News

Welcome

Hello there! This is Natalia Viana writing from my office in Vila Madalena, a bohemian neighbourhood in São Paulo, Brazil. I’ve been an investigative journalist from over 8 years and, after living in UK (where I took an MA in Radiojournalism), I am back in Brazil. Here I have gathered with a very special group […]

Breakfast in Khartoum IV (Although I’m frankly not sure of the number)

Ozone is a quiet place these days. Ever since the US embassy in Khartoum warned its citizens to avoid places where expats tended to gather there have been fewer white faces here at the world’s best coffeeshop on a roundabout. Ozone is a particular target apparently. People are on tenterhooks waiting for the International Criminal […]

Video: Mexicans break kissing record

Mexicans are not a nation to shy away from public displays of affection, so thousands were in their element Saturday — Valentine’s Day — when they came together in Mexico City’s Zocalo, or central plaza, to break the Guinness world record for the biggest simultaneous kiss.

Mexico’s special prosecutor for crimes against journalists ineffective, reports nonprofit

Freedom of expression advocates in Mexico have issued yet another missive in support of the country’s long-suffering journalistic community. The special prosecutor’s office for crimes against journalists, created in 2006 by the Mexican government of then-President Vicente Fox, is ineffective, lacks independence and is poorly funded, according to a report by the international freedom of […]

Ong Nuoi

The city of Da Lat lays in the highlands of Vietnam about 300 kilometers north of Saigon.  The 1,500 meters above sea level is a welcome cooling altitude to an otherwise stifling heat Southeast Asia is known for.  I am in Da Lat to honor family members of my girlfriend who have passed away.  A […]

John D. McHugh – Combat Outpost

John D. McHugh drops us a line to tell us that his latest report from Afghanistan for The Guardian is up on the site. John has been filing multimedia reports from the frontline in Helmand over the past year. As he says in his email, This is without doubt the most difficult and dangerous place […]

Surviving a Kidnapping in Chechnya

In 1997, Camilla Carr and Jonathan James were kidnapped and held for fourteen months in Chechnya. Speaking neither Russian nor Chechen, armed with good intentions and a car full of toys, the two Britons had volunteered to help traumatised children in Grozny. They were soon kidnapped, and this book – The Sky is Always There: […]

Global Voices wins Anvil of Freedom award

Global Voices Online, a site started at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society with the support of Reuters and for which I’m the Caucasus Regional Editor, was this month honored with the Anvil of Freedom award from Denver University. The site is in its fourth year of operation and seeks to “aggregate, curate, […]

Stalin’s children

I have read many sagas of Russian families, but Stalin’s Children: Three Generations of Love and War by Owen Matthews has facets that make it poignant. It is both tragedy and love story by a distinguished chronicler of the East. Matthews has covered Moscow for Newsweek since 1997 and has witnessed the Chechen, Bosnian and […]

Restrictive religious laws

Although Armenia was the first nation to adopt Christianity as its official State religion in 301 AD, and despite the role the Armenian Apostolic Church has taken upon itself in terms of shaping national identity, it had not been known for restricting other faiths as much as other post-Soviet republics. Indeed, allowing other religious groups […]

The Lost Boys

Somali born journalist Rageh Omaar and director Paul Sapin made Lost Boys, a 27- minute documentary, in four days. The film explores Somali youth inter-gang violence in London. The murder of 18-year-old Mahir Osman in January 2008 by a Somali gang made Clan Elders realize they had lost touch with the younger generation and violence […]

A Palestinian journey

Anyone familiar with the Middle East knows that Ashdod is Israel’s biggest port, nearly a quarter of a million people some 40 miles north of the Gaza Strip. What he or she will be less likely to know—and it is no accident—is that until October 1948, when the combined forces of the Israeli army and […]

Violence against journalists continues in Latin America

Attacks on the Press 2008: Carl Bernstein on Self-Censorship of the Press from Meredith Megaw on Vimeo.

Here in Mexico, we keep our eye on the frequent press-freedom reports that come out, given the high levels of violence against journalists in the country and the culture of impunity that abounds.

