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Green dust swirls around Mampho Thulo as she uses her hands to scoop dried marijuana leaves from a massive heap on the floor of her home into a big linen bag. She has been cultivating the prized crop in her scenic village of Mapoteng for as long as she can remember. Seventy kilometres (43 miles) north-east of the capital, Maseru, her land lies in a lush valley surrounded by the mountains that the country is well known for. It is in this breath-taking scenery that people have been illicitly growing marijuana for recreational use for decades. The high altitude combined with fertile soils, untainted by pesticides, enables growers to produce a high-quality crop, valued all over the world. Media caption Mampho Thulo dries the leaves in the floor of her home before selling it on Closer to the capital, ranks of workers operate in more laboratory-like conditions in greenhouses to produce legal medicinal marijuana, as the country tries to cash in on its booming...

For those familiar with the tragic history of apartheid in South Africa up until the end of the 1980’s, Lesotho is a country long associated with terrible political and economic repression. Also known as the “Kingdom in the Sky” because of its stunning geography, the tiny, landlocked country is literally inside and completely surrounded by South Africa. During the apartheid regime, Lesotho was a place where “vice industries” like prostitution and gambling were allowed to flourish by a much more conservative surrounding political regime. Much like Indian reservations in the U.S., in fact. Even today, diamonds and water are the country’s top exports although tourism, including skiing, is still a major underpinning of the country’s domestic economy. Moving forward into the 21st century and much like American Indians, the mountainous, impoverished country is looking at the cannabis trade to create a national income of global worth.  In 2017 , the country became the first on...

It’s often the case that, when watching films or TV shows from previous decades, some things which seemed funny back “in the day” aren’t morally acceptable now. The US sitcom  Friends , for example, is frequently cited as containing homophobic jokes that ring hollow today. This time, UFC commentator and radio host Joe Rogan has condemned  Ace Ventura: Pet Detective , calling the movie “insanely transphobic”. Rogan discussed his shock at realising how “super transphobic” the 1994 film, which stars Jim Carrey, is in a taping of his show. He said: Do you know what I made the mistake of doing yesterday? I watched  Ace Ventura: Pet Detective  with my eight-year-old and my ten-year-old. I didn’t realise how transphobic that f**king movie is. The main plot twist of the film, which comes at the end, sees a detective played by Sean Young revealed to be "a man" after presenting as a cisgender woman throughout the movie. The “transgender” villai...