Author: phillynews215

Eminent Monsters traces the roots of western governments love affair with torture. In the 1950s Dr. Ewen Cameron experimented on his patients, using sensory deprivation, forced comas and LSD injections. Covertly funded by the CIA,…

In 2014, filmmaker Jessica Villerius met death row inmate, Clinton Young, who had been convicted of a double homicide and became convinced of his innocence. Her documentary ‘Innocent on Death Row’ exposed the weakness of…

In August 1951, inhabitants of the picturesque French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit were suddenly tormented by terrifying hallucinations. People imagined lions and tigers were coming to eat them. A man jumped out of a window thinking…

A murder story, a love story and a thriller. In May 2009, Rodrigo Rosenberg, a wealthy, charismatic lawyer went cycling near his home in Guatemala City and was murdered. Nothing unusual there: Guatemala has a…

We gained unprecedented filming access to two Japanese prisons to find out if accusations that the system is inhumane are true. What we witnessed was staggering. Inmates must march to their worksites attached by a…

It’s the gateway for cocaine into America with dealers and traffickers fighting for control. Last year, 217 people were killed in drugs-related killings in Miami. Confronting this crime wave is the elite SWAT unit. With…

In Marseille, gangs wage a merciless war to control the drug market. The economic stakes are enormous. Drug trafficking generates more than thirty million euros per month and is woven throughout the local economy. Real…

Critics claim they’re little more than ’torture camps’, taking tough love way too far. But for desperate parents, military-style boot camps are often seen as the last chance for their children to avoid the vicious…

Critics claim they’re little more than ’torture camps’, taking tough love way too far. But for desperate parents, military-style boot camps are often seen as the last chance for their children to avoid the vicious…

Every year, American police officers kill around 1000 people. 20 times more per head of population than in France and 60 times more than in the UK. Today more than ever, the American police force…

The seaside resort of Cabo San Lucas, or simply, Cabo, has become a favourite vacation spot for American multimillionaires….. and Mexican drug traffickers. Indeed Cabo is a strategic spot for the continent’s cartels forming a…

Walking the red carpets of the Cannes for the first time, Julia Roberts wore an enormously sublime emerald around her neck. This deep green, precious stone immediately captivated the public eye. The reaction was unprecedented;…

Every year more than 30,000 people are kidnapped around the world. Hostage-taking has become big business, with its own rules and key players. In response, insurance firms have developed specialised ’Kidnap and Ransom’ (K&R) policies…

It’s the only nation in the world that has not signed the International Convention on the Rights of the Child: the United States. Signing would mean relaxing legislation on the confinement of minors. Indeed, several…

Twenty years ago, the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan shocked the world. Preserved for millennia, these statues disappeared in an instant, victims of the purifying madness of the Taliban. It was to…

Watch here to find out about the opposing opinions regarding prison life in Japan. From one perspective, a French computer wizz, unfairly accused of stealing from the cryptocurrency company he was working for, tells of…

Every year in India, at least a thousand young people are murdered by their own families for falling in love with the wrong person. For these lovers, who shun arranged marriages for love matches, there…

Right in the heart of Texas, the city of Dallas has built its reputation upon the 80s cult series, oil fields and cowboy folklore. But today, 21st century Dallas is above all a symbol of…

Every month, hundreds of desperate people attempt to flee North Korea to the South. Only a few succeed. Those who make it find themselves facing an entirely new set of problems. Many have left children…

Bloody scores being settled and streets invaded by waste have tarnished the picture-perfect image of Naples. Diverse crimes and trafficking are the marks left by the Camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia, that is the chief employer…

You see them everywhere in Senegal. Groups of filthy, despondent children, aged between 4 and 15, desperately begging. But these children haven’t run away from home or been abandoned. They’re ’talibes’, students at religious boarding…

His job was to protect NATO’s secrets but he ended up selling them to the Kremlin. This is the astonishing account of how Herman Simm, a former soviet militia officer, rose to become amongst the…

The ancient city of Arles, once a major commercial hub in the Roman Empire, still holds many secrets. Some of them are buried in the bed of the Rhône. Little by little, working in complete…

The brutal murder of Isabel Carrasco, one of Spain’s most controversial politicians, shocked the nation. Three women were quickly arrested in what appeared to be an inexplicable private vendetta. But as the investigation developed, a…

The story of Colin Wallace, a British intelligence officer who blew the whistle on fake news and was framed for a murder. ——- Bear witness to monumental moments in human history, and human’s most terrible…

Long regarded as one of the world’s worst dicatorships, the military junta finally stepped down from power in 2011. However three years on, its people continue to fight for freedom. The military remains in charge…

In 1971, the Shah of Iran, the self-proclaimed ‘king of kings’, celebrated 2,500 years of the Persian monarchy by throwing the greatest party in history. Money was no object – a lavish tent city, using…