total pricks.

On Motherboard: The Race to Mod 'GTA V'

The people of Los Santos were never designed to be seen up close, but using the PC version of GTA V's built-in Rockstar Editor, it's possible to examine them in detail. In doing so you realize just how many walks of life, ethnicities, body shapes, and personalities they've managed to represent. And their faces tell stories. When you see a vagrant shuffling down the street while playing the game, you don't pay them much attention. But zoom in with the editor and you see a surprising amount of texture in their face and a haunted look in their bloodshot eyes. Knowing how much time, money, and effort goes into the smallest details in a big-budget, multi-platform game like GTA, seeing this kind of thing makes you think about what a vast artistic achievement Los Santos really is. Some artist probably spent a week modeling and texturing this random NPC who most players will only briefly glimpse at.

Los Santos is a funhouse mirror reflecting the very worst of modern urban living. A sprawled-out, disconnected mass of total pricks.

It's even more impressive when you realize that the character models rarely repeat. I spent hours wandering crowded streets to take these portraits, and I hardly ever saw the same person twice. If I did, they had different clothes or hair. You can even interact with them by pressing right on the D-pad, and the reactions are often hilarious. I walked up to a downtown yuppie while playing as Franklin and said, "Yo, what's up?" He threw his coffee in the air, screamed, and ran away. I approached a group of gangbangers in South Los Santos as Trevor and insulted them, making them pull out their guns and start shooting at me. Every single NPC has a response to these interactions, which is yet another layer of insane detail Rockstar has squeezed into the game.


Related: Watch VICE's new documentary, 'ICEMAN'


The Grand Theft Auto series has been criticized for the lack of diversity in its main characters, but the denizens of Los Santos are probably among the most diverse, widely represented group of people in any game. It does veer a little too sharply into stereotype sometimes, but GTA has never been socially conscious, nor will it ever be. It is, after all, a game primarily about stealing cars and murdering people. Compared to the crass caricatures of the older games, Grand Theft Auto V seems almost progressive.

Rockstar has resources and money most developers can only dream of, which is why its worlds are infinitely more convincing and believable than other games. You might wonder what the point of all this intricate detail is, but then you see the relatively sterile, lifeless city of a game like Ubisoft's Watch Dogs and you realize how important it is to selling an urban setting. Even if you aren't consciously aware of the complexity of your surroundings in a GTA game, your brain is. All these tiny, seemingly insignificant details coalesce to create the illusion of a living city. That's why other open-world games seem so empty after playing Grand Theft Auto V. They feel like static film sets in comparison.

But they still have a long way to go. As busy and varied as Los Santos is, it's still only a vague approximation of a real city. To accurately recreate the dense, overpopulated urban landscapes of cities like LA and New York would require processing power way beyond what's possible on today's consoles and gaming PCs. Procedural generation may be a solution, generating pedestrians randomly rather than making them by hand as GTA's artists do. But then they wouldn't have as much personality as the people of Los Santos. Games may never fully capture the rich, wonderful medley of life that fills our cities, but if anyone's going to come close, it'll probably be Rockstar.

Say hi to Andy on Twitter and visit his website obsessed with beautiful game worlds, Other Places.

Narcomania: I Watched Former Drug Addicts Give a Reality Check to Schoolkids in London

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Some drugs. Photo by Jake Lewis.

Britain has the highest rate of cocaine use among school-age kids in Europe, the highest rates for early drunkenness, and higher than most rates for cannabis, ecstasy, and general addictive drug use.

The overall picture is in fact not as bad as it might sound—like most of the developed world, teenage drug use in the UK has been falling over the last 15 years, probably as a result of a mixture of wider factors. Parents are being better parents and teenagers are punching in their status updates at home instead of talking face to face while sniffing butane through shirt sleeves in the local park.

Nevertheless, it's still an issue and kids still need to be informed. Looking at the measly amount of drug education British schoolchildren get, you'd think there was no problem at all. Drug education has been battered by cuts over the last decade. The modern schoolkid will have had only an hour of basic, scientific drug facts or hoary old scare stories by the time they leave school at 16. Being educated about drugs in a personal, real-life context is not on the school curriculum.

This is where the Amy Winehouse Foundation (AWF) is trying to make a difference. Today marks the fourth anniversary of the sad death from alcohol poisoning of Amy Winehouse, aged 27. Apart from a back catalogue of amazing songs and a film about her, one of her legacies is the AWF—a Big Lottery funded charity set up by Amy's parents Mitch and Janis, two months after her death to educate young people, especially disadvantaged kids, about drugs and alcohol.


Watch Swansea Love Story—our film about a gang of young addicts in South Wales' largely ignored heroin epidemic:


Last week I went to a secondary school in Enfield, a racially diverse London borough with a mix of deprivation and affluence and a key flashpoint of the 2011 London riots, to see the AWF in action. Would Amy leave a legacy of decent drugs education, or would her Foundation just regurgitate the same old "Just Say No"–style scare stories that became popular in the 1980s and which to some extent are repeated by current anti-drug campaigns?

As I arrived, around 100 pupils aged 13 and 14 at this boy's grammar school, mainly black and Asian, were sat in their assembly hall in front of an image of Amy Winehouse on a projector screen. The school is a few streets from where Amy was brought up. These kids were nine or ten years old when she died, but they knew who she was.

Sue Coates, a woman in her forties from Enfield is one of AWF's coordinators. She asked the kids how you spot a drug addict. The first pupil to put his hand up said, "smells of urine." The next one said "stubble." It was at this point that Sue admitted she had been addicted to drugs, mainly alcohol and cocaine, for 25 years. "A drug addict is not just the person on the park bench, it could be anyone, including me."

Watch the ten best VICE documentaries about drugs

The pupils listened to Sue as she told them about how at their age she felt lost and lonely, with low self-esteem, an absent father and a brother who beat her up all the time. She did anything to get attention, such as stealing and getting pissed. "I didn't feel good about myself. When I took drugs I felt amazing and when I stopped I realized it was a false world, the pain was still there."

Harry Sumnall, professor in Substance Use at the Center for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University, describes drugs education as "patchy, really bad, with little relevance to young people's lives." Research has shown that knowledge of the bare facts about drugs does not really do much to help children's decision making, so the AWF's emphasis is all about talking through the emotional reasons why people become addicted to drugs.

Winehouse herself admitted in an interview shortly after overdosing on drugs in 2007 that her drug addiction had its roots in her teenage mental state. "Since I was 16, I've felt a black cloud hangs over me," she told German magazine Stern. "Since then, I have taken pills for depression. I believe there are lots of people who have these mood changes."

George, a 23-year-old guy from Essex, who is an AWF volunteer, spoke next. Just ten years older than them, George opened up to the rows of staring, uniformed school children. He got into drugs because of a mix of things, including a violent, alcoholic father, which left him petrified of school and uncomfortable in his own skin.

"I can remember the feeling like it was yesterday," said George. "I thought that everyone was better than me. I didn't know who I was. I tried to fit in, with the football boys, the cool kids, the smokers. I was desperate. I hurt other kids to feel better about myself."

George left school at 16 to work in a nightclub, where his addiction to drink and drugs continued until one day he realized he couldn't live like that any more. He turned to his father, who had got off drink and stopped hitting his wife, for help, ended up on a 12-step drug program and has been five years sober.

