News
Leading Azeri Online News Portal Shuts Down
Not so long ago, on 12 February, Anar Mamedkhanov, founder of Day.az, leading Azeri media outlet, and one of the biggest online news portals in Caucasus warned his Armenian colleagues: Gentlemen, wake up, it is XXI century, year 2009 (just in case to remind you of), only day.az with the quantity of its visits and […]
Who’s Who of Darfuri Rebels
View large image Keeping track of Darfur’s armed movements is an impossible task. Allegiances shift, factions break away and then re-merge often before anyone has even noticed. It creates difficulties for mediators and humanitarian workers. Who from all the different groups gets a seat at the negotiating table? Who really represents anyone? If I want […]
Not down, not out, not yet
What with reports of newspapers being in survival mode, websites like Paper Cuts twisting the blade, Twitter channels like The Media is Dying dancing on the grave and research that reads like an obituary, any sane journalist must be thinking of shutting up shop, going home and seriously mulling their next move – out of […]
Sri Lankan debate
If you read Graham Holliday’s post about the Sri Lankan event controversy, you know how much pressure outside groups try on occasion to exert on us at Frontline. We all acknowledge that we do get it wrong from time to time. We’ve staged over 1000 events in 5 years. There’s often a fierce debate at […]
A Night in the Woods in Mexico City
By day, el Bosque de Chapultepec, Mexico City’s largest public park, is ruled by the public and tourists. Children with painted faces and balloons run around playing, while their parents lounge and teen couples make out on the grass. But come late afternoon, the park closes its gates to us commoners. Or at least I […]
On Shoes and Journalism
Ok, let’s get one thing straight before I get my head bitten off again.. The Shoe was a most fitting farewell to a person who brought so much grief and sadness to Iraq in the name of freedom. It was hilariously insulting and I am sure George W. Bush will remember this incident for the […]
Frontline under fire
The Frontline Club has been coming in for a fair bit of criticism for its decision to "uninvite" two members of the upcoming Sri Lanka discussion at the club on February 24. These complaints have been received from both sides of the debate online and in private emails. The discussion will focus on the future […]
Information Warfare
A new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists is highly critical of the media freedom situation in both Georgia and Russia, accusing the governments of Mikheil Saakashvili and Vladimir Putin of establishing control over television broadcast networks to ensure that their messages drown out alternative viewpoints. "As different as these leaders may be, both have […]
Shoe thrower goes on trial
Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who famously threw his size 10’s at outgoing U.S. President George Bush and called him a "dog", goes on trial today. Zaidi has been held in prison for over two months and could face up to 15 years behind bars, Zaidi was handcuffed and surrounded by a pack of security […]
U.S. Navy Uses “Smart Power” to Fight Pirates
In January, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton advocated a new national security strategy entailing closer cooperation between the State Department, the military, government and civilian humanitarian agencies, and foreign allies. "Smart power," she called it. Just a month later, U.S. smart power is becoming a reality in one of the world’s most troubled regions. Off […]
Mosa Khankhel killed in Swat valley
Mosa Khankhel, a journalist with GEO TV in Pakistan, was shot and killed by attackers in the Taliban controlled area of Swat valley, 100 miles northwest of Islamabad today. The attackers subsequently tried to behead him. Reporters without borders express outrage at the killing, “We want to express our full solidarity with journalists in the […]
Kidnapped in Somalia
CNN International talk to Colin Freeman and José Cendón about their kidnap ordeal in Somalia. The duo were kidnapped on November 26, 2008 and held for some six weeks. The pair don’t appear to have feared for their lives and seem remarkedly relaxed about their experience, although it seems unlikely they’ll be heading back to […]
Photography’s new frontlines
Quietly, over the past 12 months, the "frontline" in photojournalism has come back home to the West. Whereas the years since 9/11 saw the world go to war – with the journalists and photographers not far behind – now, in one way or another, the war is coming to us. Take the World Press Photo […]
Call Your Daddy
Behind a decaying theater that was once Monrovia’s finest, Matthew Karr sat in the middle of a working day and told me, "nobody rehabilitated me." He was referring to the leagues of ex-combatants, fighters often forcefully put on the front lines during Liberia’s civil wars, who have received training in cosmetology, haberdashery, and other such […]
Finding Vo An Ninh
On the top floor, above a small furniture store lays a hidden treasure waiting to be forgotten. Outside one food vendor calls out to sell roasted corn while another sells fried doh with egg and onions. Thousands of motor bikes drive past every hour as if they were electrons racing through a circuit. But above […]
