News
People Profile: Spokesman Subcomandante Marcos
Subcomandante Marcos Spokesman By Deborah Bonello Of all Mexicans that one might have known prior to arriving here, SubCommandante Marcos – or Delegado Cero as he now prefers to be known – is definitely one of them. His image abroad as the mask-wearing, pipe-smoking mestizo who fights for the indigenous cause rivals that of another […]
People Profile: Straight Shooter Dario Ramirez
Dario Ramirez Straight Shooter By Deborah Bonello DarÃo RamÃrez is no naïve idealist. The 35-year-old head of Article 19’s Mexico chapter – an organization that defends and promotes freedom of expression — has been a human rights activist for more than a decade. He bluntly describes the United Nations as a “slow elephant,†Mexico’s NGO […]
Day of the Dead Dance in Tetela de Volcan, Mexico
[video:bliptv:472665] Tetela de Volcan is a small, traditional town in the state of Morelos, Mexico overlooked by the volcano Popocatepetl, also known as Popo. Here, the locals spend the days of November 1st and 2nd in their local cemeteries, tending to the graves of their loved ones and spending time with their families. In their […]
“Growing up fast”
Ben Anderson hits Helmand for the Daily Mail, As a BBC foreign correspondent, I’ve visited most of the world’s war zones – Iraq, Gaza, Congo and many more – but nothing prepared me for what I found when I flew into Kandahar airport to join up with a unit of the First Battalion Grenadier Guards […]
Johnston at the Club
Here’s a clip of Alan Johnston talking at the Frontline Club last week. You can watch the full talk here.
Dia de Muertos in Tetela de Volcan
Dia de Muertos in Tetela de Volcan, originally uploaded by MexicoReporter. MexicoReporter.com spent the Dia De Muertos festival in Tetela del Volcan. Click here for the photo story set.
Brad Will shot at close range, says investigation
Brad Will was shot by an assailant (s) just 50 centimeters away, and not from a distance of 30 meters as originally thought, according to the latest findings of the investigation of the Attorney General on the case in Mexico. Results from the investigation into the death of the American IndyMedia journalist, shot dead in […]
Rednecks, hippies and batty biologists – 4/11/07
In the annals of our small and humble valley, it was a notable gathering of scientific minds. An accomplished skink man, a bat expert, a Chinese medicine practitioner and a clutch of bear biologists all gathered around our dinner table last weekend to swap ursine opinions. We had sent out an invitation to the eminences […]
Excerpts from the sandbox
This week Slate publish excerpts from a series of stories from the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. The snippets are taken from the Sandbox blog which is a collaboration between Doonesbury creator G.B. Trudeau and editor David Stanford. The blog is a mix of opium, bullets and dangerous encounters along with insights into the daily […]
Best of the war blogs
The BBC’s iPM blog picks up the war blogging theme following on from poppy wearing Rememberance Sunday with a “selection of the best “milblogs””
Press Freedom Fighters Demand Legal Action in Mexico
Demands have been sent to the Mexican Government from international press freedom organisations this week calling for more vigorous legal proceedings and investigations into cases of violence against journalists. Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists both sent letters to government officials this week following the one year anniversary of the death of […]
Oaxaca Remembers Brad Will
As many as 20,000 people gathered in Oaxaca City on Saturday this weekend to remember Brad Will, the American journalist shot dead a year ago. The marchers also walked in memory of the Oaxacan teacher Alonso Fabian who was shot dead the same day during clashes between teachers and members of the APPO, and municipal […]
Female Mariachi’s Croon in Mexican Plaza
Mariachi Sonidos de America Feminil are defying Mexican tradition. A female band of Mariachis, the group of women musicians are confronting the macho culture of the Mariachi to give it a feminine touch. The group plays every night of the weekend in Mexico’s Plaza de Garibaldi. More to come from MexicoReporter.com on the mariachis….. Formats […]
One Year On, Supporters of Dead Journalist Oppose U.S Drugs Cash Proposal
Groups demanding justice for the murder of U.S journalist Brad Will, who was shot dead in Oaxaca, Mexico on this day last year, are opposing the $1.4 billion security proposal put forward by President George Bush this week as part of an initiative to help the country fight its illegal drugs trafficking problem. Supporters demanding […]
Johnston remembers
Gaza kidnap survivor, Alan Johnston talked on Panorama about how he imagined it all ending, “In an interview for BBC1’s Panorama Mr Johnston, 45, said: “I imagined being put into that red suit they would make me wear for videos. I imagined one of them in a hood and one of them putting a knee […]
Sac Bee pulls blog plug