"Taking drugs gave me the same feeling as shoplifting, it took me out of myself, it took away the fear, stopped my stomach churning, so I carried on doing it. I didn't want to talk about why I was so unhappy with anyone, because then it would become real."

The kids were completely wrapped up in George's story. He was touching on fears and insecurities many teenagers have. They were genuinely concerned: Was he still in touch with his family? Is he still tempted to drink or take drugs? Worried about his friends who take drugs? Could he not have talked to a teacher?


We talked to the director of the new Amy Winehouse Documentary about her life and death:


Ex-drug users have been coming into schools to give talks for years, but what seemed to make this work was steering clear of dramatic, "descent into hell" stories. According to Harry Sumnall, "Sometimes you have ex-users talking about how they smoked some cannabis and before long they're injecting heroin and selling sex. Few young people can relate to this and in fact it can be counterproductive."

Sure, there is a bit of the workshop where Sue rehashes some hoary old myths about drugs containing "dog poo and rat poison" and people "putting heroin in cannabis to make it addictive," but it's only a momentary slip into scare-story territory.

A quick straw poll of the pupils revealed almost all of them had taken either tobacco or alcohol, a third knew someone who had taken or sold illegal drugs, but none of them admitted to having taken illegal drugs themselves. The official statistics show one in six 11 to 15-year-olds have taken drugs, but I don't blame them for not owning up. One of them seemed particularly clued up on the current purity of cocaine and rising popularity of codeine and Xanax.

What the AWF is doing is progress, but in today's confusing drug market of mystery white powders and pills, the need for older secondary school children to be given straight-up harm-reduction advice about safe drug use is more pressing than ever. It wasn't long ago that Tony Blair and the News of the World were calling on all schools to have sniffer dogs and subject their pupils to random drug tests. We've avoided that train wreck, but with social exclusion on the rise and families at breaking point because of austerity, now's the time for the government to firm up its drug education. Those most at risk need the knowledge and skills to avoid fucking their lives up with bad drugs decisions.

Follow Max on Twitter.

Help Make a Documentary About Persecuted Iranian Street Artists

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Help Make a Documentary About Persecuted Iranian Street Artists

‘It’s the New World Record’: Earthquakes Linked to Fracking Are Getting Stronger in Alberta

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‘It’s the New World Record’: Earthquakes Linked to Fracking Are Getting Stronger in Alberta

The Actor Who Played Jar Jar Binks Is Not Sorry

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Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks. Image via 2 Black Dudes trailer.

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Plucked from obscurity and thrown into a prominent role in arguably the most anticipated film of the 20th century, Ahmed Best was supposed to be Hollywood's next breakout star. If Best's name doesn't ring a bell, try the name of his character: Jar Jar Binks.

After the 1999 release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, critics and fans alike had strong reactions to the Jar Jar Binks character, to say the least. The lanky, seven-foot-tall orange Gungan spoke in what could only be described as some sort of Jamaican-esque patois. He was goofy. He was annoying. He was endearing—for children, some of them at least. He was also completely digitized, with Lucas and his team ditching makeup and prosthetics for All CGI Everything™. Best would be one of the first actors to really test the motion capture technology that actors such as Andy Serkis (a.k.a. Gollum) are making a career out of today. Jar Jar Binks was supposed to be the light-hearted source of comic relief for the audience, especially kids, just as like C-3PO and the Ewoks had done in previous films.

To put it mildly, this did not work.

Best's character would later go on to be described as "Rastafarian Stepin Fetchit" by the Wall Street Journal, become the inspiration for film critic Daniel Kimmel's book Jar Jar Binks Must Die, and inspire fans to create The Phantom Edit, in which the character's garbled dialect (allegedly modeled after the babytalk of one of Lucas's sons) was replaced with a subtitled alien language. To say the character flopped would be an understatement. To this day, Best still can't fathom that his work would lead him to be dubbed one of the most annoying movie characters of all time.

"To be 100 percent honest, none us, as we were shooting this, had any idea that anything like this was going to happen," Best tells me on the phone from LA. "At the end of the day, it is the movie business, and if the character doesn't work for the people who watch the movie then the character doesn't work. I can't take that personally."

In his mind, Best was taking on the role of a lifetime. A kid from the South Bronx obsessed with jazz and visual performance, he grew up a Star Wars fan. He calls Empire Strikes Back one of his favorite films, and is a disciple of the physical comedy of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. (He and Lucas would use the two silent film stars for the inspiration behind Jar Jar Binks's movements.)

The trailer for 2 Black Dudes, starring Best and J. Lee.

Best hasn't let that one role define him. An avid learner, he went back to school at the American Film Institute producer's program and found himself a new lane. From his outer space spoof The Nebula (in which he also stars) to his productions Bandwagon and This Can't Be My Life, Best's work on short film and TV is fucking hilarious. He and his comedic partner J. Lee have received network interest for their Seth MacFarlane executive-produced series 2 Black Dudes, due out this fall. Though he's not completely sure if the general public still sees the names "Ahmed Best" and "Jar Jar Binks" as interchangeable, the actor is more than ready to move on from the character. I talked to him about that process of moving on, as well as beating out Michael Jackson for the role and why the backlash against Jake Lloyd's take on Anakin Skywalker was far worse than anything he ever experienced.

VICE: Can you just walk me through that initial casting process for Jar Jar? Was it George Lucas who first approached you about the role?
Ahmed Best: Robin Gurland, who cast Star Wars, pulled me from [the Broadway play] Stomp because they were originally looking for movement for the character. I just embraced it so strongly and I embodied that show so much that when Robin saw me she immediately wanted an audition. I didn't meet George until my final callback, and it was like a motion-capture callback. This was before motion capture was a thing. They were still writing the software, and they didn't really know how it was going to work or if it was going to work. I was kind of the guinea pig for all of that. I met George at my motion-capture audition and he put me through a whole bunch of movements and paces, and then he just walked out the room [laughs]. I actually thought I fucked it up.

Why did you think you fucked up the audition?
Well, George is a very quiet person; he doesn't say much. I was doing all of these moves and George had a very specific idea in mind of how the character was supposed to go. He very much wanted him to be more of a Buster Keaton than anything else. I gave him a lot of stuff. I was really—still am—into martial arts and acrobatics, so in my mocap audition, I was doing backflips and high kicks. It was more like athletics and he kept trying to pull me back from being so athletic and being a lot more lanky and long and silly. I eventually picked it up at the end of the mocap audition and he was like, "OK," and walked out of the room [laughs]. It was my first motion picture audition, first motion picture test. I thought if I was going to get it I would have got it on that day. He didn't say anything, I went back on the road and then I got the call.

Best as Jar Jar. Screen Grab via 2 Black Dudes trailer.

In a Reddit interview, you mentioned that Michael Jackson originally wanted to play the role of Jar Jar Binks. Was that a joke?
That's what George told me. Me, Natalie Portman, and George's kids—we were at Wembley arena at Michael Jackson's concert. We were taken backstage and we met Michael. There was Michael and Lisa Marie [Presley]. George introduced me as "Jar Jar" and I was like, That's kind of weird. Michael was like, "Oh. OK." I thought, What is going on? After Michael had driven off, we all go back up to a big afterparty. I'm having a drink with George and I said, "Why did you introduce me as Jar Jar?" He said, "Well, Michael wanted to do the part but he wanted to do it in prosthetics and makeup like 'Thriller.'" George wanted to do it in CGI. My guess is ultimately Michael Jackson would have been bigger than the movie, and I don't think he wanted that.

