News
Frontline Club week ahead briefing 16 – 22 April
The week kicks off with a bang as the trial for the newly-sane Anders Behring Breivik gets underway in Oslo on Monday.
Bosnia 20 years on – Part 2
By Ivana Davidovic It was a full house at the Frontline Club, the audience gathering to mark two decades since the ill-fated weekend in April 1992 when first shots were fired in Bosnia. The worst carnage in Europe since World War II was about to unfold. Over 100,000 people were killed, out of whom about […]
Bosnia 20 years on – Part 1
By Merryn Johnson Twenty years after the beginning of the Bosnian War, Ed Vulliamy still rages against the powers that failed to act, the perpetrators not held to account, and the international organisations continuing to profit from the fractured regions sufferings. “It’s not just about the war but about the peace after it… wars, and […]
An ocean of data and the future of social media analysis
Data is the future, if it’s not already the present. At a recent press conference announcing US military investment in ‘Big Data’ projects, the acting director for DARPA noted that the Atlantic Ocean contains 100 billion, billion gallons of water. Kaigham Gabriel went on to state that "if each gallon of water represented a byte […]
“Brief and largely transatlantic”: Visualising #Kony2012 on Twitter
Yesterday at the Frontline Club, there was a discussion about Invisible Children’s controversial Kony2012 video. Whatever else you think about it (and a lot of people have a lot of thoughts), the campaign has succeeded in raising awareness of the crimes of Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. I just thought I’d take the opportunity to flag […]
Is Invisible Children’s KONY 2012 campaign baloney?
With over one hundred million ‘views’ the Kony 2012 video has started a far-reaching debate on the aims and value of a production seen by many as an over-simplification of complex situation.
Assad: Western idealism and Eastern autocracy
“I would be more pessimistic if I had to rewrite the last sentences,” said Christophe Ayad, co-director of Syria: Assad’s Twilight.
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 2 – 8 April
Following the Friends of Syria (or Friends of the Syrian people, depending on who you ask) meeting in Istanbul on Sunday, UN-Arab League Special Envoy for Syria Kofi Annan is set to address the UN Security Council in New York on Monday to update them on the progress of his recent discussions with the Syrian government and the implementation of his six-point plan.
The Tenth Parallel: Africa’s fault line between Christianity and Islam
Download this episode View in iTunes By Nicky Armstrong Solomon Mugera, the BBC’s Africa editor began by describing the balance where Islam and Christianity collide as ‘a delicate pendulum’. For the past seven years award-winning journalist and poet Eliza Griswold has travelled 9,000 miles along this line of collision known as the Tenth Parallel, meeting […]
Taliban take questions using online forum
Reuters is reporting that the Taliban have started answering queries submitted to an online forum on their website. Questions have been asked on topics ranging from the Taliban’s negotiations with the United States to their position on educating girls. The Taliban banned girls from schools while they were in power, although there were reports in […]
The Trouble With Girls – raising daughters as sons in Afghanistan
By Ivana Davidovic “Why do we need to give a girl a boy’s face to give her freedom?” That is the question asked by Azita Rafhat, a former member of the Afghan parliament, who opted for a radical decision to raise one of her four daughters as a boy, having succumbed to the still prevailing […]
Putin, corruption and the Magnitsky case
It’s not easy to hear of how Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was killed.
What next for Putin’s Russia?
By Alan Selby Against a backdrop of growing discontent, and widespread allegations of fraud, Russia’s recent elections heralded Vladimir Putin’s re-election to the presidency. The man who many still saw as Russia’s de facto leader will now resume his tenure, four years after ostensibly ceding power to Dmitry Medvedev. In light of these developments a […]
Al Jazeera’s Indian Hospital series preview: Q&A
‘Indian Hospital’ is a new six part series that looks at a new style ‘super’ profit driven hospital that also cares for people with limited means.
POLIS 2012: Reporting Revolution
I’m at the POLIS Journalism Conference where we have been talking about Reporting Revolution with the BBC’s Lyse Doucet, Lindsey Hilsum from Channel 4 and Tom Coghlan at The Times. "An extraordinary time to be a journalist" All the panellists expressed their excitement at covering the Arab Spring. Tom Coghlan began by comparing the limitations […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 26 March – 1 April
A week filled with big summits and conferences kicks off in Seoul on Monday, where Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, US President Barack Obama, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti are among representatives from more than 50 countries that will convene to discuss nuclear safety, in all likelihood defying North Korean calls to leave their nuclear programme out of it.
