News
Kate Webb’s ashes spread
The ashes of war correspondent Kate Webb were spread in Wellington Harbour in her native New Zealand yesterday some 37 years after her “first death”, The ashes of New Zealand-born war correspondent Kate Webb were scattered on Wellington Harbour Tuesday, 37 years after she first read her death notices in the world’s newspapers. Webb, who […]
Reds in Africa III
Fred is a Manchester United supporter After a flurry of sightings, the Garibaldi Red has not been much in evidence on the continent of Africa recently. Junior Agogo’s exploits at the African Cup of Nations and our promotion last week had led me to believe that it would be a good period for spotting Reds […]
So, what is the future for news?
I have no idea… Well, I have some ideas, but I’m not blogging about them just yet. However, our very own Daniel Bennett puts together a useful future of news primer on his personal blog Mediating Conflict. One of the folks Daniel highlights is Adam Timworth, ‘If you were to ask a group of people […]
Michael Bhatia remembered
Michael Bhatia was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on May 7. He was an American academic who was sent to Afghanistan to help the US military understand the country’s customs in what are known (rather inhumanely) as “human terrain teams”. He took pictures and wrote about his time there. The Globalist is republishing […]
Blogger Tariq Baiasi sentenced to 3 years
The Global Voices Advocacy group points our attention to the case of Syrian blogger Tariq Baiasi The blogger, who has been in prison for almost one year, has been sentenced to three years for leaving a comment on “suspicious websites”, The State Security Court in Damascus has sentenced Tariq to three years after lessening it […]
From the sweet trolley part 1
Part 1 in an occasional series of posts live and direct from the bounteous Frontline Club restaurant sweet trolley. This is a chocolate brownie with some ice cream. It’s a cocosolids-sugarstacked slice of somewhere sweeter than planet earth. Tread carefully, one too many and you may turn…
Good News? Security Improving at Mogadishu’s Bakara Market Battleground?
Last week’s bloody food riots in Mogadishu, Somalia, were a sad setback for a part of the city that is vital to Somalia’s future. The riots, a spasm of the growing global food crisis, were centered on the central Bakara Market. Several people died when soldiers opened fire on protesters. Prior to the late-2006 Ethiopian […]
Islamist insurgent warlords for dummies
Rob takes on a ride through the 21st century dictionary for confused journalists dumped into Middle eastern lexical hell. Don’t know your insurgents form your islamists? Your war lords from your al Qaeda operatives? You soon will with Rob’s handy tip sheet. And while we’re on the topic… Just when did the term insurgent become […]
Some frontline views from the US milblogs
Here’s a selection of recent posts from the US milblogging community about life on the frontline. 1. Compassion Fatigue – Capt Beau Cleland in Iraq: ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that this place has so much suffering, so many problems, that if I internalize them I’m just going to mess myself up mentally and emotionally.’ […]
How to Tell Your Islamist from Your Warlord
Somalia’s problems are deep-seated and complex. Reporting on its conflicts, rivalries and politics is difficult. There are many pitfalls for the unwary reporter. The death of Aden Hashi Ayro a couple of weeks ago showed how easy it was for even illustrious names to slip up (you know who you are), confusing militia leaders for […]
Twitter’s quicker debate over
The BBCs Rory Cellan-Jones wonders whether Twitter has come of age with the earthquake that struck Sichuan province in China this morning, Let’s see, as this story unfolds, whether this is the moment when Twitter comes of age as a platform which can bring faster coverage of a major news event than traditional media, while […]
CNN man in Burmese chase
CNNs man in Myanmar, Dan Rivers, left the cyclone stricken country last Friday after being pursued by Burmese authorities. He credits his ability to evade capture upon the incompetence of those in hot pursuit. He defaced his passport, hid under a blanket and thinks he may have finally escaped due to the impatience of a […]
Lebanon is Not the Issue
Discussion on Al-Jazeera regarding the various ways Lebanon’s problems – as being played out in armed conflict today – are not Lebanese problems, but rather offshoots (“90%” in the words of one contributor to the discussion) of international and regional conflicts. Travelling to Beirut today (circuitously via Jordan and Syria on account of the airport […]
Sunday Times article
You can read my article in yesterday’s Sunday Times here, although I’m not especially happy about parts of how it was edited. Can’t write too much about it now, but let me just say that the phrase, “with hatred in their hearts,” from the first paragraph is not mine.
Jeremy Bowen comes under fire in Lebanon
“BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen has come under fire whilst reporting in Lebanon. Jeremy Bowen and his team are now safely back in Beirut.” link. Click the image above to see Jeremy in Lebanon
No. 2 police officer gunned down in Juarez: police death count rising
The attacks on police officers, detailed here, continued over the weekend. The No. 2 police officer in this border city across from El Paso was shot to death Saturday, the latest high-ranking official killed in an onslaught of attacks blamed on gangs resisting a crackdown on drug trafficking. Associated Press.
