News
Hearty Food for Valiant Olive Pickers on Sunday 5th December
POTENTINO POP-UP Our cousins who make the wonderful Potentino wine we serve in the Restaurant and Club are running their pop-up restaurant at Frontline every first Sunday of the month. This is their latest email with news from the vineyard and announcing the menu for Sunday 5th December: Hearty Food for Valiant Olive Pickers. Please […]
Blogging backlash against proposal to escalate confrontation with Iran
Earlier this month bloggers rounded on a column written in the Washington Post which suggested that Barack Obama could revive the United States’ flagging economy by ramping up tensions with Iran. In an article in the Washington Post on 31 October, David Broder wrote that the President could "spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating […]
Wartorn 1861-2010
A new HBO documentary Wartorn 1861-2010 premiered last night. This film explores posttraumatic stress from the Civil War to today. Wartorn 1862-2010 is directed by Jon Alpert and Ellen Goosenberg Kent and produced by Alpert, Goosenberg Kent and Matthew O’Neill. Executive producer is James Gandolfini. The film continues an HBO series about the costs of war: Baghdad ER, Alive […]
The Frontline Club’s Fixers’ Fund Auction 2010
At this year’s Frontline Annual Party and Awards we will be holding a charity auction in aid of the Fixers’ Fund. Click here to find the lots so far kindly donated by friends and members of the club.
In the Picture: a discussion with World Press Photo Winner Adam Ferguson
Adam Ferguson, one of the first prize winners of the World Press Photo Awards 2010, talked about being a war photographer and recent assignments in Afghanistan at the Frontline Club.
Parcel Force
So once again everyone’s talking about Yemen. The discovery, just under two weeks ago, of multiple parcel bombs, originating in Yemen and destined for synagogues in the US sent shock waves across the globe. But aside from a few extra traffic jams, life in Sana’a, a historic city nestled in high mountains, has continued […]
Insight with Tariq Ali: The Obama Syndrome
View in iTunes Watch the full event here. The week following one of the worst Democrat defeats in recent history seemed the perfect opportunity to discuss novelist and International commentator Tariq Ali‘s new book The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad. The midterm polls, which gave the Republicans over 60 more seats in the House […]
The week ahead: Tariq Ali on Barack Obama and Adam Ferguson on his war photography in Afghanistan
The Republican’s gain of control of the House of Representatives in last week’s midterms was a clear demonsration that Obama-mania has lost its shine. But how much has America changed since President Barack Obama took control? Renowned author, filmmaker and international commentator Tariq Ali will tonight be explaining to Al Jazeera’s Marwan Bishara why he […]
Should Tony Blair be tried for war crimes?
Friday’s screening of The Alternative Iraq Inquiry was filmmaker David Lawley-Wakelin’s documentary-making debut. A panel discussion followed the screening of the short film, with former cabinet minister and MP Clare Short and Major General Tim Cross CBE.
Afghanistan in pictures- reminding us all of the price of war
On the eve of Remembrance Day, Afghanistan and the soldiers fighting there will be at the forefront of the minds of many. Adam Ferguson, a photojournalist who has covered the war in Afghanistan extensively, will be speaking at the Frontline Club on the 10th about his work there and beyond.
A look into the US midterm election results
By: Anne Elica ño The American Republican party won a majority of Congress seats in the midterm elections. In a discussion at the Frontline Club last night, BBC Radio 4’s Broadasting House Paddy O’Connell asked Bill Barnard (chair of Democrats Abroad UK), Tom Grant (chair of Republicans Abroad UK) and Felicity Spector (American politics expert […]
Al-Quaeda in Yemen and the response of the west
Following attempts at the weekend by al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), to plant bombs on cargo planes and airliners bound to the US, a briefing paper has been published on the organisation’s aims by counter-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation. The authors of the paper Noman Benotman and James Brandon […]
The “unstoppable” growth of secrecy in the UK
The future green paper is likely to lay the ground for a special form of secret court claimed Gareth Peirce speaking at the Frontline Club last night. Asked about a current attempt by the Government to hold an entire civil trial in secret the acclaimed human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce said she believed the […]
Insight, debate, US midterms and a quiz thrown in: the week ahead at the Frontline Club
A precise critique of how Guantanamo Bay breached Geneva Conventions, analysis of how Adelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was prosecuted for the Lockerbie bombing because of the need for a scapegoat and discussion as to whether the experiences of the Muslim community can be compared to the Irish in the second half of the 20th century. These […]
Axe in Congo: Giving It Away
by DAVID AXE U.S. Army and Congolese army doctors render free medical care at a clinic in Kinshasa, as part of the Medflag ’10 exercise.
