Frontline Club bloggers
Twitter and the Bangalore bomb blasts: Part I – The eyewitness account and online reporting
A series of bomb blasts was detonated in Bangalore last Friday, killing two people and injuring several others. Mukund Mohan, a technology entrepreneur, who was working nearby, decided he would provide updates on what was happening using Twitter, a micro-blogging tool that enables people to publish short, 140-character, updates online. Prompted by some interesting comments, […]
Cash Float
$40 for a swim. No wonder it’s empty Before heading to Darfur last week I treated myself to a swim. Not any old swim you understand, but a dip in the Rotana swimming pool. This is a new hotel in Khartoum that seems to be designed specifically to mop up those generous per diems paid […]
Video: Mexican public give their view on oil reform
I headed down to Mexico City’s Zocalo on Sunday to get some video for the Los Angeles Times. There was a slow but steady flow of Mexicans arriving to register their view on the current debate in Mexico over whether to allow private investment into the state-owned oil company, Pemex. The left-leaning opposition party the […]
Tijuana: Reflections on the Border
“TJ? Really?” was the response from most people last week when they learned I was heading down south of San Diego for a research trip. They were right to be cautious. I live in Mexico City — one of the biggest, baddest towns around — but still gave Tijuana a second thought. The world’s most […]
It’s Not About Boots on the Ground
A UN-AU hybrid patrol sets off for Siliea in West Darfur. The helmets have been painted blue but no-one has got around to removing the old Amis logo African aid agencies released a report today saying the joint African Union and United Nations mission to Darfur was failing to protect civilians. We’re at the six-month […]
Using Twitter to follow the Bangalore bomb blasts
A series of bombs was detonated in Bangalore earlier today. The latest reports indicate that seven devices exploded, in five different locations in the Indian city. The police have confirmed that at least two people died in the attacks. Mukund Mohan, a technology entrepreneur, has been reporting on the events using microblogging tool, Twitter. He […]
Identity of ‘LT G’, former Kaboom milblogger, revealed
The man behind the popular military blog, Kaboom, is 25 year old Matthew Gallagher. His blog was shut down after he failed to allow a blog posting to be vetted by a superior. He was serving with the 25th Infantry Division’s 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment. His platoon was based in a small village north-west […]
Bedtime in Nyala
Beds in a courtyard in Nyala, Darfur, before it started raining At the end of a long day standing in the blistering sun without water watching the Sudanese president addressing 10,000 people in El Fasher and then 20,000 people in Nyala, what you want is a bed. If it is a bed in the cool […]
The Bashir Boogie
Omar al-Bashir arrives in El Geneina, West Darfur Just back in Khartourm from a trip to Darfur with President Omar al-Bashir, who is waiting to find out whether the International Criminal Court will issue a warrant for his arrest. The trip was astonishing and fascinating in many ways. It was a whistle-stop tour of El […]
Child Soldier Recruitment Continues in Chad
They usually come at night, to the sprawling refugee camps in eastern Chad along the border with Sudan. Recruiters for Chad-based rebel groups, which are locked in bloody combat with Khartoum and its militia proxies in Sudan’s Darfur region, sometimes simply show up at the camps and new recruits, many of them still boys, come […]
Royal Navy advisor: Iraqi Navy not capable of protecting oil until end of 2010.
The Iraqi Navy will not be able to take full responsibility for counterinsurgency operations to guard Iraq’s oil infrastructure until the end of 2010 at the earliest, according to a Royal Navy advisor. Captain Paul Abrahams is the director of the maritime strategic transition team and the senior advisor to the Iraqi Navy. Speaking at […]
Reporter’s Notebook 3: Do not stand near the military band
[video:youtube:SrRsTLC4Gkw] Via the good folks at Abu muqawama.