What was the experience of researching and watching films with George Lucas like? What did you pick up on in those meetings?
At that time, I was so young, but I knew a lot about film because my father was a photographer and cameraman, so I grew up around a lot of movies and film. Both of my parents are cinephiles and audiophiles. I had seen a lot of Buster Keaton movies growing up and was a huge fan. I was also a huge fan of Charlie Chaplin. Anybody who can communicate a message without speaking is incredible to me. And that influenced me; Stomp as well. When I was sitting down with George watching movies and coming up with moves and motivation for the scenes it felt like something I had been doing my whole life. [George] is such an astute film historian that there were so many times where I just sat and listened. I like to say George was my undergrad degree. Some days I would ride to work with him and it would be the same thing, and he was very comfortable with me to where he'd give me a bunch of information and be very open with me. On my days off I would go on set and sit behind him and watch him do what he does just to watch somebody manage that many people with so much to do that day. It's incredible to see.

When was the first time you can remember being genuinely hurt by the negative reactions to Jar Jar Binks?
It didn't happen until the New York press junkets. The first person who kind of gave me an idea of where it was going was a writer from The New York Post. I didn't really think much about it because I always felt like the The New York Post was a paper that fed off of that type of energy, that type of negativity. Growing up in New York you know which papers give you the news and which papers give you the gossip and the Post was definitely heavier on the gossip side than anything else. But I was really surprised that everyone picked up on that afterwards. It's a very American thing to take somebody down when they're at the top and a lot if it had to with that; people really wanted to see George crash and burn. Unfortunately, this character was so new, so experimental; he became a lightning rod for all that. It was me, and it was [original Anakin Skywalker] Jake Lloyd who took a lot of the heat for the movie. Fortunately, I was in my 20s. I wasn't eight years-old like Jake, who I think took it worse. Jake had it far worse than me. I'm a 20-year-old from from the Bronx; I've seen and I've done things that were a lot harder than criticism in that newspaper. Although it hurt me emotionally and it was hard to take at the time, it wasn't debilitating for me. I just put my shoes on and went back to work. But Jake had a difficult time.

Did you find yourself ever having to jump in and defend him like a big brother?
I did. Earlier I did. Say what you want to say, but leave the kid alone, let him grow up. The amount of vitriol he took as an eight-year-old was just wrong, and it affected him.

Did you or do you still feel like that partially comes with the added pressure of being part of a major film franchise? To play devil's advocate, isn't that just par for the course, living or not living up to fan and media hype?
There's always going to be somebody who tries to poke holes in what this thing is because everybody has their own, personal, individual idea of what this should be, and rightfully so. That's the testament and mark of a great story, where everybody can take on the stories personally. So, because it's so large it's going to get that type of criticism—there's no way around it. That's just the nature of the beast. What hurts is when people try to attack the actors personally. At the end of the day we have very little to do with what the movie looks like, feels like, sounds like. All we're trying to do is our best work and more of it. We're trying to get the director's vision on the screen so that the director is happy, and we can move on and do another project. So, when folks were holding Jake accountable for final decisions that George made it was just completely unfair. No one really understands—outside of the movie industry—how these things are made, and it's a miracle that any of them get made. When criticism like that affects the future of an actor when has a very little control over what's going on on the screen, that's when it gets tough.

When did it get especially nasty for you? When did someone take it too far?
I think people are smart enough when they meet me to not go too far because I am who I am and I come from where I come from. At the end of the day, acting is fun but I will knock you the fuck out if you step out of line. That's just where I come from. Respect is a big deal. I wasn't always a happy-go-lucky filmmaker; I was the kid on the streets for a minute [laughs]. My folks were smart enough to pull me out, so I know what the streets look like and that's still in there a little bit. I think people are smart enough to know not to go there with me.

Recently, you put up an instagram post that suggested Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones was going to be called Jar's Jar's Big Adventure. Can you elaborate, please?
[Laughs] That was the first script that we all got when we go to Sydney. It was [George's] joke because he knew it going to leak to the press. That was George's kind of middle finger to the whole, "everybody hates Jar Jar" thing.


Related: Watch our documentary on the two kids who remade Indiana Jones



The character did seem to fade out of the picture as the series carried on. You've said before there was a scene cut from Revenge of the Sith, but that ultimately Jar Jar's narrative didn't fit into the larger fabric of the entire story. Did you really believe that or did you feel like the negative response to the character might've had more do with his role shrinking?
I think it's a little bit of both. At the end of the day it is the movie business, and if the character doesn't work for the people who watch the movie then the character doesn't work. I can't take that personally. It's up to the filmmaker to make sure that not only does the film work for the filmmaker but it also works for the audience. So, because he wasn't fan favorite, I can understand why he was scaled back. And, narratively, they moved on to something else. There's really no room in Revenge of the Sith for him; that was a very dark story. There was nothing about it that needed to be comedic, which was Jar Jar's whole purpose. Jar Jar's whole purpose was to bring light and levity. By that time, there was none.

Joe Morganstern of the Wall Street Journal referred to your character as a "Rastafarian Stepen Fetchit." He wasn't alone in calling foul over the potential racial implications of Jar Jar. As someone who is very much conscious of being black in mass media, how did you take that?
It just further underscores the ignorance and the blind unrealness of dealing with racism in this country. The lack of education and the lack of exposure to what actually is racist to non-black folks is abysmal. For anyone to say that is offensive because it shows the ignorance of not knowing what a Rastafarian is and not having proper education and knowledge of what minstrelsy was in the time of vaudeville, Butterfly McQueen, and Stepen Fetchit. They really don't know what those roles were and why those roles were.

I think that ignorance and that lack of education that's pervasive in this country not only allows criticism like that to be actually voiced without any type of proof. It also allows what goes on in modern filmmaking as far as [limited] roles for black people—black people have experiences other than the jail- and gang-related [stories] being shown in movies today. They don't believe that black actors, specifically black American actors, have enough depth to try these other roles and it has turned into the outsourcing of an incredible amount of American talent. The top black actors in the world right now are both British. And they're the only ones being allowed to play these roles that have a lot more depth and gravitas. There's nothing wrong with playing a brother in jail as long as there's a lot more to the character than, "I kill people and I'm black." So, [Morganstern's] criticism underscores that lack of intelligence and original ideas in folks who try to understand the black experience in entertainment.

Ahmed Best today. Photo by Luigi Novi. Image via Wiki Commons.

Switching gears a bit here, do you agree with the argument that mocap actors like Andy Serkis should be up for the top acting awards at the Oscars?
It's very difficult to say that a motion capture performance is purely an individual acting performance. It's a symbiotic relationship between the animators, the software designers, and the actor. I think each one informs the other, and I think to have one without the other does a disservice to all of the software developers and all of the animators who actually bring that thing to life. In terms of Gollum from Lord of the Rings, that character already existed in books and Andy really brought a performance to it that only he could, but Andy was not three-foot-two, Andy does not have huge, gawking eyes, so it was a symbiotic relationship. If you're going put a category in the Academy Awards I don't think you can have it just as just an actor award or just a technology award. It has to be some sort of amalgamation of the two.

