Frontline Club bloggers
Summer and something of a seaside independence
Earlier in August I had the opportunity to film in Abkhazia with Matthew Collin – Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Georgia and fellow Frontline blogger. It’s now one year since Russia recognised Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. The first time I visited Abkhazia was in December 2006 to produce radio […]
After 40 Years of Dictatorship, Gabon Votes
Gabon is headed to the polls for the West African country’s first real election since the rise of Omar Bongo as president some four decades ago. Bongo died in June, as one of the world’s longest-serving heads of state, and now will be replaced. Gabon, a major oil producer and one of the wealthiest and […]
Rapping for freedom and democracy in Azerbaijan (updated)
ShirBand ft Slang. Qorxaga ver cesaret: The title means ‘show courage to coward(s). The chorus is saying that this imprisonment, enslavement won’t go on for much longer; ‘your protesting tongue, your words are golden; your arms that rise fearlessly in the Square are golden.’ Then it talks about how they’re selling bullshit to everyone, […]
Evidence vs Dogma in Darfur
After six years of violence, the war in Darfur is over, according to a man who should know. General Martin Luther Agwai was handed mission impossible two years ago – setting up the joint UN and AU peacekeeping job. In an interview with the BBC, as he prepares to step down as force commander, General […]
Social media and conflict resolution in the South Caucasus
In the 15 years since the May 1994 ceasefire agreement put the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh on hold, various peace proposals have faltered. But if Armenia’s first president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, was forced to resign in 1998 by nationalist hardliners in his government opposed to a compromise settlement, […]
Michael Yon: Ministry of Defence gave me “zero warning”
In an email I received overnight, Michael Yon claims the Ministry of Defence "cut off" his embed with the British Army in Afghanistan with "zero warning and no chance for me to prepare." As I highlighted yesterday, Yon had been embedded with 2 Rifles for the last five weeks. The MoD denied that Yon’s embed […]
Kandahar Eyewitness Account – Felix Kuehn
It was perhaps twenty minutes after the call to prayer had sounded and we were breaking the fast, sitting on the floor around a plastic sheet with plates of rice and meat, when I was knocked sideways to the ground. It takes a split second till you realize what happened; the shock-wave had blown out […]
Felix in Kandahar – Eyewitness Account
Please see the previous blogpost for more on this story, but here is Felix Kuehn (my friend and colleague in Kandahar) on CBC Radio talking an hour or two after tonight’s bombing: Just press play on the Houndbite bar above. Felix will be updating his blog and reposting here tomorrow morning when he wakes […]
Kandahar City Bombing
I’m sitting in Dubai at the moment so can’t claim to be the man on the ground for tonight’s bombing in Kandahar City. That dubious honour goes to Felix Kuehn (@felixkuehn on Twitter and www.felixkuehn.com for his blog). I just spoke to him over the phone and he added some details to the mix: – […]
Swashbuckling Adventurers
This from a recent exam sat by City University journalism students: In popular legend dating from the Crimean War to the Vietnam War, foreign correspondents had a reputation as swashbuckling adventurers. What is the workaday reality for foreign correspondents today? In what ways have the job, and the typical profile of those doing it, changed? […]
If you thought it couldn’t get any worse…
If you thought it couldn’t get any worse in Armenia and Azerbaijan then think again. As if youth activsts being detained in both countries while a defamation case is prepared against an environmental campaigner in the former, the situation as it pertains to human rights continues to deteriorate. Now, ultra-nationalist groups, edged on by their […]
The mystery of Michael Yon’s “cancelled” embed
So what’s going on with Michael Yon’s embed with the British Army in Afghanistan? Michael Yon is an independent journalist who has been spending some time with 2 Rifles in Helmand filing dispatches for his website. After writing a post entitled ‘Bad Medicine‘ – a description of a British operation in Sangin, (neatly summarised at […]
Guest Post: Votes we can believe in (Felix Kuehn)
It’s the middle of summer down here in Kandahar, with temperatures peeking around 50 degree celsius by noon. In the run up to Afghanistan’s second presidential and provincial council elections foreign troops stepped up their efforts, launching multiple operations to prepare the ground for voters. British casualties passed the 200 mark, with friends from London […]
Child abuse allegations lead to action against activist
A scandal over allegations of physical, psychological and sexual abuse in a boarding school for children with special needs has led to new concerns that youth activists in the South Caucasus have now been targetted by governments in Armenia and Azerbaijan. At the beginning of July, opposition youth activist Tigran Arakelyan was arrested and placed […]
Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan still kidnapped one year on
One year ago today, freelance journalists Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan were kidnapped on the outskirts of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. The duo are reportedly being held in poor conditions, are in bad health and there is no indication that a release date is any closer one year on. Their Somali colleagues were released […]
“Go tell the world about our fake election”
So it finally happened. The election that we’ve been waiting for and looking forward to at least since last winter took place today all over the country. I’ll refrain from writing anything about the rest of the country. There are plenty of places to get a good sense of what happened. Make sure to check […]
Junk Bonds
Interesting story in The Times yesterday, using the Big Mac as a new index of earning power. Tokyo workers have to spend only 12 minutes at their desks before they can buy a Big Mac for lunch, while their counterparts in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, have to work for more than two and a half […]
New motto of Azeri Government – there’s no such thing as bad publicity?
