News
Tulips, tourists and Taliban
The tourism sector, one of the corner stones of the economy of the Indian Administered Kashmir, seems to be in jeopardy. Tourist arrival rates have taken a nose dive ever since concocted media reports of the presence of ‘Taliban’ in the region. These reports dealt such a blow that local tour operators say that the […]
Swine flu doesn’t deter art fans in Mexico City
If you’ve been paying attention to any news out of Mexico over the last 36 hours, you can’t have failed to notice that we are in the grip of an outbreak of swine flu. As the mediareported yesterday, as many as 60 people have been killed by the outbreak and schools, public offices, cinemas and museums have all been closed by the government as a precaution.
Peter Beaumont’s secret life of war
Peter Beaumont, Observer journalist who has reported from war zones for twenty years, talks about his experiences on the Guardian website with Tracy McVeigh today. The newspaper runs an excerpt from his latest book, The Secret Life Of War today. Peter will be at the Frontline Club on May 12 to talk more about his […]
Civil society addresses an open letter to the President
A group of prominent Azeri intellectuals, civil society and NGO leaders, and independent journalists has addressed an open letter to Ilham Aliyev, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The letter signed by 24 people states in particular: As the representatives of the nation which was the leader of democratization in the Muslim world and […]
How many idiosyncrasies?
Not long ago, in 1920, Mammed Amin Rasul-zadeh wrote that Azerbaijan was born from a Turkic father and Iranian mother. I would like to add that Azerbaijan had Russian stepparents. Once I wrote to a person in the other side of the Atlantic and not mentioned my country, for I thought that why an ordinary […]
Africa Handshake, Part Four: Oh Buoy
With two expensive land wars draining the treasury, the Pentagon wants to prevent future conflicts without spending a lot of money. Two years ago the Navy launched its first, roughly annual Africa Partnership Station, sending ships on solo cruises up the West African coast to deliver training and humanitarian aid. The idea: to win new […]
A Confession
OK, I’ve been found out. I don’t know how many people have died in Darfur. This was helpfully pointed out by Guy Gabriel on the Making Sense of Darfur blog… The use of these figures in the media is inconsistent; both individual journalists and newspapers themselves vary in the numbers they use. For example, a […]
Taking the flak
Original Frontline TV agency camera woman Tira Shubart recently finished filming and producing a TV comedy series called Taking the Flak about the world of war reporters, stringers and fixers all set in a fictional African country called Karibu. Tira produced the film with Jon Rolph and it draws on her experience as a foreign […]
Welcome to the axis of evil
It’s a devastating critique. Syria is being kept in the dark ages because of a lack of American culture, and poor access to the internet argues a Gulf-based journalist. "Less fortunate young Syrians who [didn’t go to the American school] used to look forward to movie night at the [American] Cultural Centre every Wednesday. … […]
Reporting from Gaza
Was it liberating to find themselves without the BBC working alongside? Was it a daunting resonsibility? link Just two of the questions Judith Townend at journalism.co.uk proposes to ask Al Jazeera journalists Sherine Tadros and Ayman Mohyeldin at 2pm GMT today. The reporters were the only English language reporters in Gaza during the Israeli attack […]
Doing journalism in Sri Lanka
They live in fear. A dozen have been assassinated. Such is the fate of journalists trying to cover the war in the north of Sri Lanka. link A report from CBC about journalists working in Sri Lanka. The sub-7 minute feature takes us inside the offices of The Sunday Leader, the newspaper Lasantha Wickrematunga edited […]
Journalists face North Korea trial
Euna Lee and Laura Ling, the two US journalists arrested on the border between North Korea and China in March, are to face trial in Pyongyang according to North Korean state media, Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said in a short dispatch Friday that the North decided to indict the women reporters "based on criminal […]
Killer women prepare for U.S. debut
You may remember “Mujeres Asesinas” from this article last year by The Times’ Reed Johnson:
Think of it as ” Desperate Housewives” – make that very desperate – with butcher knives, vials of poison and bottles of hydrochloric acid. Or an extremely stressed-out “Lipstick Jungle.”