Khartoum’s Pregnable Fortress
The Khartoum government has an iron grip on its capital. Machine gun emplacements guard every bridge, major artery and government building. So how did rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement drive into Omdurman, no more than a stone’s throw across the Nile from the capital itself? One of my good contacts in Khartoum said […]
The Sun City Rockers
It’s great to see the Sudanese rapper Emmanuel Jal included in the line-up for Nelson Mandela’s birthday concert in June. His life story – child soldier smuggled out of Sudan in a bag – is almost as inspiring as Mandela’s. And his music is hot. Too often these sorts of things are dominated by western […]
Ian E. Brodie dies aged 75
Ian Ellery Brodie, a British foreign correspondent who covered Vietnam and worked out of Moscow before moving to the United States in 1975, has died of a stroke aged 72. The Daily Telegraph, a paper Brodie worked for, has an obituary and the Washington Post remembers an incident involving Brodie and Dan Quayle, In October […]
David Axe joins Frontline
David Axe joins the From the Frontline blog ranks this week. David is the author of Army 101 and War Fix. He also writes for the Wired Magazine Danger Room blog, keeps a personal blog called War is boring and uploads his cartoons to Flickr. Staying with the ‘boring’ theme, David has called his Frontline […]
There’s a storm coming
[video:youtube:rDzV4Mw1CHQ] Andrew Heavens blogs from Khartoum in Sudan, that the Darfur rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) launched an attack a few miles north of the capital city. However, being on the ground doesn’t make it any easier to report, especially when the mobile networks are down, Being close to the action doesn’t […]
Guns on buses and slain police officers
HONORING THEIR OWN: Federal police officers salute three slain colleagues, including acting chief Edgar Millan Gomez, in Mexico City. Authorities suspect he was betrayed by someone who knew his movements, according to Mexican media reports. Gregory Bull for the Associated Press via The Los Angeles Times. This week, Mexico City has been living up to […]
Pierre and Alexandra Boulat Grant Announced
Photographer Alexandra Boulat and her father Pierre, a Life magazine photographer, are to be remembered with an annual award created by VII the photo agency. The Pierre and Alexandra Boulat Grant was announced this week and will help fund projects that need to be told, The annual grant will be made to a photographer whose […]
Leaving Nairobi…but going elsewhere
Have decided to cancel my second trip to Somalia as the situation there has become too difficult to work. About 3 days ago the senior Shabab spokesman said that their group would start specifically targetting foreigners (i.e. white guys, not Ethiopians) in town, and I didn’t really fancy shelling out several thousand US dollars to […]
Frontline Club Journalism Awards 2007
Right from the very beginning the Frontline Club broke all conventions. From cameraman Vaughan Smith’s late 80’s visions of flying over the Afghan frontline in a Microlite to shacking up in Osama Bin Laden’s residence in Kabul. The founders of the Frontline Club didn’t just shirk convention, they booted it out the door. With those […]
Frontline Club Journalism Awards
Right from the very beginning the Frontline Club broke all conventions. From cameraman Vaughan Smith’s late 80’s visions of flying over the Afghan frontline in a Microlite to shacking up in Osama Bin Laden’s residence in Kabul. The founders of the Frontline Club didn’t just shirk convention, they booted it out the door. With those […]
Video: Leonora Carrington, Paseo de Reforma, Mexico City – Los Angeles Times
Phantoms come, phantoms go. They swirl around Leonora Carrington, a tiny woman of 91 with a tart intellect and a posh British accent, as she sips Earl Grey tea at her kitchen table. They rise like black vapors from the pavement of Avenue Reforma in the Mexican capital, where a menagerie of Carrington’s nightmarishly enigmatic […]
New study contrasts native and immigrant Latinas in U.S
Fascinating statistics released yesterday on the demographic makeup of the female Latina community in the United States show some striking, if unsurprising, differences between non-Latina and Latina women, as well as the native-born and immigrant female Latina communities.
David Loyn on the Frontline fallen
David Loyn, the BBC foreign correspondent who authored the story behind the Frontline Club, writes in the Yorkshire Post about former Frontline TV journalist Roddy Scott. Roddy was killed by Russian soldiers while working in Chechnya. David writes in the paper as part of the run up to this weekend’s Nidderdale Book Festival, “When people […]
Howard Burditt released
Reuters photographer Howard Burditt was released today after he was detained for three days in Zimbabwe. Burditt, a Zimbabwean national covering the aftermath of the country’s elections, had been in jail since Monday after officials accused him of illegally using a satellite phone to send pictures. “I am extremely relieved that Howard has been released […]
