Frontline Club bloggers
Behind the Piracy Decline
A year after Somali piracy peaked with more than 100 ships attacked, the world’s navies have assembled dozens of warships to combat the threat. David Axe joins the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Donald Cook in Djibouti, to observe firsthand this “global war on piracy.” by DAVID AXE In three months there’s been just one successful […]
Story of a father and son, with intermission
Democratic activism is a long tradition in Hajizade family, as well as the state of being assaulted and beaten for their activities – the new element here is the fact that Adnan Hajizade now is being tried for both. A story of a father and son with intermission of sixteen years
Neighbours in the Horn
Pictured on the map the road that runs east between the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, and Hargeisa in Somaliland looks pretty straightforward. In an area of roughly 500km, Amharic-dominated, Christian, highland Ethiopia descends towards the Gulf Aden into dry scrubland and the traditionally pastoral territory of the Somalis. Pretty simple really. Maps, however, can be […]
Filmmakers document consequences of U.S. immigration raid
Back in May 2008, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials rounded up 389 undocumented workers in the Agriprocessors Inc. kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. The raid was the largest in U.S history. Two weeks later, filmmakers Jennifer Szymaszek and Greg Brosnan started filming "In the Shadow of the Raid," a documentary film showing at […]
Majority of Mexicans think life would be better in the U.S., survey finds
Most Mexicans think their lives would be better in the United States, and one in three said they’d move to the U.S. if they could, according to the latest findings on Mexican attitudes from the Pew Global Attitudes Project. Half of those who said they’d migrate north of the border said they would do so without […]
Germany’s grand colour coalition election
It’s supposed to be a Superwahljahr – a super election year in Germany. Yes, we’ve seen many elections of the state and city variety, but you could hardly describe the campaign leading up to Sunday’s general election as "super". And why? Well your correspondent wonders if anyone in Germany is potentially excited about casting their […]
The Baddest, Holiest Gang, Part Three
How young Somali immigrants searched for belonging, and found jihad. Last of a three-part series. Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. by DAVID AXE and JOHN MASATO ULMER Somali-American terror recruits have common roots in an impoverished, neglected and sometime oppressed immigrant community. Their feelings of impotence and isolation […]
The spirit of Punk lives on in Social Innovation Camps
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, civil society activists and organizations met this week in Bratislava, Slovakia, to assess and discuss the state of civil society and democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. But, unlike previous CEE Civil Society Forums, this year’s event featured an added component: a Social Innovation Camp held […]
Georgia Sells Itself
Strange scenes outside the Georgian parliament: the entire façade of the building seems to have been transformed into a giant advertising hoarding to promote various urban reconstruction projects and new luxury hotels. It’s part of a new billboard campaign (slogan: ‘I Love Georgia’) which appears to be intended to boost public confidence as the country’s […]
The Baddest, Holiest Gang, Part Two
How young Somali immigrants to the U.S. searched for belonging, and found jihad. Second of a three-part series. by DAVID AXE and JOHN MASATO ULMER When 26-year-old Shirwa Ahmed, a Somali-born immigrant living in Minnesota, blew himself up in Puntland, Somalia, on Oct. 29 last year, he became the very first American suicide bomber, and […]
The Baddest, Holiest Gang
How young Somali immigrants to the U.S. searched for belonging, and found jihad. First of a three-part series. by DAVID AXE and JOHN MASATO ULMER On Oct. 29 last year, Shirwa Ahmed drove a car full of explosives up to a government compound in Puntland, a region of northern Somalia, and blew himself up. The […]
Guarani community set fire to in Mato Grosso do Sul
Just a few days after 130 Guarani Kaiowa indians from the community Laranjeira Ñanderu had left their traditional ladn following a judicial order, everything that was left in the place was burned down. Last night, unidentified people set fire to the 35 houses that were left in the area. Goods and animals belonging to the […]
Secretary of Defence: “Afghanistan first”
The British Secretary of Defence said operations in Afghanistan must take priority in the next Strategic Defence Review in a speech at King’s College, London. Bob Ainsworth said longer term strategic considerations should be secondary to providing the necessary equipment and manpower to British Armed Forces in Afghanistan. Ainsworth conceded that there was "significant" pressure […]
Video: Heavy rains in Mexico can’t beat the drought
Although Mexico is currently in the grip of the worst drought it has suffered since World War Two, houses flooded and streets turned into lakes this week when torrential rainfall lashed down on Mexico City and the neighboring State of Mexico. Speaking to El Universal, Ramón Aguirre, director of Mexico City’s water system, said that […]
Better Naval Coordination Suppresses Pirate Attacks
by DAVID AXE After a year of rapid growth, the international naval force assembled to combat Somali piracy has stabilized at what will probably be its permanent level. There are around 20 vessels and a handful of land-based aircraft from some dozen navies, organized into three major flotillas plus independent patrols. The U.S.-led Task Force […]
Access Denied: Twitter, Iran and embedding journalists in online culture
You can now watch the event here. The Iranian Election was the moment when Twitter “exploded into our consciousness as a really powerful newsgathering tool” Adrian Wells told the Frontline Club earlier this week. Sky’s Foreign Editor was discussing how media organisations cover ‘news black holes’ with Richard Sambrook, Head of Global News at the […]
Being a Journalist is not Enough
The rescue of kidnapped New York Times journalist Stephen Farrell is a stark reminder of the dangers of reporting from the frontline in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia where Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan are still held hostage one year on. Although Mr Farrell was rescued today by NATO forces, his colleague, journalist and […]
I Went to Africa and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt
I struggle slightly with the vogue for personalising conflicts around the globe so that they always end up being more about us than them (Not in Our Name, wristbands, boycotts of Israeli produce) and turning campaigning into a T-shirt and lifestyle. Sometimes it is a neat way of making people care about things going on […]
Putting mobile reporting to the test (again…)
Frontline Club bloggers seem to be meeting up and working together a lot of late. Guy Degen recently worked with Matthew Collin on a story about the breakaway territory of Abkhazia for Al Jazeera English and the latter is currently in Armenia filming two news reports for the same on the case of Mariam Sukhudyan, […]
Video: Mexico’s drought leaves city dwellers and countryside high and dry
Crops are wilting in the countryside, and the capital’s water shortage has turned dire as Mexico grapples with its worst drought in more than half a century. See the Los Angeles Times report here. Video by Deborah Bonello.