It looks as though the Sacramento Bee’s man in Iraq has been biting off more than his blog can chew, On October 23, Bobby posted an entry bragging about being an arrogant jackass to a US soldier manning a security checkpoint. Here’s how Calvan himself describes his attitude toward his fellow Americans: “The Americans, however, […]
Correspondent come novelist in Camden
When Walkley Award-winning journalist Erina Reddan embarked on a whirlwind courtship with Victor Del Rio, little did she know she was about to marry into a family of witches whose matriarch allegedly murdered five husbands and was also a drug runner who operated a brothel. The exciting tales of Victor’s Mexican family, in particular his […]
Apps back at work
Peter Apps worked as a foreign correspondent for Reuters until he was paralysed 13 months ago and now he’s back, Using voice recognition software, a tape recorder for interviews and accompanied by a support worker, I went back to work and the real world in June after finally leaving hospital. At first I was thrilled […]
'Mexican newspapers don't explain Mexico' says journalist
Mexican newspaper publishers sell only three million newspapers a day in a country with a population of 106 million. Most Mexican journalists will tell you that Mexican's don't read because Mexican newspapers have yet to get round to the job of 'explaining Mexico', according to Ronald Buchanan, a Scottish freelance journalist based in Mexico City. […]
National Geographic pay tribute to Boulat
Marilyn from National Geographic drops by in the comments to alert us to a NGS tribute page to Alexandra Boulat who was a Frontline Club member and event speaker and who recently passed away.
Burmese hacks back on the beat
Win Ko Ko Latt, of the weekly Eleven journal, and Nay Linn Aung, of the 7-days journal, have both been freed and are back at work, officials at their companies told. Both newspapers are private, Myanmar-language weeklies that operate under the constant watch of military censors, who tightly control the nation’s media. The newspapers declined […]
Targetted by the mafia
Lirio Abbate has an unwelcome distinction among Italian journalists: correspondent in Sicily for the state news agency Ansa and La Stampa newspaper, he has had his own armed police escort for the past six months. When anti-Mafia investigators using wiretaps heard mobsters discussing how to silence 37-year-old Abbate in revenge for his news reports and […]
Punks Collect Downtown at El Chopo
El Chopo is a weekly fleamarket that has been going for 27 years in Mexico City. Punters can pick up anything from original Doc Marten boots to a copy of ‘London Calling’ by the Clash in the stalls that line the market streets. Click on the photo for more pictures.
He ate censors for breakfast
Canadian reporter Bill Boss died last week at 90 years old. He was buried on Saturday, First as a soldier, then as a civilian reporter, Boss followed the Canadian army through Italy – at one point actually preceding the troops into Florence after it was liberated by Italian partisans. He went on to report from […]
Meeting Resistance
Meeting Resistance, a film by Steve Connors and Molly Bingham, opens this week in the US. It’s a film about the ‘insurgency’ in Iraq from the ‘insurgent’s’ point of view. It portrays a side of the story that is rarely told in western media. The Washington Post says, Polished art it isn’t, but it […]
Embed a granny
Jane Stillwater is a 65-year old Californian grandmother and blogger takes the obvious course of all grandmothers her age and gone and paid her way for an embed position in Iraq. Chris Vallance from the BBC radio’s Pods & Blogs show pulls out a quote from Stillwater’s past, The violence didn’t keep her from wanting […]
Getting the story out
Writing in Ha’aretz, Yotam Feldman tells it as it is, or was, and how he got the story out of Burma, It’s 4 A.M. at Bangkok airport. Minutes before my plane is to lift off for Rangoon, I get a call on my mobile. In loose English with an Asian accent, a screaming voice says, […]
The End of Democracy
A decade ago Russia was on its knees. Today it is an energy giant in a world with an apparently unslakeable thirst for oil. As its wealth grows, so does Moscow’s desire to re-establish itself on the world stage. Overtures to Hamas, nuclear co-operation with Iran, and a sharing of Serbia’s concerns over Kosovo are […]
Killing Foretold
At the time of writing the State Peace and Development Council, as Burma’s junta styles itself, was still sticking to its story that only 10 had died as a result of its latest assault on democracy in September. Other sources suggested a far higher figure, running into the hundreds. Whatever the actual tally, these were […]
Where Soldiers Fear to Tread
Any journalist who spends time in disaster zones comes away with at least a grudging admiration for aid workers. While some are self-righteous, others self-serving, a few simply naïve and more than a few exasperating, almost all of them earn our admiration. A few, perhaps, win a small touch of envy for having actually “done […]
