News

December 12, 2011

Five links from 2011: ‘War Reporting’

This year I bookmarked at least 530 links on delicious. I know that because I try to tag each bookmark by year – I’m three hundred or so links down on last year’s total of 854. Seeing as we’re coming to the end of the year I thought I’d pick out a few of the […]


December 8, 2011

BBC Azeri: Reflections on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict

  The BBC’s Azerbaijani Service has published a gallery of my photographs taken in the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh in 1994. Over 25,000 people were killed in the war waged in the early 1990s and a million forced to flee their homes. Since a ceasefire agreement was signed in 1994 attempts to mediate a […]


December 8, 2011

ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 12- 18 December

A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 12 December to Sunday, 18 December from ForesightNews By Nicole Hunt US President Barack Obama hosts Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki for talks in Washington on Monday, with discussions focusing on strengthening the ‘strategic partnership’ between the two countries. The summit comes ahead of a […]


December 7, 2011

Sahara reporters

 I’m really impressed by this journalist website ‘Sahara Reporters’ – http://saharareporters.com  – having heard their founder Omoyele Sowore speaking recently on UK media. They’re a Nigerian news website based in the US who focus on citizen journalism and getting ordinary people to write and create reports about issues such as corruption and bad political management. […]


December 7, 2011

Russian blogger arrested after post-election protests

Russian blogger and anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny has been arrested after participating in post-election protests in Moscow against the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.  The BBC has a good profile of Navalny which explains how his Livejournal blog gained traction for exposing corruption: "The popularity of his blog allowed him to start mobilising internet users to take an active part in […]


December 1, 2011

Part 2: Democratic Republic of Congo: Presidential elections and blood minerals

Watch the event here.  By Thomas Lowe Many of the challenges facing Congo stem from its size, mineral wealth and its social complexity. The result of the Congo elections says Mary Harper, Africa Editor at BBC World Service will not be known for months, yet an incredible 18,000 candidates have put themselves forward. One key question […]


December 1, 2011

Part 1: Democratic Republic of Congo: Presidential elections and blood minerals

Download this episode View in iTunes Watch the event here.  By Natricia Duncan As we see landmark election in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the discussion at the Frontline Club turned to the way forward for this troubled nation. Chaired by Mary Harper, Africa Editor at the BBC World Service, who opened by asking: “Why a […]


November 29, 2011

hopes and fears for Durban

It’s been hard journalistically to generate much excitement about the climate change talks currently taking place in Durban, South Africa. Even the name is a complete put-off – COP17 – I suppose it was meant to be catchy… but the acronym stands for the achingly dull ‘Conference of Parties 17’. Yes, that’s the seventeenth time world leaders have […]


November 27, 2011

Frontline watches the rise and fall of Yugoslavian film in Cinema Komunisto

By William Turvill  The end of the Frontline Club’s screening season was marked, on Sunday 27 November, with the showing of Cinema Komunisto, featuring a subsequent question and answer discussion led by one of the film’s producers, Iva Plemic. The film, created by a group of young filmmakers from Serbia, documents the creation and collapse […]


November 23, 2011

Kashmir: South Asia’s Palestine?

View in iTunes Watch the even here.  By Marise Jeyarajah The club hosted an animated discussion last night on the controversial issues surrounding the future of Kashmir. Chaired by author and broadcaster Victoria Schofield. Kashmiri born Mirza Waheed, BBC Urdu journalist and author of The Collaborator, opened the event by giving his account of the ‘turning point’ events […]


November 22, 2011

Announcing the winners of the Frontline Club journalism awards 2011

The Frontline Club has announced the winners of the Frontline Club Award and the Frontline Memorial Tribute Award for excellence in journalism, to be presented by Allan Little on Wednesday 23 November at the Annual Party and Awards.


November 22, 2011

ToryBoy visits the Frontline Club

  By William Turvill The Frontline Club, on Monday 21 November, screened the critically acclaimed ToryBoy The Movie, followed by a question-and-answer session with the film’s creators, John Walsh and John Cowen. Dubbed the “documentary of the year” by The Guardian, this film follows the campaign trail of Walsh, a “disillusioned Labour Boy gone stray”, […]


November 18, 2011

Reflections: Alex Crawford

Download this episode View in iTunes  Watch the event here.    By Thomas Lowe Three time winner of the Royal Television Society Journalist of the year award, Sky special correspondent Alex Crawford spoke on trauma, risk, the tools of her trade and why she would rather eat her own liver than be a presenter. The […]


November 16, 2011

Cairo and the super rich

By Alan Selby Forty percent of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day, and Egypt receives an average of $2 billion a year in foreign aid. Yet millions of people are preparing to migrate away from the centre of Cairo and into newly constructed suburbs for the super rich. Jason Larkin, a photojournalist, and […]


November 14, 2011

Volunteer for the Frontline Television News Archive

This winter the Frontline Club Charitable Trust in Paddington is offering part-time volunteer positions on an its Archive project to a small number of bright individuals. If you’re interested in journalism, war or the history of the late 20th century perhaps this is the job for you.


November 10, 2011

lessons from Tunisia?