Do you feel like maybe the timing of the technology was to blame for some of Jar Jar's backlash? You guys were literally experimenting with this new software on the spot. Do you think if a character like Jar Jar, with today's technology, was introduced he'd be met with a warmer reception?
Well, the first one out of the gate is always the bloodiest. That's a very difficult question to answer. I know I'd probably have more of a career if Jar Jar came out now. It was very difficult, at the beginning, for me to explain exactly what I do. No one really believed that I as an actor could bring this thing to life; they thought it was more the power of Industrial Light and Magic animators. So, I was on the other side of the Andy argument. Everybody thinks Andy brings the character to life and then the animators just come along. When I was in it, everybody thought the animators brought the character to life and I was just a model. Now, you can be a motion capture actor and have a career. Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis together really pioneered that thing. Peter Jackson made sure that everyone knew there was an actor behind Gollum. I don't think that Lucasfilm understood that at the time because everything was just so new.

Speaking of new, you said haven't spoken to J.J. Abrams about the Star Wars: The Force Awakens, correct?
Nope. Nor would I, really.

Abrams recently joked that he wanted to include you in the film, possibly a shot of your bones lying in the sand. If he did reach out what you be at all interested?
No, I'm good. I had my experience, I did my thing. Now, it's for a brand new generation. It's for John Boyega [one of the stars of The Force Awakens]. I'm done with it. I've really resolved myself to being done. I'm OK with that.

Do you feel like you've reached a point to where people no longer associate the name Ahmed Best with Jar Jar Binks? Career-wise, have you been able to move on?
I don't know. I don't know. That's a good question. We'll see.

Gavin Godfrey is a writer living in Atlanta. He's on Twitter.

We Remember When We Were Excited for the Euro

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All the money via

The early noughties—what a chill time to be European. Most of us were tiny, Afroman's "Because I Got High" was in heavy rotation, and everybody seemed genuinely relieved that the millennium bug hadn't eradicated us all.

The noughties was also the decade that a single European currency came into play. The euro was a ballsy financial initiative that was met with equal amounts of excitement and skepticism from the proud people of Europe. Most were excited about the idea of a new currency which would unite us and protect us against exterior economic evils. Some were skeptical that the whole thing would go tits up and end in a shit-show of countries blaming each other for economic depression. Sadly, at the moment, one seems to have been more true than the other.

Might it be time to admit to ourselves that the whole thing may very well have been a bit of a flop? We asked our European offices to take a moment to remember a happier time—when the euro didn't just mean doom and gloom. It mostly meant chocolate, free calculators, and embarrassingly naive marketing campaigns.

Ireland

The Euro implementation period was a confusing time for Ireland. On the one hand, we were all happy about the fact that we wouldn't lose money to evil exchange rates, whilst preparing to irreparably scorch our pasty bodies in Mallorca. On the flip side, we were petrified of being robbed of our national identity. Which tricks did the evil European Union have up their sleeves this time around? We'd all heard about them attempting to outlaw curved bananas and fireman's poles.

Having never been a real winner at math, my main concerns centered around £1 all of a sudden becoming 1.27 euros. Would I have to pay more for a Mars bar just because I had the same coin as some lad on the continent? If so, why? All of the initial fretfulness quickly dissolved as soon as we held the coins in our hand for the first time and realized that the two euro piece basically made Sweden and Finland look like a massive penis attempting to terrorize the rest of Europe.

We were, however, lucky enough to be presented with an ad where Kian from Westlife explained the whole concept to us while fidgeting with a CD-case. The short itself is so retro that it's basically the infomercial equivalent of a minidisc.

These days, I am not particularly pumped about the euro. Given that the Eurozone seems to jump at every opportunity to label people moochers as soon as they fall on hard times, it's difficult to feel that unity that the currency initially promised. There's no point of us all "being in it together," if it's only for the good times now is there? That's something the Irish know all too well.

- IAN MOORE

Netherlands

In the year 2000, the marketing team that was handed the—at that point still honorable—task of bringing the euro to the Dutch people developed a handy little acronym to help us remember the countries that would adopt the currency: DING FLOF BIPS, which roughly translates into THING FLOF BUM. A phrase that obviously makes absolutely no sense.

The government campaign to publicize the acronym was both intense and highly effective. However incredibly silly those three words were, if you lived in the country at the time, you'll remember them. The commercial was everywhere: Kids would even play a game to see who could name the countries the fastest.

Later on, when we actually got the euro and more countries started introducing it, DING FLOF BIPS wasn't really relevant anymore. In 2011, almost two years into the euro crisis, the Dutch Language Society thought it was appropriate to let the Dutch vote on a new euro anagram. The options included COBI'S SMS: PIN FF GELD [which translates into COBI'S SMS: PLZ PIN CASH]; SMS DING FLOF BICEPS [figure that one out for yourself]; CD, GSM OF FLES IN BIPS [CD, GSM OR BOTTLE IN BUM] and BEGIN SF-FILMS OP CD'S ['START SF-MOVIES ON CD'S']. With 26 percent of the vote, SMS FF BONDIGE CLIPS [PLZ TEXT CONCISE CLIPS] was declared the winner.

Obviously, by the time this was put into place, no one could have cared less about anagrams.

- WIEGERTJE POSTMA

Italy

Back in 2002, Italy was pissing itself with excitement for the euro. Probably because our currency had always been weak compared to the other European ones. Italians hoped for some kind of redemption in a shared economic bond with our neighbors.

One of the memories that sticks out for me is my granny's anxiety about it. Having to change her entire financial world was terrifying for her. Thankfully, Berlusconi took a moment off figuring out what a bunga bunga party would cost in the new currency and sent us all a shoddy "euro converter"—a blue and yellow mathematical contraption that cost nowhere remotely near a euro to construct. I remember my grandmother cautiously fiddling with it for a moment and then stashing it away in her drawer with the same care you'd afford a precious heirloom. I think she was convinced it would save her life one day.

The government also produced a very strange advert that featured three old men laughing and having a great time discussing the euro exchange rate. I think the vibe they were going for was: "If these old people can wrap their heads around it, then why can't you?"

Personally, I think the euro has been good for Italy. A lot of people are blaming it for both the Italian economic situation and for their own financial woes, but they should really just blame the economic crisis. Without the euro things could've been much worse.

- MATTIA SALVIA


VICE meets Wim Hof, aka ICEMAN, a guy immune to the cold:


Austria

My attitude towards money was pretty relaxed when the euro was implemented. Probably because I was 10 and couldn't have cared less about it. I remember myself and my classmates enthusiastically collecting coins from various different countries—I wonder how many years it took before those collections were spent on cheap Stella and johnnies.

My parents gave me the starter pack that had one of each of the currency's denominations in it. They said that it might become something special one day. Judging by the financial crises we've seen, they might be right. Back then, everyone seemed obsessed with the idea of going abroad and buying random stuff simply to use this new currency. That was the purpose of the euro and, in retrospect, it was a cute one. Personally, I still love the currency, as well as the idea of a united Europe and I have zero interest in returning to the old Schilling.

- THOMAS HOISL

Germany

The euro wasn't that big a deal for most of us though the prospect of traveling and not arriving home with pockets full of useless coins was pretty exciting. We'd no longer have to cue up to exchange money. That said, traveling to previously cheap countries, like Greece, wasn't quite as fun as it had been. You could no longer, financially speaking, make it rain in the same way you used to be able to.

To avert our attention, the German government produced a pro-euro video that depicted just how multi-cultural the currency was going to be by showing a scantily-clad woman playing a violin in some poorly animated ancient Greek ruins and an Irish kid playing a flute in a meadow. The video climaxes with a single euro coin flying into what looks like the world's shittiest rooftop gak-fest.

