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By peddling the lie that CIA detentions led to Bin Laden's killing, you have become a Leni Riefenstahl-like propagandist of torture

Dear Kathryn Bigelow,

The Hurt Locker was a beautiful, brave film; many young women in film were inspired as they watched you become the first woman ever to win an Oscar for directing. But with Zero Dark Thirty, you have attained a different kind of distinction.

Your film Zero Dark Thirty is a huge hit here. But in falsely justifying, in scene after scene, the torture of detainees in "the global war on terror", Zero Dark Thirty is a gorgeously-shot, two-hour ad for keeping intelligence agents who committed crimes against Guantánamo prisoners out of jail. It makes heroes and heroines out of people who committed violent crimes against other people based on their race – something that has historical precedent.

Your film claims, in many scenes, that CIA torture...

Despite their wildly differing politics, John Malkovich and Harold Pinter were friends. Now the film star is directing Julian Sands in a tribute to the playwright. As the Edinburgh festival launches, Stephen Moss meets them

I spot John Malkovich's head as soon as I enter the courtyard of the hotel, even though he is in the lounge, with his back to me and partially obscured by a blind. That cranium has an aura. He has just arrived in Edinburgh, where he is directing his long-time friend Julian Sands, the British actor, in A Celebration of Harold Pinter. It is being touted as the starriest fringe event for a decade.

Sands gives me a cheery wave when I enter the lounge, and starts rearranging the furniture so the three of us can talk; Malkovich sprawls languidly in a large leather armchair. Sands, in an elegant grey suit and with a...

In the midst of Libya's civil war, with reporters fearful of death or worse, the opposition is utilizing social media to get news of casualties and victories out to the world.

As the Arab revolutions of 2011 sweep through the Middle East and Maghreb, smuggling news out of Libya has changed from a process of secret satellite phone calls abroad to a matter of uploading videos to YouTube.

Despite their authoritarian and sometimes violent natures, the old regimes in Egypt and Tunisia presided over societies with organized (if marginalized) opposition movements and a technologically savvy class with wide connections to both their ethnic diasporas and the wider world at large. Libya has neither of those things (although, in the tech sphere, it has quietly been making money off fees from the wildly popular bit.ly site and other boutique URL sites with the .ly suffix for years). In many cultural respects,...

You’ve probably noticed a large number of Twitter users over the last few days putting their profile pictures through green filters in support of protesters in Iran. Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Neil Gaiman, Rainn Wilson, and a handful of others on the Twitter-Wood feed are among those who have been participating in the week’s Iran tweetings I mentioned yesterday, with Alyssa Milano still dedicating her tweets to new news out of Tehran.

Iran isn’t the only news permeating our follow list’s discussion topics, though. PETA lashed out at President Barack Obama for swatting a fly during a CNBC interview this week, and both Hill and Clive Barker tweeted reactions today. You’ll find both of them, “Twilight” actor Peter Facinelli, and pictures from Emmy Rossum and Ice-t in today’s Twitter-Wood report for June 18, 2009.

@RealCliveBarker I support PETA, but not on the fly issue.Flies spread disease,...