It’s generally agreed that the Tunisian elections went well – the results have been accepted, as has the moderate Islamist party En-nahda’s new power on the political scene. The process has been praised both within the country, and by international democracy monitoring bodies. I’m currently writing an article for BBC Focus on Africa magazine about what […]


November 10, 2011

Twitter memorial for members of the Canadian Forces

  The Ottawa Citizen has started a memorial Twitter account for members of the Canadian Forces who have lost their lives in conflict. The account will tweet the name of one service member at 11 minutes past every hour. The name is chosen at random by a computer from a list of more than 119,000 Canadians killed […]


November 9, 2011

Part 2 – Jonathan Steele on 30 years in Afghanistan and the foreign correspondent’s craft

By Thomas Lowe Arriving in the Deep South of the United States in 1964, Jonathan Steele witnessed the appalling treatment of black Americans. Almost five decades on, The Guardian‘s foreign correspondent says that ‘bearing witness’ to happenings in places as disparate as El Salvador, Russia and Afghanistan still drives his journalism. With Tom Finn, the […]


November 7, 2011

ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 7 – 13 November

A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 7 November to Sunday, 13 November from ForesightNews   By Nicole Hunt  Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, goes on trial in Paris on Monday accused of complicity in the deaths of 11 people. The charges relate to bombings in France in 1982 and 1983. […]


November 7, 2011

El Problema – The true story of Western Sahara

By Paaras Abbas  “We know that somebody is watching us. We don’t know where.” How many of us have a full realisation of the torture the people of Western Sahara endure on a daily basis? It’s a story that has simply not been heard. It is this fact that made last night’s screening of El […]


November 2, 2011

Tunisian journalism

I recently returned from a great trip to Tunisia to report on the country’s first democratic election. I had many fascinating discussions there with journalists about the challenges of working in a new system. Over super-powered coffee in the hundreds of smart cafes on the central Avenue Habib Bourguiba, I met journalists from independent agencies, Radio 6 Tunis, La Presse and […]


November 1, 2011

#Occupy, Film Africa and the craft of the foreign correspondent

As protesters outside St Paul’s are served with a legal warning to clear the area within 48 hours, join us tomorrow evening to discuss the motives and objectives of the global occupy movement. The first of our Film Africa screenings, celebrating the best African fiction and documentary films across the continent, is El Problema, while on Friday Sorious Samura and […]


October 29, 2011

Time to fly a kite for Afghanistan’s future

The glass encrusted string of a cheap paper kite sliced chunks of flesh out of my fingers when I tried Afghanistan’s national sport on a recent windy Friday in Kabul. Like much of what goes on in Afghanistan, kite flying is complex and violent. In what is essentially a fight to the death, the aim […]


October 28, 2011

ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 31 October – 6 November

A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 31 October to Sunday, 6 November from ForesightNews   By Nicole Hunt  The week starts off with a bang as humankind hits a big milestone on Monday – the UN is marking the day as the moment the world’s population surpasses seven billion people. A deadline set by […]


October 27, 2011

Russia: A Mafia State?

Download this episode View in iTunes Watch event here.   By Thomas Lowe The panel painted a largely sombre picture of present-day Russia, overshadowed by a resurgent FSB secret service and their close allies, the oligarchs. Author of Mafia State and Guardian correspondent Luke Harding began by explaining what it is like to be considered an […]


October 25, 2011

Inside Unreported World

By Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi   Watch the event here.   The filmmakers, from Channel 4’s acclaimed foreign affairs series Unreported World, spent two weeks secretly documenting President Bashar al-Assad’s violent crack down on opposition to his regime. Before turning off the camera, reporter Ramita Navai quietly explains that their Syrian fixers plan to hide from the militia […]


October 21, 2011

What’s coming up at the Frontline Club

Tonight’s event with Nawal El Saadawi, the veteran Egyptian feminist campaigner who yesterday recieved the Women of the Year Outstanding Achievement Award is sold out, but you can watch it online from 7pm. Next week we will be joined by the Guardian’s Luke Harding and the BBC’s Angus Roxburgh to discuss their experiences reporting from Russia and whether the country is a Mafia […]


October 21, 2011

Talks and screenings at the Frontline Club in November

From a series of films focusing on Africa to a discussion with Sky News’ Alex Crawford about her career and recent reporting in Libya, we have a wide range of talks lined up to keep you entertained and your mind stimulated this November, as winter approaches and the nights draw in.  We will be discussing Kashmir’s future, the changing role of […]


October 20, 2011

ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 24 – 30 October

A weekly round up of world events from Monday,  24 to Sunday, 30 October from ForesightNews   By Nicole Hunt This week begins and ends with big trials, with German businessman Gerhard Gribkowsky’s high-profile corruption trial kicking things off in Munich on Monday. The former BayernLB risk manager is accused of accepting a £28m bribe […]


October 20, 2011

BBC Editor says he was advised to pull journalists from Libya by Foreign Office

On the eve of the fall of Sirte, the BBC’s World News Editor has revealed that the Foreign Office “strongly recommended” to broadcasters that they pull their journalists out of Libya prior to the start of NATO’s bombing campaign. Speaking at yesterday evening’s Frontline Club event on the pressures of reporting conflict, Jon Williams said […]