Some people were really excited about all of this. For those with a massive interest in the new-fangled currency, 'starter kits' were the ultimate collectables. Thirteen years on, those starter kits don't quite spark the same naive enthusiasm that they used to and these days, it's quite easy to spot some of the euro's more obvious failures. The currency may have meant slightly more expensive sausages for Germany but it meant prices skyrocketed for the Greeks. We should take responsibility as the drivers of the European ideal. You can't just start something that big, only to spend all your time fucking it up from the inside.

- BARBARA DABROWSKA

France

Right before the introduction of the euro, my brother came home from work with this small basket he'd been given at work. In the basket was 15 euros (roughly 100 Francs) in various denominations that had cleverly been arranged as a bouquet. I thought the currency was beautiful but as an 11-year-old, my main concern was whether the price of my favorite magazines and sweets would suffer from inflation. That and the tragic disappearance of the awesome 50 Franc banknote that featured both The Little Prince and a snake ingesting an elephant.

I was a bit too immature to care about the glorious era of European strength we were supposed to be entering, but I did love the euro chocolates that I was given at Christmas—which were way bigger than the stupid Francs ones. Everyone around me seemed joyful too, despite the fact they sometimes had to do quick calculations at the cashier desk. The most enthusiastic person in France though had to be the woman chanting in this French advert ("Calculating in Francs is not a difficult thing, but it's more beautiful to calculate in euros" ♪). Not too sure what that was based on, but it certainly wasn't catchy.

- JULIE LE BARON

Spain

I have a strangely good memory when it comes to stupid things. I clearly remember the first time I withdrew euros from a cashpoint: It was the January 1, 2002 and I was pretty excited about having a new currency. I am perfectly aware of how stupid that sounds in 2015, but I felt as if we were living in a historic moment—a step towards a bigger, stronger and more united Europe. But now, with all the suffering that the euro has caused my country, I feel a bit embarrassed to be saying these things.

It is kind of sad to watch the old advertising campaign that the government crafted to convince us that the euro was the greatest thing in the world. The ad was based around the most typical Spanish family you could imagine, "Los García." They danced and sang as if they were in some stupid musical. "The euro gives us stability," say the three old men before starting to tap dance. The video is full of the same unjustified happiness that led us to the economic crisis years later. I bet a lot of Garcías were evicted during that period. It's hard to remember exactly why we were so excited about it all, and, these days, looking at that ad is more sad than it is funny.

This week, I walked by that very same ATM that I withdrew my first euros from. The bank that owned it has gone bankrupt and the branch is now up for rent.

- JUANJO VILLALBA

Greece

Watching this Greek ad from 2000, I can't help but wonder what's happened to the little girl holding the giant Euro coin. She can't have been much younger than me at the time, so our experience of the last month probably hasn't been too different: I wonder if her dad upped the dosage of his blood pressure pills in the run up to the Greek referendum, if her grandma had to queue outside a bank for hours in the 32-degree heat, or if she has been able to concentrate at work at all. How is she keeping it together after doing nothing but watch the news for three weeks? I wonder if she's even felt like hearing or talking about anything other than Greece's likely bankruptcy.

"A powerful currency means a certain future," comes the ad voice-over, like a slap in the face. I wonder if that little girl has also woken up every morning of July so far uncertain of what the day ahead would hold. I wonder if she currently feels scared, embarrassed, paranoid, or guilty.

The truth is it's impossible to describe what the past month has been like for Greeks with facts and figures alone. The best comparison I can come up with is that of a relationship that's hit a rocky patch: Europe is the boyfriend you fell hard for, but who's been a bit of an asshole for much too long. Greece is the once-exciting girlfriend who's become impossible to read—is she eccentric, or just insane?

"Our common currency is as stable as the European Union," intones a voice in the ad, and it starts to feel like the kind of love letters that get sent when people first start going out. Looking back on it now makes no sense, so I guess there's little use in analyzing it. I just hope that girl has a hot boyfriend who's nice to her.

- ELEKTRA KOTSONI

Comics: Baby Teeth

VICE Vs Video Games: The ‘Dota 2’ International Has Become Too Big for eSports' Long-Term Health

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Here is a man getting angry, or maybe incredibly happy, in the company of an eSport. All images via Valve

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Seventeen million dollars is a hell of a lot of money. With that kind of cash, you could buy Calvin Klein's Miami home, or even bribe FIFA to secure the World Cup Finals for your home country and have change left over. But $17 million ($17.2M at the last count, actually) isn't just some random number—it's the current total prize pool for what has become the world's biggest eSports tournament in terms of money on offer, The International 5.

Sixteen of the best Dota 2 teams in the world will compete at Seattle's KeyArena, from August 3 'til August 8, for a total sum of money that's bigger than last year's pool by over six million dollars. And it's simply too much. The winners will walk away with over six million to share between five players and the wider team they represent, which is great for them, and could set them for life assuming they don't start taking a shine to solid-gold gaming peripherals. But for the teams that don't finish at the top end of the table, it's a very different story.

The Newbee team wins 2014's International, bagging a shield and a shit load of money.

At The International 4 last year both Arrow Gaming and Na'Vi North America walked away with no prize money whatsoever after finishing in the bottom two. Both teams have since disbanded with a couple of players leaving competitive play for good. To put it bluntly, a bad performance at The International can literally end a career, whether it's through the choice of the player not wanting to play in such a high-stakes environment or because they can't get into a team after showing themselves up at the biggest event in the Dota calendar.

As a result players and teams focus so hard on The International that the overall competitive Dota scene suffers. Since the conclusion of ESL One Frankfurt in June there has been almost no top-level competitive Dota as teams are practicing in private boot camps in preparation of The International. While this is understandable, it's to the detriment of the fans, who've had nothing to watch for a month now.

This is basically what the KeyArena is going to look like during The International.

This is the exact opposite of traditional sports, such as soccer, where the last month of the season is nonstop with the end of the Premier League swiftly followed by the FA Cup and Champions League finals. Imagine if once the Premiership was done there was practically no top-tier soccer until a month later. It's unthinkable, yet this is what us Dota fans have to put up with every year.

Even the tournaments that do try to have high-level competition during this unwanted "off-season" struggle as teams regularly pull out of events in order to focus on The International. Team Secret, one of the favorites to leave Seattle with the Aegis of Champions, pulled out of Dota Pit Season 3 a few weeks ago, despite being just four games away from taking the lion's share of the 34th biggest prize pool in eSports history. When teams would rather pass up winning up to $126,000 in order to focus on winning a tournament that is still a month away, you know there is a problem.


Related: Watch VICE's documentary on eSports, in which we go to the 'LoL' World Finals


It's no secret that League of Legends is considerably bigger than Dota 2. LoL regularly boasts over 27 million daily players, while Dota 2 can only manage 11 million in a month; but the prize pool at the end of the LoL season is miniscule compared to that of The International. Last year's League of Legends World Champions Samsung White took home $1 million, while the total prize pool was $2.13 million. Compare that to this year's International and there's quite clearly a massive divide between the potential fortunes to be made in each discipline.

The imbalance isn't without reasons, though. For one thing, League of Legends makers Riot support LoL teams across the LCS season, effectively offering salaries to players directly, which may add up to a greater spend in total than The International's prize pool. Secondly, Riot wants to keep every aspect of League of Legends sustainable for years to come, and make sure that the eSports side of things keeps growing—the same is impossible to guarantee with the crowd funding model that the Valve Corporation has employed for Dota 2.