As the government in Baku continues to crack down on dissent, the least it is concerned with seems to be its reputation abroad.
Marina Silva to make the 2010 electoral dispute greener
The news that former Environment Minister Marina Silva has left the ruling party PT (Workers Party) yesterday have created great excitement in the national media. Marina is considering joining the Green Party to run for president. Her candidacy would mean at least a new and quite exciting element in the electoral dispute, set to be […]
Beards no longer a personal choice in Swat
wearing white Shalwar kameez and black shades over his eyes, sitting at reception area. “He has an appointment with you, he has come from Swat” my assistant informed me. I was confused; I had a meeting scheduled with Sarmad Behzaad, one of my dedicated news sources from the Swat region. “Send him in”, I asked […]
Mexico City fans practice Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ moves
Mexico City’s Michael Jackson fans got together Tuesday morning to practice the recently deceased singer’s famous "Thriller" dance in front of the Palacio de Bellas Artes downtown. Led by Mexican Jackson impersonator "Héctor Jackson" (pictured) and choreographer Adolfo Chávez, the group was preparing for an Aug. 29 event in which an estimated 11,000 people in Mexico […]
Azerbaijan: Even more Eurovision stupidity
Music lovers the world over might consider it to be some kind of dumb competition where the most mediocre of talent gets its brief moment of fame, but for tin-pot dictators in the South Caucasus, Eurovision is taken very seriously indeed. Forget the spirit in which the competition was meant to be held, for Armenia, […]
Who to follow: Twitter for the Afghanistan election
I’ve already added several people to the list since it was first published. New twitter accounts I add will appear at the top of each section from now on… In Afghanistan @ashrafghani – Dr Ashraf Ghani, Presidential candidate. @KevinFlowerCNN – CNN Correspondent. @hamishreporter – Hamish Macdonald, Al Jazeera English Correspondent and Presenter. @itamena – Helped […]
IDF Twitter feed breaks 179 day silence
Rather intriguingly the Twitter feed for the Israeli Defence Force, @IDFSpokesperson, has offered the world a tweet for the first time in 179 days. Clearly IDF Spokesperson was getting back into the swing of things because the first one was quickly followed by a second at around 6pm Israeli time: "IDFSpokesperson 106 aid trucks and […]
Saying the ‘S’ word in Somaliland
Having returned from a trip to Somaliland, I spent the last few days editing video footage and pictures.I went there as a nostalgic ethnic Somali who hadn’t seen the land I left twenty years ago. Although my family come from Hargeisa I spent many of my formative years living in Mogadishu. This experience has left […]
Georgi Vanyan: Every family has the desire for peace
Fifteen years after the 1994 ceasefire put the conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh on hold, reports that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan might be moving closer to a final peace settlement have caught many unaware. The last time international mediators were as optimistic about the prospects for peace was in 2001 […]
WRL: The ‘ghost war’ and war reporting
I tend to push most of my war reporting links through Twitter rather than on blog posts these days but I thought this little collection was worth a quick update. 1. Sean Smith chronicles three months on the front line in Afghanistan: "High explosive is zooming back and forwards, so the enemy is certainly there, […]
One Year On, Media War Continues
Over a year after the Georgia-Russia war, there’s still no sign of a ceasefire in the media battle for moral supremacy. It’s just emerged that the disputed regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (which are claimed by Georgia but have been recognised as independent states by Russia) have hired an American PR firm to try to […]
Kandahar Election Rallies (Karzai, Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani)
With only four days to go before the elections, I thought it might be useful to comment on how the opposition candidates’ rallies went this past week. Myself and my colleague were graced with the presence of a good half dozen members of the international press corps this week, and in all likeliness you’ll read […]
Armenian youth rally for detained activist
While the international community continues to follow the case of two detained video bloggers and youth activists in Azerbaijan, the plight of another taken into police custody several days earlier in neighbouring Armenia remains unnoticed. Despite his diminutive size, Tigran Arakelian is accused of assaulting three policemen at the beginning of July and, like Adnan […]
