News
Mexico City fans practice Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ moves
Mexico City’s Michael Jackson fans got together Tuesday morning to practice the recently deceased singer’s famous "Thriller" dance in front of the Palacio de Bellas Artes downtown. Led by Mexican Jackson impersonator "Héctor Jackson" (pictured) and choreographer Adolfo Chávez, the group was preparing for an Aug. 29 event in which an estimated 11,000 people in Mexico […]
Azerbaijan: Even more Eurovision stupidity
Music lovers the world over might consider it to be some kind of dumb competition where the most mediocre of talent gets its brief moment of fame, but for tin-pot dictators in the South Caucasus, Eurovision is taken very seriously indeed. Forget the spirit in which the competition was meant to be held, for Armenia, […]
Who to follow: Twitter for the Afghanistan election
I’ve already added several people to the list since it was first published. New twitter accounts I add will appear at the top of each section from now on… In Afghanistan @ashrafghani – Dr Ashraf Ghani, Presidential candidate. @KevinFlowerCNN – CNN Correspondent. @hamishreporter – Hamish Macdonald, Al Jazeera English Correspondent and Presenter. @itamena – Helped […]
IDF Twitter feed breaks 179 day silence
Rather intriguingly the Twitter feed for the Israeli Defence Force, @IDFSpokesperson, has offered the world a tweet for the first time in 179 days. Clearly IDF Spokesperson was getting back into the swing of things because the first one was quickly followed by a second at around 6pm Israeli time: "IDFSpokesperson 106 aid trucks and […]
Saying the ‘S’ word in Somaliland
Having returned from a trip to Somaliland, I spent the last few days editing video footage and pictures.I went there as a nostalgic ethnic Somali who hadn’t seen the land I left twenty years ago. Although my family come from Hargeisa I spent many of my formative years living in Mogadishu. This experience has left […]
Georgi Vanyan: Every family has the desire for peace
Fifteen years after the 1994 ceasefire put the conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh on hold, reports that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan might be moving closer to a final peace settlement have caught many unaware. The last time international mediators were as optimistic about the prospects for peace was in 2001 […]
WRL: The ‘ghost war’ and war reporting
I tend to push most of my war reporting links through Twitter rather than on blog posts these days but I thought this little collection was worth a quick update. 1. Sean Smith chronicles three months on the front line in Afghanistan: "High explosive is zooming back and forwards, so the enemy is certainly there, […]
One Year On, Media War Continues
Over a year after the Georgia-Russia war, there’s still no sign of a ceasefire in the media battle for moral supremacy. It’s just emerged that the disputed regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (which are claimed by Georgia but have been recognised as independent states by Russia) have hired an American PR firm to try to […]
Kandahar Election Rallies (Karzai, Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani)
With only four days to go before the elections, I thought it might be useful to comment on how the opposition candidates’ rallies went this past week. Myself and my colleague were graced with the presence of a good half dozen members of the international press corps this week, and in all likeliness you’ll read […]
Armenian youth rally for detained activist
While the international community continues to follow the case of two detained video bloggers and youth activists in Azerbaijan, the plight of another taken into police custody several days earlier in neighbouring Armenia remains unnoticed. Despite his diminutive size, Tigran Arakelian is accused of assaulting three policemen at the beginning of July and, like Adnan […]
Capturing Conflict Film Festival
I am extremely proud to announce the Frontline Club’s Capturing Conflict Film Festival. The festival showcases a selection of the most important films about the risks journalists and filmmakers take in order to get their stories out. The selection process was an incredibly difficult one and this final programme reflects those we felt were the […]
Mexico City mural makeover
To some, the graffiti that covers miles of walls and public spaces across Mexico City is a thing of beauty and something to be encouraged and celebrated. To others, such as the local government’s Youth Institute, it’s an ugly nuisance. A government project mobilized more than 1,000 youngsters earlier this month to clean up and […]
Mexico beats U.S in soccer showdown
A T-shirt for sale outside Mexico City’s Stadium Azteca yesterday afternoon, during a World Cup qualifying match between the U.S and Mexico, which Mexico won 2:1. "Toma" means "take", or in this instance, "take this". More photos here on Flickr.
A Different Type of Food Security
There’s no need to bore you with my frankly hilarious attempts at reintegrating into western, capitalist society. Yesterday I got to grips with London’s Oyster card. Tomorrow I might try scanning my own groceries at Tesco. There are lots of differences from my old life in Africa, and I suspect you’d get tired of my […]
End of an epoch – dismantling Baku’s suburban railways
Photo from Aztelekom.org Starting on 12 August, Azerbaijani transportation authorities have begun to dismantle Baku’s celebrated, but rapidly degrading suburban railway system, which was founded by famous Swedish family of the Nobels and went through several major overhauls in its history. Constructed between 1878 and 1880, a short private railway line started to carry petrol […]
An Afghanistan strategy dialogue
Well worth tuning into this debate over at Abu Muqawama. If you want the background start here. Day One was a few days back now and they’re already up to Day Five.