Call these guys geeks if you want, but they can probably buy you.

When the prize pool for a future International fails to break the total of the previous year, it'll be considered a disaster, and could signal the beginning of the end for competitive Dota. But as of right now that shows no sign of happening—the rewards for being amongst the Dota 2 elite massively surpass those in any other eSport. Take Counter Strike: Global Offensive for example. Each of its majors features a $250,000 prize pool, and these are the biggest events in the game's calendar. If you tell someone who has a passing interest in eSports that there is this amazing tournament happening, but its prize pool is 66 times smaller than that of the International, they are going to probably ignore you and the competition in question.

Over at VICE Sports: BattleBots Is Sports All Right, and It's Amazing

While $17 million (and growing) is a phenomenal amount for an eSports tournament, especially when you consider where eSports was just five years ago, it is a warning that The International has become too big, too quickly. This is growth reminiscent of the dot-com boom, and we all know how that went. If something isn't done to cap The International's prize pool, we can expect a broken eSports scene before we know it, one that places too much pressure on a single event and makes every other competitive game look pointless by comparison. I don't know about you, but personally I can't think of anything worse.

Follow Mike Stubbsy on Twitter.

This Lawsuit Claims Canada Has Been Abusing Mentally Ill Prisoners

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This Lawsuit Claims Canada Has Been Abusing Mentally Ill Prisoners

What Does the UK Know About the Mysterious Plane Crash That Killed a UN Secretary-General?

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What Does the UK Know About the Mysterious Plane Crash That Killed a UN Secretary-General?

Can Ross Patterson's 'Romance Novel for Dudes' Fix America's Masculinity Problem?

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Photos byJared Taylor. All photoscourtesy of Regan Arts

The 21st century has seen a rapid shift in the way we conceptualize gender and sexuality. As traditional roles have mutated and disappeared, both feminists and antifeminists have highlighted a so-called death of masculinity. Antifeminists and Men's Rights Activists have accused feminism of killing masculinity (ignoring that women continue to make less than men and face sexual violence on college campuses and...). On the flip side, some feminists have pontificated about " the end of men ."

Either way, something has happened to American males—and independent actor and director Ross Patterson believes he knows the problem's unlikely solution: his new "romance novel for dudes" called At Night She Cries While He Rides His Steed.

The book chronicles the adventures of Saint James Street James, a Gold Rush–era cowboy who miraculously triples his life expectancy and lives all the way from the 1800s to 2014. Over the course of 186 years, St. James plays with dynamite, participates in bukkake, and contracts AIDS—twice. (He survives the virus because, as James puts it in the book, "You can [beat AIDS] when you're rich, and I am really fucking rich. The only other way to beat AIDS is to win the Olympics. Go ask Magic Johnson or Greg Louganis if you don't believe me.") Chapter titles include "When One Door Closes, Another Person Is Probably Fucking Behind It" and "Drugs Are Fucking Awesome, and Everyone Wants Them."

In the book, Patterson, who was in the Kappa Sigma fraternity at Ohio State according to his Wikipedia page, attempts to reconfigure masculinity's definition as men being in control of their lives and move the concept away from its history of pillaging villages and ruining women. Some may argue he's making excuses for the book's offensive jokes, which many would definitely call sexist, but Patterson maintains the book doesn't present his sexual fantasies or a reality he hopes enters present day America. He sees his romance novel as escapism for his readers. Although he doesn't want people to copy Saint James Street James's actions, he wants the book to inspire men the same way erotica could make a woman feel more sexually adventurous; just because you read an incest novel doesn't mean you want to fuck your brother. In a phone call, Patterson argued he wants men and women to be equal; he just wants straight men to be more like gay men, whom he says he sees speaking their minds and having control of their lives, while embarrassing straight men complain about how their successful wives emasculate them.

It helps his argument that women have been championing the book throughout the entire publication process. Judith Regan's new Regan Arts company published the novel, where Alexis Gargagliano works as the publisher's executive editor, and a woman, Lara Kleinschmidt, edited Patterson's manuscript.

To Kleinschmidt, At Night She Cries While He Rides His Steed is refreshing in its brashness. "Aside from being over-the-top hilarious, Ross has written a book that, to me, feels important," Kleinschmidt said in an email. "We live in a culture where the first response is to take offense to something. You can't read an article, turn on the TV, or even have a simple conversation without someone talking about how offended they are. Comedians face this hurdle all the time. It seems like most topics have become too sensitive to joke about. I think that's bullshit. So does Ross."

I called Patterson to find out more about why he wrote the book, whether it is rightfully offensive, and if a romance novel could actually change men.

VICE: What made you decide to write a romance novel for men?
Ross Patterson: I was on a press tour for a movie called FDR: American Badass— which if you haven't seen, it's a masterpiece. There was a character I did named Saint James Street James from another film, and every single press article I was doing, [every journalist] was asking me to read excerpts of 50 Shades of Grey as Saint James Street James. So I finally was like, "Man, has anyone ever written a romance novel for dudes?" Once [I saw] nobody had, I was like, "I'm going to do that right now."

Did you like 50 Shades of Grey?
I did read 50 Shades of Grey. For women it's about the buildup, it's about the intimacy, it's about the light kissing. The element of excitement and the element of danger. Whereas for men, it's a completely different sensation, where you're just like, "Awesome, that girl or guy—whatever you're into—is hot. Let's just get down to it. "

Is there romance in the book?
Is there romance in the book? Yes. Is there sex? You bet. Is there a lot of hardcore fucking? Of course there is. It kind of goes through what a guy thinks about during the different stages of romance and sex itself.

Why did you decide to write this book, a romance novel for men, right now?
I just think it's time. The way the culture is going... I don't want to say pussification, but it's complete pussification right now. There's nothing for men, there's nothing for dudes anymore. You're frowned upon for eating a steak. I don't wear glasses with no prescription in them. Why would I fake a disability just to look trendy? I don't get it.

Some people may interpret that as you wanting a return to the days when women stayed at home and cooked—for years that's what masculinity was about. How would you define masculinity?
Being in charge with everything in your life and also the way you present yourself and the way you talk to people. I look at my [gay] cousin's husband, and it's like he's... I saw him build half a house. [That's something] that most of my friends couldn't do. You know? You would think of gay men as, oh, they're polite and effeminate, and it's not the case. And look, it's a cool thing to see. Plus, let's be honest, the gays are the best to party with. Of all time. I think the culture has shifted that much that like gay is the new masculinity.

Has it gotten too politically correct? Is that what this fantasy world is about?
Yeah, 100 percent. I was a fan of Richard Pryor and George Carlin, and now every single person is so quick to jump on everything and say, "Oh my God, that's not PC, that's not PC, that's not PC!" It's just to make a statement, or just to make noise, or just to get notice for themselves. If we [have to] worry about every single thing that every single person thinks, it's just going to be bullshit at the end of the day—and there's going to be nothing exciting to read anymore or watch anymore. I don't want be part of that society.