Nine years on is the UN still failing Darfur?
View event here. Download this episode View in iTunes By Nicky Armstrong Last night’s event at the Frontline Club saw a heated debate between the expert panel and the audience on the UN’s presence in Darfur. Chaired by Patrick Smith, editor of Africa Confidential, the discussion bought up many of the tangled complexities surrounding the […]
Are cheap, local hires saving or ruining foreign reporting?
By Helena Williams Foreign reporting is changing. With news outlets’ budgets tightening, and competition, pressure and risks on the rise, foreign journalists working in conflict countries are abandoning traditional methods of reporting in favour of using cheap, local hires to get the story: “It used to be that you were a local journalist, and treated […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 19 – 25 March
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 19 to Sunday, 25 March from Foresight News By Nicole Hunt European Commissioner for Internal Markets Michel Barnier is launching the Commission’s Shadow Banking Green Paper in Brussels on Monday, opening a consultation period on planned EU reforms for the regulation of non-bank credit activity, […]
Iran: dangerous or just misunderstood?
By Thomas Lowe International disagreement on the aims of the Iranian government was well represented on the discussion’s panel. Does Iran seek regional hegemony? Are its motivations aggressive or defensive? And the pointed question at the heart of the debate – what will Israel do next? Martin Fletcher, associate editor of The Times took the […]
Behind the scenes: social media at the Israel Defence Forces
This is an extended news report on the Israel Defence Forces’ social media activities including interviews with the soldiers updating the various IDFSpokesperson accounts. The video is a year old, but I’ve been looking for this sort of material for a while. The IDF started with a blog and a YouTube channel in 2008 during Operation Cast […]
Apps for the Paps
By Thomas Lowe It could have made no sense. But with a gently-gently approach to explaining new apps and why they exist, the gap between the journo geeks and the journo technophobes was momentarily bridged – with a little help from the BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones. Empowerment: Former photographer for the dailies, Christian […]
Exclusive Preview Screening:Desert Riders
By Nicky Armstrong Camel racing is a sport for the wealthy and is a lucrative business throughout the UAE. Rich camel owners used to use trafficked young children as young as three for jockeys. Mainly from Pakistan, Sudan, Mauritania and Bangladesh they are used because of their light-weight to gain–an advantage in the races. The […]
Jasad & the Queen of Contradictions
By Charlene Rodrigues Popularly known as the Paris of the Middle East, Lebanon is said to be culturally liberal compared to most Arab countries in the Middle East. However, such is not the belief of Joumana Haddad, a Lebanese journalist and poet based in Beirut. She says, "I feel liberated but I wear a […]
First Wednesday: The problems facing Pakistan and its leadership
View event here. Download this episode View in iTunes By Rosie Scammell The Forum opened to a full house on Wednesday evening for a clash of opinions over the problems facing Pakistan. With BBC journalist Owen Bennett-Jones acting as chair, the government and military soon took centre stage, a relationship described as “A power struggle […]
It’s the Military, Stupid
By Thomas Lowe ‘Memogate’, nuclear weapons, Bin Laden, Imran Khan, US foreign policy, Afghanistan – it seems that global issues are destined to pass through Pakistan. But it’s the vast military apparatus at the very centre of the state of Pakistan that took the attention of the Frontline panel – and demanded the mediation skills […]
The promise and peril of the Arab revolution
“’It came out of nowhere because of Facebook and Google’ is not true. It was a long time coming.”
Screening: An Arab Spring in Saudi?
By Charlene Rodrigues This time last year, when we witnessed uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, Shaimaa Khalil’s curiosity took her to the streets of Saudi Arabia to investigate what was happening in one of the world’s richest oil-producing countries. The resulting documentary, An Arab spring in Saudi?, is a study of the authoritarianism of the Saudi […]
Frontline Club Documentary Programmer Role
The Frontline Club is looking for a Documentary Programmer with relevant experience in the field of film programming, documentary or broadcasting.
Candidates should have at least two years’ experience in a relevant field.
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 4 – 11 March
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 5 to Sunday, 11 March from Foresight News By Nicole Hunt Former Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde is back in front of the Landsdomur court in Reykjavik on Monday. Haarde is charged with negligence over the country’s banking collapse in October 2008, though charges that he […]