Death in El Salvador
The killing of documentary maker Christian Poveda represents a sad loss for a region much in need of greater understanding. The first, last and only time that I met the French-born filmmaker and photographer Christian Poveda was on 1 April of this year, when I interviewed him in an apartment he was renting in Mexico […]
I Think You’ll Find It’s a Bit More Complicated Than That
I’ve long been a fan of Ben Goldacre’s column Bad Science in The Guardian and his blog. It won’t surprise you to know that his use of rational thought and scientific evidence to dispel deliberate quackery and ill-thought out mumbo jumbo – take the MMR nonsense or homoeopathy – is rather popular in these quarters. […]
Azerbaijan: Video bloggers go on trial
Two months after they were arrested, detained video bloggers Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli finally went on trial in Azerbaijan. Most observers believe that the case against the two youth activists is politically motivated and an attempt to silence the two main founders of the OL! progressive youth movement and AN Network. Using new […]
Help to keep an independent newscast on the air!
FSRN’s major financial supporter — Pacifica Foundation — is in financial difficulty and late with their payments to FSRN. This, in addition to the $160k/year cut in FSRN’s funding from Pacifica in June 2008, leaves us without enough money to pay our staff and reporters from now through mid-October. Pacifica will have the funds to […]
Video: ‘I’ve never been afraid’: Director, recently slain, talks about filming El Salvador’s gangs
Photographer and filmmaker Christian Poveda was shot dead in El Salvador Sept. 2, 2009. He spent more than 16 months, every day, with the mara gangs of San Salvador to make the 2009 documentary “La Vida Loca.” This is footage from an interview conducted by the Los Angeles Times’ Deborah Bonello with Poveda a […]
Armenian political groups fume, but little visible opposition to Turkey protocols
As the international community applauds the presidents of Armenia and Turkey for making unprecedented progress in attempts to normalize relations, others are not so ecstatic. Indeed, while many consider the establishment of diplomatic relations and the opening of borders between the two estranged neighbours as crucial in establishing peace and stability in the region, opposition […]
Christian Poveda, “la Vida Loca” director, killed in El Salvador
Reports have surfaced that French photographer and director Christian Poveda has been shot and killed in El Salvador, possibly by the gangs that his recently released documentary "La Vida Loca (the Crazy Life)" focused on. Reuters reports: Suspected Salvadorean gang members killed French filmmaker Christian Poveda, whose 2008 film "La Vida Loca" crudely depicts the […]
‘Pirates’ and ‘Protectors’ on the Black Sea
Fuel-smugglers, embargo-busters, accusations of piracy and threats of armed retribution: the temperature off the Black Sea coast of Georgia seems to be heating up towards boiling point. When I was in the disputed Black Sea region of Abkhazia a couple of weeks ago, people were worried about possible gasoline shortages because Georgian coastguards had seized a […]
Michael Yon to end Afghanistan embeds and go it alone
Independent war reporter Michael Yon has not so much burnt his military embed bridges as completely obliterated them. He claims that the Ministry of Defence has been trying to have him removed from the area of Regional Command (South) and from Thursday he will be reporting unilaterally from Helmand province. Yon was annoyed that his […]
Armenia and Turkey set to establish diplomatic relations
Following media reports earlier today that Armenian President Serge Sargsyan had "chided Turkey" for not seriously seeking to unconditionally open the border between the two countries comes unexpected news. Within the last few hours at time of writing, reports from the BBC, Reuters, AP and others now say that "domestic discussion" in the estranged neighbouring countries […]