Universal Church of the Kingdom of God accused of money laundering
The founder of the Brazilian Church Universal Kingdom of God, “bishop” Edir Macedo, and another 9 high members of the church are being charged for fraud against the church’s followers. Prosecutors in Sao Paulo claim that Macedo and other close allies channelled billions of dollars in donations for the church’s followers to build an empire […]
Escape from Somaliland
Xorriyo Airways, which ran flights from Dubai to Berbera in Somaliland, has collapsed. I found this out the hard way. I soon became one of more than 600 people stranded in Somaliland. At 7.40 pm one night the airline office phoned to say the flight had been ‘delayed until further notice’ and if someone […]
Dirty, Not Very Sexy Money
Cleared out my bedside table of five years of spare cash. There are torn notes from Ethiopia, Chad, Uganda and Tanzania. Smart colourful ones from Botswana, South Africa and Ghana. Assorted handfuls from Liberia, Sudan, Mozambique, Rwanda and the DRC. Then there is the fun stuff from holidays – India, the UAE and plastic […]
On the road with Mexico’s young military
At the end of last month, my partner Ulises and I were lucky enough to hit the road for a week’s break here in Mexico, and headed down to Tulum on the Caribbean. I was a loooooooong drive that, in retrospect, we won’t do again unless we have more time. President Felipe Calderon’s military campaign […]
Mexican day laborers are ‘Los Bastardos’ in fictional work
At first glance, “Los Bastardos” seems a surprising film for a Mexican director to make. The second movie from Amat Escalante, 30, is a disturbing fictional tale about 24 hours in the lives of two undocumented Mexican day laborers in Los Angeles. The documentary style of Escalante’s storytelling, which uses two non-actors in the main […]
Back from a country where stuff works
There is comfort in the raucous purr of garbage trucks and robotic street sweepers, in the familiar sweesh-pfff of a bus stopping and the off-beat chanting of a labor protest. They’re the sounds of a country where stuff works. Thirteen months and a day to my landing in Phnom Penh, I took off for 5 […]
Mexican image of Brazil wins World Press Photo prize
Mexican photographer Carlos Cazalis was one of the winners in this year’s World Press Photo contest. The photographer was given first prize in the Contemporary Issues section for this image he took in São Paulo, Brazil, last year. The photo shows a man sleeping, wrapped in a blanket against the cold, outside São Paulo’s elite […]
MoD (sort of) “encourages” use of Twitter, blogs, Facebook
The Ministry of Defence has issued a new set of social media guidelines "encouraging" their personnel to "talk about what they do, but within certain limits to protect security, reputation and privacy". In a notable development the policy allows soldiers to dicuss "their work online without prior authorisation from their chain of command" as long […]
Kandahar: City of Nobody’s Dreams
For outsiders, Kandahar was never really somewhere you could fall in love with. You know the kind of thing I mean: places people went to honeymoon, places with a certain ineluctable quality to them… Back in the seventies, when Kandahar was a popular stopover city on the hippy trail to Kabul and India, one such […]
Mr Blair: Was Jesus Wrong? If So, You Must Be Right by Peter Stanford
Illustration by Chris Riddell Tony Blair is busy outing himself as a man of God. Which is immediately ironic after all that time during which Blair refused to “do God” – as his media manager Alastair Campbell informed us. Since leaving Downing Street, Blair has used the G-word with a mixture of the fervour and […]
What about Ibrahim Jassam?
Current.tv journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee are about to arrive in California after spending 140 days in a North Korean prison having been convicted of committing "hostile acts". The North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pardoned the duo after a surprise visit by Bill Clinton. You can watch the arrival of the two journalists […]
Read beyond the “Marines ban Twitter…” headline
Articles like this one with the headline ‘Marines Ban Twitter, Facebook, MySpace" have been doing the rounds in the media. But it’s important to read beyond the headline. Because if you just read headlines you end up with a really distorted picture of the world. (You always did but I’d suggest it’s even worse in […]
No End in Sight to South Sudan’s Violence over Land
By DAVID AXE Tribal fighting in South Sudan killed nearly 200 people on Sunday. Murle tribesmen reportedly attacked an encampment of refugees from the Lou Nuer tribe, killing 185, mostly women and children, but also including soldiers from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the U.S.-backed armed force of the breakaway Government of South Sudan. The […]
Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma spotlights Mexico
The Dart Center, a Columbia University project for journalists who cover violence, got in touch with me after I published a video report on survival training for journalists in Mexico earlier this year. The Dart Center’s reason for being is laid out on its site: The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, a project of […]