My Home from Home
The old timers will tell you it’s not how it was, but there’s still a special spirit among foreign correspondents. The new arrivals from London don’t always get it at first but they usually fall into line eventually. The point is that exclusives are few and far between and they will anyway end up on […]
Those Were the Days
I really must get around to reading Michael Asher’s Khartoum. Every time I stay at Meskel Square’s house I flick through his copy (I note a corner is still turned down at page 164) and think what a good read it looks. At every turn of this Arab-African city you get a sense of history, […]
The View from Khartoum
So it’s almost a week now since the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court revealed his evidence against President Omar al-Bashir. And it’s still pretty difficult to work out where things are going. The consensus among aid workers and UN staff here is that things will stay quiet while Khartoum goes down the diplomatic road, […]
US Army worried about falling behind new technology but still ahead of most
My Frontline colleague, David Axe, has written an interesting piece over at Wired.com about the US Army’s use of social media tools. He reports that Army Secretary Pete Geren is worried about senior army leaders falling behind new technology. David nevertheless thinks the Army is ‘way ahead of the other US military services when it […]
Central African Refugees Clash over Fields, Herds
Clarisse Larlombaye was nearly ruined when a herd of cows got into her rice field one night. The tiny 900-square-meter plot, outside the U.N.-run Gondje refugee camp in lush southern Chad is the sole source of income for Larlombaye and the two other Central African refugees she shares it with. In recent years, Larlombaye and […]
Breakfast in Khartoum II
The best carrot cake in East Africa Yes carrot cake for breakfast. I’ll be bringing you an update on the impact of Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s evidence against President Bashir as soon as I have the faintest idea what’s going on. It’s fair to say that reaction here is mixed.
War Reporting Links: The ‘state’ of the British military
1. Standpoint have published an article by a Ministry of Defence insider claiming that the department is ‘unfit for purpose’. Though I’ll be glad to see the back of the cliché, there’s some interesting observations here. Too many civil servants and consultants, not enough military understanding the insider claims: “I once attended a meeting of […]
What next?
So the prosecutor published his evidence and President Bashir now stands accused of war crimes, genocide and murder. There was a mix of reaction here in Sudan from the angry to the considered and it seems the government may be mulling over exactly what to do. Could a palace coup be an option? After speculation […]
Chad’s Budding Roadblock Entrepreneurs
Corruption is big business in Chad, a country whose teetering economy is propped up by billions of dollars in foreign aid. When Chadians can’t make an honest buck, they’ll make a dishonest one. In Afghanistan and Somalia I paid out maybe a couple hundred bucks in bribes combined. Here in Chad, I’ve had to pay […]
Covering counter-insurgencies: Afghanistan vs Iraq
Kip is a contributor to the Abu Muqawama blog. He’s served with the US Army in Afghanistan and Iraq. In reaction to the recent deaths of 9 US soldiers in Kunar province, Afghanistan, he explains why he believes the difficulties facing coalition troops in Afghanistan haven’t received as much coverage as the war in Iraq: […]
Blocked in Chad
Frontline blogger David Axe writes on the Danger Room blog about the joys of getting around Chad. Roadblocks equal a local road tax. He’s got through $500 in just a month paying off the blockers. At least at one roadblock the ‘guards’ let him hold onto his wallet, I was driving through a U.N.-administered refugee […]
Khartoum Bound
A UN-AU hybrid patrol sets off for Siliea in West Darfur. The helmets have been painted blue but no-one has got around to removing the old Amis logo Heading to Khartoum to see what comes out of the International Criminal Court. Readers of this blog will know that prosecutors have President Bashir himself in their […]
Them and Us
Nick Parker of The Sun in Burma Blogging seems to be doing something strange to the relationship between journalists and press officers. Once upon a time a press officer might help a reporter with a story – providing a quote, setting up an interview, forwarding a policy paper and so on – and the reporter […]
Taliban shadow governor killed?
In a little-reported story from the north-west of Afghanistan – no doubt overshadowed by the car-bomb attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul – villagers in Qayser district used “a machine gun, sticks and stones” to chase away Taliban members, killing, in the process, the shadow-governor for Faryab province. The militants had tried to abduct […]
Live tonight: Is this the end for FARC?
View in iTunes You can now watch the event here. With the recent release of Igrid Betancourt, we’ll be discussing the future of the FARC at the Frontline Club tonight. Please come watch, listen and join in live on the Frontline Club live broadcast channel. We go live at 7.30pm GMT. The question up for […]
Alive and Qiking in Chad
When Web 2.0 startup Qik offered me a free Nokia N95 camera phone plus their new video-streaming software for my trip to Chad, I jumped. Here was a chance to try out the latest technology in one of the world’s most remote war-zones. The Qik-N95 combo promised to condense the basic capabilities of bulky […]
The Trouble with Kenya
After two years bedding down with rats and cockroaches in Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, Tom Cholmondeley was finally able to start his defence today. We may even have a verdict next month, although Keriako Tobiko is probably not done with his stalling tactics. Today the session was adjourned at lunch because Kenya’s director of public […]
Arianna Huffington (continued): Surge in Iraq has failed
After her visit to the BBC, when she criticised media coverage of the war in Iraq, Arianna Huffington has decided to write a blog post explaining why she thinks the military surge in Iraq isn’t working: “…while McCain and the Republicans may have been able to win the PR war among the American media, there […]