Waiting for the ICC
Life in Khartoum is settling into a bit of a routine. Batter out a thousand words for my book first thing, then it’s a day of meetings, planning and checks as I prepare to head to Darfur. It’s always a tricky business. No-one ever knows when the travel permit will come through. Maybe four […]
Somali Journo Needs Your Help
Increasingly, my reporting career is reader-supported. In the past year, readers of my blogs have ponied up nearly $3,500 to send me to Chad, Kenya and, soon, Nigeria to report on war and humanitarian crises. For that, I’m grateful. I’m equally grateful for my growing audience. My personal blog War Is Boring now attracts more […]
Brazilian National Energy Plan
A bit of journalism. I wrote this article to the Climate Change Partnership website. It brings the other side of the story of Brazil being a very “green” country, such as was widely said at the UN Climate Conference in Poznan, Poland, last December. The article is self-explanatory. But I must add a line about […]
Georgians Consider Eurovision Pop Protest
Georgians may use the Eurovision Song Contest to poke fun at neighbouring Russia after losing last year’s war between the two countries, if one potentially provocative song is chosen by the Georgian public as their entry for 2009. Eurovision, of course, will be held this year in Moscow, where the song Put-In Disco would probably […]
Argentina: How to Survive a Financial Crisis
If you want to know how to survive financial collapse there are 40m experts on the subject in South America. They are called Argentines. Six years ago their financial system melted and almost overnight a sophisticated economy became a basketcase, turning millions in the middle class into paupers. What did Argentines do? In brief, this: they […]
Send Axe to Africa! Again!
In late March, I’ll be heading to Nigeria to embark aboard the USS Nashville amphibious ship during her “soft-power” deployment on the West African coast. Nashville‘s cruise is part of the U.S. Navy’s Africa Partnership Station, which in turn is one of three ongoing “Global Fleet Stations,” the other two targeting Latin America (pictured) and […]
Obama and the Armenian Question
Campaign promises should always be taken with a pinch of salt, perhaps, but the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States has many in Turkey concerned. In particular, Obama’s promise to recognize the massacre and deportation of as many as 1.5 million ethnic Armenians living in the then Ottoman Empire […]
Skewz: On the Trail of Somali Pirates with David Axe
From Skewz: We had yet another amazing conversation with David Axe … [T]he Bush Administration unwittingly assisted in the expansion of pirate activity several years ago. The Islamic Courts emerged in Somalia with some popular support to provide security and stability in the war-torn country. Their appeal was similar to the Taliban’s more than a […]
The Business of the Baron
German media got itself into a little bit of muddle over the past week covering the appointment of Karl-Theodor von und zu Guttenberg as Germany’s new Minister of Economics, following the surprise resignation of Michael Glos. The media all seemed to be asking themselves: who is this 37 year old Freiherr (Baron) from Bavaria, and […]
New semester
Today was the first class of the new (spring) semester – the second (semester) for me as I teach Psychology of Trauma for Journalists at Moscow State University. The students are very nice. There were just 5 of them – the class is too early in the morning 🙂 – but the semester just started, […]
George Polk Awards announced
The 60th George Polk Awards were announced yesterday. The awards remember George Polk, the CBS reporter who killed covering the civil war in Greece in 1949. The foreign correspondent awards are as as follows, Two New York Times correspondents will share the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting. Husband-and-wife team Barry Bearak and Celia W. […]
Progress in Darfur Peace Talks
Good news emerging from Doha where members of the Justice and Equality Movement are poised to sign an agreement with the Sudanese government that could pave the way to peace talks on Darfur. The deal includes an agreement to end attacks on people living in aid camps and an exchange of prisoners. It is designed […]
The anti-photojournalist law
One issue we clearly have missed at Frontline is the new law- Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act- that makes it a crime to photograph the police if they don’t want you to. 150 photojournalists protested at Scotland Yard today. Henry Porter wrote about it in the Observer.New York’s Jimmy Justice the self-styled “cop-arazzi” […]
Afghanistan: the forgotten war?
Is Afghanistan at risk of being forgotten by the outside world? Not at the moment, you might think, what with lots of print generated each day at the hands of foreign reporters. Obama, too, is considering his own surge of resources to the country, and it seems the larger newspapers on both sides of the […]
Back to the maid’s room
After living in London for two years I am finally back. Back to Brazil, back to my city São Paulo, but this time – I’m back to the maid’s room. I’ll explain. As most flats in Brazilian cities, my family’s has a small room for the housemaid. Such rooms are usually small, dimly lit, sometimes […]