Guinea’s elections by motorbike part 2
Ks 1900-1975The road towards Ganta got patchier but was still pretty impressive. Once I arrived in town I swung a left, following a signpost that read ‘Guinea Road’ and after a couple of miles of dirt track I discovered the border post. There was a large, USAID-built concrete terminal on the Liberian side and a […]
Axe in Congo: Litter Training
by DAVID AXE Kinshasa — Corrupt and impoverished, Congo doesn’t have much in the way of emergency services. Wrecked cars become semi-permanent urban art installations on the side of the road. When fires break out, it can take hours for anyone to respond. MONUSCO, the U.N. peacekeeping force, has been forced to put out some […]
Guinea’s elections by motorbike
28/11/2010KMS 1702- 1900.A grey morning checking my gear and watching rain traverse Monrovia. I then mounted the heavily laden Bajaj motorcyle and wobbled off out of town, taking the noisy road through Red Light market that slowly turns north towards the interior. I remember thinking about the old saying that the hardest step in any journey […]
Forget about projects, give money to the people instead
By Gianluca Mezzofiore Experts on international aid marked yesterday the importance of effectiveness and risk-taking in delivering money to countries in need of help. In a panel discussion chaired by Humphrey Hawksley, leading BBC foreign correspondent, four professionals on humanitarian issues admitted the failure of project-based development and stressed on the major role of local […]
Wikileaks: cat among pigeons
Download this episode View in iTunes Watch the associated event here. A couple of days ago, I finished a post on Wikileaks by stating that the media organisation that refuses to play by everybody else’s rules is still learning its own game. I promised you more on that and here it is. One of […]
Axe in Congo: Can’t Please Everyone
by DAVID AXE Kinshasa — A free health clinic was one of the culminating events of the U.S. Army-led "Medflag ’10" training exercise in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While American instructors trained up Congolese medics, U.S. and Congolese officials oversaw registration of civilians to attend the clinic. The civilians lined up before a board […]
Reaction to the closure of Internet cafés in Kabul
Journalist Abbas Daiyar has an interesting blog post on this month’s decision by the Afghan Telecommunications Regulatory Authority to close 17 Internet cafés in the capital. The cafés had been warned not to allow their customers to view pornography or un-Islamic material. Daiyar argues that imposing such bans will not combat "moral corruption": "By shutting […]
Some thoughts on Wikileaks, the media and the truth
This was the second time I’d seen Julian Assange speak at the Frontline Club. A few months ago, the small club room was lined with TV cameras as the Wikileaks founder launched the Afghan War Logs leak. The audience of journalists that day were sceptical and were looking for a news line – they pushed […]
Axe in Congo: Training the Congolese Army
by DAVID AXE Kinshasa — Soft power can be tedious, exhausting, frustrating. A hundred U.S. Army doctors and medics are in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, to train several hundred medics from the Congolese Forces Armees de la Republique Democratique du Congo. The Americans’ idea: to leave the Congolese more capable and more professional than […]
Wikileaks and Julian Assange: where can they go from here?
Faced with the fact that there were only "many" places he could live following the leak of hundreds and thousands of war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange asked ‘what are we saying in the world if journalists are forced to take refuge in Moscow or Cuba? Speaking at the Frontline Club […]
Axe in Congo: The Army’s Training Dilemma
by DAVID AXE Kinshasa — Colonel Gilbert Kabanda, the surgeon general of the Forces Armees de la Republique Democratique du Congo — the Congolese army — is a tiny man, barely more than five feet tall. But he has a big speaking voice. On September 6, he took the stage at the opening ceremony for […]
The Secret War – Iraq War Logs
With the ‘biggest leak of military documents ever’, Wikileaks has reestablished its position as the pentagon’s no1 hate object. In a special four-page report, FRONTLINE discusses the shocking results of the whistle-blower’s collaboration with the Iraq Body Count group and talks to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange about the latest release. i l l u s […]
Welcome to the Global Shadow State – Julian Assange talks turkey about Wikileaks
Julian Assange reaches to take a book from a shelf behind him – any book. The commodity in which hedeals is information, and he wants to make a point about how information travels, and why. Or does nottravel, and why not. About what he calls “the media information flow economy”. He asks one to bear […]
Life in the Red Zones: Islamabad
How many of you have to go through eight security barracks on your way to work every day and back? How would you feel if you have to go through at least four security check posts, have special security vehicle permission and special entry pass, every time you want to enter in the premises of […]
Enough is Enough by John Morris
By John Morris, from the Autumn 2010 issue of the Frontline broadsheet (subscribe here) … Open publication