In your author photo, the book describes you as Saint James Street James. Why did you decide to write the book as Saint James Street James?
I did want it to be a fictional character of somebody that people could root for and go along with—the character is so deplorable that I think if that was me in real life as a person people would just hate me. [It's] like an Eastbound & Down type of vibe, where you absolutely hate [Kenny Powers]. He does the worst things on the planet, but you're like, "He's doing it, not me or not a real person, and I can go along with it." You feel like you're along for the ride, rather than [with] somebody like Tucker Max, where [people] read his book and hate him after that. They're like, "Jesus, that guy was a fucking asshole."

At the same time, masculinity has had very bad effects on society in the past— violence against women, homophobia. Can masculinity exist without all the bullshit that comes with it?
My cousin's gay. He's married to the manliest man I've ever met. I think gay men are the ones that are the most masculine right now. If you ask me, I think Andy Cohen himself is arguably one of the most powerful people, and when you see him in interviews, he's more manly than everybody else.

Mitchell Sunderland is the managing editor of Broadly. Follow him on Twitter.


I Went To Atomic Lollipop To Bathe In The Canadian Nostalgia Known As Prozzak

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Border Patrol Union Pulls Out of Donald Trump Events Ahead of Visit

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The VICE Guide to Right Now: Is There a Lion on the Loose in Milwaukee?

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On Monday, a woman claimed that she had video on her phone of a lion wandering around the north side of Milwaukee, which sounds crazy, right? But then, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn notified the public that officers were indeed on the look out for a "lion-ish creature" and everyone FREAKED OUT.

There were hashtags, there were (sigh) parody Twitter accounts, there was a comment from Flynn about how it was "theoretically possible" that a wild cat of some sort had wandered into the city from elsewhere in Wisconsin.

But while most people confined themselves to jokes on Twitter and/or quiet desperation, one man took matters into his own hands and fired a gun at what he thought was the notorious feline but was in fact only a pit bull. The Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission took in the injured dog, and told the local news it was recovering from a fractured leg.

An MADACC representative told Fox 6, "Obviously the person who shot this thought they shot a lion. People tend to be amped up or afraid."

Yesterday Alderwoman Milele A. Coggs reminded everyone that a lion—or even a "lion-ish creature"—is no laughing matter.

The joking social media posts have been entertaining during these past few days, but again I urge caution until police are able to clear the case. Please call 9-1-1 immediately if you see the animal.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

VICE Vs Video Games: The Classic Game ‘Streets of Rage 2’ Will Never Get Old

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You'll never see this particular screen in the game, but you will smack all of these 'boss'-level enemies in their dumb faces, over and over

Ask me what my favorite game is, any time of day, after any number of drinks, and the answer will usually be Streets of Rage 2. Usually because sometimes I wake up cranky, or come home crankier, and all I want to do is play OutRun 2. But for the most part, pin me against any shop front or pulling-away bus and demand to know what game I'd take with me when I go, and that's my reply: Streets of Rage 2, SEGA's bright-like-neon beat 'em up of 1992, originally on the Mega Drive (that's the Genesis to Americans) and since ported to just about every bloody system under this sun that will one day swallow us all.

The problem with having a favorite game, against a movie or record or book, is that this medium is dictated by technology like no other. It's entertainment driven by mechanics, behind-the-scenes processes and mathematics, while time-resistant narrative quality comprises a secondary concern for many players and makers alike. Those pseudo-3D Mode 7 graphics of F-Zero on the SNES looked amazing in the early 1990s, but look at them today and, hmm, not so much. F-Zero's still a speedy delight, the lead title of a franchise long overdue a revival, but it's got nothing on the sumptuous sights and sounds of something like Mario Kart 8. Given a choice in 2015, between playing a 16-bit classic and a contemporary equivalent, most gamers would surely go for the latter.

So when I say Streets of Rage 2 is my favorite game of all time, that's as much informed by my memories of playing it in the early 1990s than any methodological measuring of its qualities beside the thousands of other titles I've sat down with since. Would I rather play it right now, over The Witcher 3, Dying Light, Rocket League, LEGO Jurassic World or any other games still cluttering the area around my consoles and their dashboards? I put that to the test two ways.

Firstly, I left my 360 edition of the Mega Drive Ultimate Collection just lying around in my living room, beside the current-gen options. It's got Streets of Rage 2 on it, as well as the original game and the series' under-loved but still pretty solid third installment. (A boxing kangaroo! A cyborg geriatric scientist! A not-at-all-offensive-even-for-1994 homosexual character who's more depressing stereotype than he is digital skin and bones! Honestly, I don't know why this game's popularity stalled compared to its predecessors.) It takes me a while to get around to it, but eventually in the disc goes, and I'm right back there, smacking down returning crime lord Mr X's goons as Axel and Blaze, side-scrolling and fly-kicking my way through to victory and the salvation of our pal, the kidnapped Adam.

The only disconnects between the experience today and my memories of the Mega Drive era are my 360 pad's sticky B button and the massive brickwork frame surrounding the original 4:3 display. Otherwise, the feelings are the same. It's not like I haven't played Streets of Rage 2 since the time when I bought most of my clothes from Makro, as I did get this Ultimate Collection for a reason, and it wasn't to remind myself of the questionable thrills to be found in Altered Beast and Flicky. But it's been a long time, with the 360 barely being on at all since the PS4 became my console of choice (for everything that isn't Nintendo, at least). And yet this game's class shines clearly through its crisp yet aged looks. It's a phenomenal little fighter, each playable character given their own special moves – some of which chip away at your health bar, so need to be used sparingly – and a great amount of variety in enemy types, even if they are regularly repeating by the sixth stage of eight.

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And it looks even better in its most recent port, for the 3DS, released as part of Japanese developer M2's series of 3D conversions of SEGA classics for the handheld system. It comes after a cracking version of Out Run, released earlier in 2015 (and featured on VICE Gaming here), as well as Sonic the Hedgehog, Shinobi III, Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone II, all of which are terrific (and cheap!) additions to the Nintendo eShop.

"It's hard to say which of these titles is our favorite, as we've enjoyed working on every one," says M2 president Naoki Horii, who kindly answers a bunch of questions I compile for him (and his translator). "But, Streets of Rage 2 is certainly up there. It's a fantastic game." M2's work on the 3D Classics series began, as Horii tells me, as a "what if".

"What if 3D stereoscopic technology was applied to Space Harrier," he says. "How wonderful would that be? How cool would it look? Both SEGA and M2 wanted to see what would happen if we added a little bit of spice to these titles, in the form of modern gaming technology. Would it enhance the entertainment factor? I think the reception that the releases have had from critics highlights that these games are as relevant today as ever, and that means we've succeeded."

Nintendo Life look at how the 3DS 'Streets of Rage 2' compares to the Mega Drive original

This is my second test: Will playing this game when it's been "remade" for modern tech put me off its once-pure appeal? Not one bit, it turns out. The 3DS Streets of Rage 2 is already up there with 2015's best "new" releases, for me—and I count the 3DS Out Run amongst those, too. The console's 3D slider is best placed at maximum for this one, at least when the effect's set to fall-in rather than pop-out, the mist of stage three's climactic alien tunnel and the gently lapping waves of stage six's opening beach looking particularly sweet with increased depth.

The controls are super responsive, though it's best to stick to the D-pad over the Circle alternative, and there's the option to play through either the Japanese (titled Bare Knuckle II) or PAL versions—they play the same, and you'll get to smack about enemies called Donovan, Wayne, and Martin in either mode. Further options unlock on the game's completion—finish it once and you can replay with "Fists of Death" activated, meaning one-hit kills for all enemies, including bosses. Useful, for when you want to fit a complete session into a Central Line journey, or for overcoming that stage three difficulty spike without breaking a bead of sweat.