Africa Handshake, Part Three: Save the Fish, to Fight Pirates
With two expensive land wars draining the treasury, the Pentagon wants to prevent future conflicts without spending a lot of money. Two years ago the Navy launched its first, roughly annual Africa Partnership Station, sending ships on solo cruises up the West African coast to deliver training and humanitarian aid. The idea: to win new […]
A world without foreign correspondents
Andrew Stroehlein, Communications Director for the International Crisis Group, wrote a great piece on his Covering Crisis blog on the Reuters AlertNet site. He has very kindly agreed to let us post it on the Frontline blog. He raises a lot of points about under-reported stories, things we regularly cover here and discuss at length […]
Africa Handshake, Part Two: Human Trafficking
With two expensive land wars draining the treasury, the Pentagon wants to prevent future conflicts without spending a lot of money. Two years ago the Navy launched its first, roughly annual Africa Partnership Station, sending ships on solo cruises up the West African coast to deliver training and humanitarian aid. The idea: to win new […]
Africa Handshake, Part One: This Is Libreville
With two expensive land wars draining the treasury, the Pentagon wants to prevent future conflicts without spending a lot of money. Two years ago the Navy launched its first, roughly annual Africa Partnership Station, sending ships on solo cruises up the West African coast to deliver training and humanitarian aid. The idea: to win new […]
‘Cabbage Revolution’ Wilts
Under stony skies, a dirge-like ballad droned from the speakers outside the Georgian parliament: an appropriate soundtrack for the seventh day of opposition protests in Tbilisi. A series of opposition leaders was greeted by polite applause as they raged against Mikheil Saakashvili, the president who has refused to offer them his head on a pike. […]
Photographing the G20: A tough day at the office
The furore over police attitudes to protesters and police during the G20 protests in London at the start of this month rages on, with clear sides beginning to emerge in the debate. If the police had hoped the focus on their tactics would abate as the dust settled on the protests, the death of Ian […]
A new nuke plant for Brazil
A third nuclear plant is to be built in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro state, after 23 years. The construction will start over the next few weeks, according to Othon Luiz Pinheiro da Silva, president of Electronuclear, the state company responsible for thermoelectric energy in Brazil. The new nuclear plant is part of the […]
Greenslade returns to the frontline with hyperlocal blog
Proving that the Frontline Club is not only about debate but also action, the discussion in the bar after the debate on the future of the local press prompted Roy Greenslade to follow through his championing of hyperlocal journalism. He is, he has announced, about to become the next community reporter for the Kemp Town […]
A new nuke plant for Brazil
A third nuclear plant is to be built in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro state, after 23 years. The construction will start over the next few weeks, according to Othon Luiz Pinheiro da Silva, president of Electronuclear, the state company responsible for thermoelectric energy in Brazil. The new nuclear plant is part of the […]
How not to read a newspaper
Writing on the Foreign Policy blog Thomas E. Ricks suggests we should start reading newspapers like reporters. His simple, but misguided, point is that we should simply follow the writers we like, look for the bylines we know and love, read those articles and pretty much ignore the rest of the paper. Here’s his take, […]
The case of Roxana Saberi
The parents of Roxana Saberi, the freelance journalist sentenced to eights years for espionage in Tehran, have visited their daughter in the Iranian capital for the first time since the verdict was dished out at the weekend. The 31 year old was originally arrested for buying a bottle of wine. Her subsequent one day […]
Milblogging Conference 2009
If all goes according to plan, I will be at the Milblogging Conference in Washington D.C. this Friday and Saturday. I’m really looking forward to meeting some of the bloggers behind the milblogs and hearing what they have to say about a variety of topics. I’d like to do a few short interviews with some […]
Photographing the G20: A tough day at the office
The furore over police attitudes to protesters and police during the G20 protests in London at the start of this month rages on, with clear sides beginning to emerge in the debate. If the police had hoped the focus on their tactics would abate as the dust settled on the protests, the death of Ian […]
Monday round up: tackling some of the big questions
Are companies such as Google going to pay for the material they use? Writing in the Guardian, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd tries to persuade chief executive Eric Schmidt to "just write us a big cheque for using our stories, so we can keep checks and balances alive and continue to provide the search […]
Not getting into Sri Lanka
Jeremy Page had a surprise wating for him upon arrival at Colombo’s Bandaranaike International airport in Sri Lanka. After multiple rejected visa applications to enter the country, The Times South Asia Correspondent decided to go the tried and trusted tourist visa route… A message flashed up on his screen: “DO NOT ALLOW TO ENTER THE […]
Reporting Zimbabwe
Writing in The Indypendent Alaina Varvaloucas and Jerry Guo describe the day to day work of journalists in the Zimbabwean capital Harare. Magwenya himself secretly works as a stringer for CNN and has approximately 20 colleagues in Harare who do the same work for other major Western media outlets. Not only is he free to […]
Obama starts a new era in Mexico drive-by
I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it into work this morning. Not because of Mexico’s overloaded public transport system, but because U.S President Barack Obama was expected to arrive on his first visit to Mexico here in the country’s capital.