Looking at the pixel-art titles that indie publisher Devolver promotes, as well as several more projects coming from smaller developers, the graphical style of Streets of Rage 2 really doesn't seem out-dated. Character sprites are big, moves are exaggerated, and backgrounds are swarming in tiny details. I appreciate that it's got nothing on the wholly immersive worlds of today's finest RPGs, but the environments of Streets of Rage 2—at first an unnamed, once-peaceful city overrun by crime; later a ship bobbing on the ocean, motorcyclists spilling bombs across the deck; later still a factory full of go-nowhere conveyer belts and annoying battle robots with spiked-balls on the ends of extendable chains (oh, the clunk noise as they bounce off your skull: brilliant)—are intense and inviting. You don't need to wait for the "Go" arrow to press onwards—you desperately want to see what the designers have in store for you next, even on the nth playthrough.

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It's all utterly ridiculous, of course, a relic of a games-making era long gone, where sandwich boards and sandbags can be busted apart to reveal health-restoring roast chickens, because... that's just how games were, in the early 1990s. Fire-breathing fatsos called Big-Ben and Balloon represent real threats to your progress here, more so than fit young things bearing steel pipes and blades (although they're not at the same headache-inducing level of severity as the Blanka-crossed-with-Vega level-end bosses Zamza and Souther, who greedily gobble up the extra lives I've picked up prior to encountering them). The story is so basic as to be non-existent, too, simply: the bad man that you beat in the last game is back, he's taken your mate, so go and rescue him. Still, at least we're saving a dude for once, right? The overall end boss is a bit of a dud, too, Mr X's machine gun his only means of attack, and you can easily enough nip behind his cigar-puffing face and forcefully introduce it to his penthouse's ever-so-plush carpet.

And yet it's all so compelling. I finish the 3DS version and immediately start another game, getting to the first level climax with brawling barman Barbon before realizing I should probably do some "proper work," like write about Streets of Rage 2. Which is still, 100 percent, after two complete plays inside 24 hours, my favorite game of all time. I don't know what objectively makes a classic, but I know in my heart that this gem amongst so many SEGA greats is one, for me.

"A classic is defined by whether it introduced new ways of doing things, or design ideas that didn't previously exist at the time," is Horii's line on the matter. I don't think that Streets of Rage 2 innovated particularly, but it certainly refined a formula previously explored by Final Fight and the arcade version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as well as the original Streets of Rage, into a symphony where once there were only simplistic melodic structures.

(Oh shit. I've not even mentioned the music, have I? Yuzo Koshiro's scintillating electronic score is cited by a host of artists and producers operating today as a huge influence. It deserves a full article of its own, really, so all I'll say here is that if you loved the music on the Mega Drive original, plugging some half-decent headphones into your 3DS has it sounding even sweeter still. Sound effects, too, are bone-snappingly satisfying.)

I was going to choose just one track from Koshiro's soundtrack, but here's the whole lot (I've a particular soft spot for 'Slow Moon', which starts at 28:10, and the ending theme, at 48:07).

"When you look at modern games, they're still just a collection of simple mechanics," Horii says. "It's the quality and the consistency of these entertaining factors that matter the most, rather than the number of them. So I think all of these classic SEGA titles have much to offer, in terms of evergreen gameplay appeal." The simple mechanics of Streets of Rage 2 haven't aged a day, and I doubt they'll feel stale another 20 years from now. Kick, punch, chop, block... Beat up an Ultimate Warrior impersonator beneath a baseball field and eat apples fashioned from splintered chairs. It was fantastic then, it's fantastic now, and it'll probably still be my favourite game when my thumbs are too arthritic to play it.

3D Streets of Rage 2 is available in the Nintendo eShop from July 23, and will cost you about as much as a pint of lager in a central London pub.

@MikeDiver

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One of the Roommates Convicted of Killing Loretta Saunders Wants to Appeal Her Sentence

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Loretta Saunders. Photo via handout

One of Loretta Saunders' admitted killers plans to appeal her self-inflicted murder conviction.

In two surprise guilty pleas last April, Victoria Henneberry and Blake Leggette halted the process of jury selection and told Nova Scotia Justice Josh Arnold they murdered the 26-year-old Inuk student who, before her death, was working on her thesis about missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Leggette went first, pleading guilty to first-degree murder, and Henneberry followed him, entering her own guilty plea to second-degree murder. Both of them told the judge they were entering their pleas freely and not under duress.

Now, according to new court documents, Henneberry says she was "distraught, under a great deal of stress and panicked" when she entered her plea.

She missed the 30-day appeal window, and has filed documents asking to have that window extended. She wants a new "fair and impartial" trial by a judge instead of a jury, the Chronicle Herald reported.

Loretta Saunders' brother Edmund Saunders told VICE this week he didn't think she deserved any sympathy.

"She changed her plea to a guilty plea and now she's appealing her own plea," he said over the phone from Hopedale, Labrador.

"She said she wasn't in the right frame of mind. What frame of mind was she in when she killed Loretta? What frame of mind are my parents in now since that happened? They're not in the right frame of mind either now, and it's thanks to her actions. I don't think that she deserves any kind of pity."

According to an agreed upon statement of fact Henneberry submitted at trial, Leggette suffocated Saunders with plastic and Henneberry admitted she helped him.

In January 2014, the couple subletted Saunders' apartment. They were worried about money and wanted to leave Halifax. Henneberry said she knew Leggette's plan to kill Saunders, steal her car and flee the province.

In a video Leggette recorded on his phone before the murder, Henneberry tells him, "You can't even say that you really want to kill Loretta. You said that you really want to kill her earlier today." The video was released by the courts following the trial.

The morning of February 13, Saunders went to collect rent from Henneberry and Leggette. The couple didn't have the money, but Henneberry admitted in court that she lied to Saunders and said she lost her bank card. Saunders sat on the couch while Henneberry pretended to go call the bank.

Leggette then came up behind Saunders and choked her. She fought him, and he tried to smother her with three different plastic bags, but she ripped through each one. He knocked her head on the floor twice, and she stopped moving. Then he covered her head in saran wrap.

After Leggette placed her body in a hockey bag and tidied up the living room, the couple packed their belongings and drove away in Saunders' car.

When police and her family tried to locate the missing woman, Henneberry lied to them about where she was. She texted Saunders' boyfriend from her cell phone, pretending to be her.

Following the two guilty pleas, prosecutor Christine Driscoll said the Crown had a good chance of convicting Henneberry on the second-degree murder charge.

"We felt we had a realistic prospect of conviction on Mr. Leggette for first-degree murder," she told media outside the courtroom. "In something like this there's always a risk with the jury of an outright acquittal, a finding of a different level of responsibility. With Ms. Henneberry, we had a realistic prospect of conviction on second-degree murder."

After the conviction, a judge sentenced Henneberry to life in prison. She can apply for parole after 10 years. Leggette was also sentenced to life in prison. He's eligible for parole after 25 years.

"After the sentencing I was quite overwhelmed by the ordeal but still had planned to appeal," Henneberry states in court documents, according to CBC. "My thoughts towards the appeal have not changed and I still aspire to follow through with the process."

Henneberry's application for an extension of her appeal deadline will be heard in court July 29.

Follow Hilary Beaumont on Twitter.

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