Mumbai ‘mesmerised’ the world’s media

Pretty obvious I suppose but there are some interesting bits and pieces in this RAND report into the terrorist attacks on Mumbai back in November 2008. Most of it concerns the implications for security strategy but there’s a few observations about media coverage and its relationship with terrorism.   1. The nature of the media […]

New in My Kitbag

Africa may grow some of the world’s finest coffee beans but getting a decent brew on the road can be problematic. In most places Nescafe is the only thing on offer – just about passable if drunk strong and black. But – and I know this is desperately old hat for readers in places where […]

Saudi journalist on Saudi terror list

The latest addition to a list of terrorist suspects published by the Saudi Interior Ministry, includes a surprising addition according to the English language Arabic daily, Asharq Al-Awsat. Obaida Abdul-Rahman Al Otaibi, a journalist with a degree in journalism from the Imam Mohamed Bin Saud University, is the 50th name on the list of 85 […]

Snowdrops

More and more snowdrops are appearing everywhere in the farm. Spring is not far away. I can’t wait.  

Attacks on the Press

The Committee to protect journalists launched Attacks on the Press 2008 today. The CPJ will be holding a press conference at the United Nations later to publicize the report. You can watch the livestream on the UN website at 9.30am EST Tuesday 10 February. Taking part will be, Joel Simon, CPJ Executive Director, Paul Steiger, […]

Inside Sudan

Have been catching up on my Sudan reading recently for a big Darfur project. Found quite a few books I bought when I first arrived in Nairobi and abandoned after a couple of chapters. Some of them are much more interesting once you recognise the names and already have a bit of a handle on […]

No Colombian journalists killed in 2008

According to the Foundation for Liberty and Freedom of the Press (FLIP), no Colombian journalists were killed in 2008 for the first time in 23 years, A total of 130 journalists were killed in Colombia in the past 30 years. The organisation notes that Colombian journalists are still regularly threatened by terrorist organisations. FLIP reports […]

Death in Madagscar

The Committee to protect journalists (CPJ) requests a probe into the death of Ando Ratovonirina in Madagascar last week. The 26 year old reporter and cameraman was killed while working for Radio Télévision Analamanga at an antigovernment demonstration in the capital, Antananarivo, "We are shocked by the killing of Ando Ratovonirina and extend our condolences […]

Somalia kidnap row

Daud Abdi Daud, the General Secretary of the Somali Journalists Rights Agency (SOJRA), defends the report earlier this week of a possible escape attempt by kidnap victims Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan. The report was quickly dismissed by the Paris-based Reporters without borders, "I think [Reporters without borders] mean somebody in France can be more […]

Video: Carmen Aristegui talks about the reality for journalists in Mexico

Carmen Aristegui, one of Mexico’s most prominent journalists, disappeared from the Mexican radio airwaves last year in a cloud of controversy.

As Reed Johnson reported in January 2008, “Aristegui’s departure from W Radio set off a flurry of op-ed commentary in Mexico City newspapers. Several commentators have denounced the incident as an act of censorship and harassment by media and governmental interests.”

Now Aristegui’s back with a new radio news show –- this time on a different network. The journalist, who continued to host her nightly television news show on CNN Español during her radio hiatus, returns to the Mexican airwaves from 6 – 10 every weekday morning on MVS Radio.

Gaza media coverage – missiles and messages

Last Thursday, I was at Gaza: Missiles and Messages at the Frontline Club. It was a discussion about the media coverage of Gaza and it was standing room only. (You know an event’s popular at the Club when somebody feels it’s necessary to dust down the wooden church pews to augment the seating.) Below I’ll […]

Saving Darfur: The International Criminal Court and the Language of Righting Wrongs

Police wait for President Bashir to arrive in El Fasher last year Fighters of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Uganda’s shadowy rebel cult, have forced more than 130,000 people from their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo since Congolese soldiers joined Ugandan and Southern Sudanese forces in launching an all-out assault on guerilla hide-outs before […]

Somalia kidnap victims tried to escape

There’s an unconfirmed report circulating that kidnapped journalists Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan tried to escape their Somali captors late last month. The allegation comes from a "prominent Somali contact for western journalists" Daud Abdi Daud, Executive Director of Somali Journalists Rights Agency says the pair, in his words, "came close to being killed" on […]

Salam al-Dosaki shot dead in Mosul

Salam al-Dosaki, a journalist with the al-Hadba newspaper in Mosul, Iraq, was shot dead by a policeman on Thursday afternoon, 5 February according to Reuters, Mohammed Yunis Mohammed, a Mosul policeman, had been drinking when he approached the home of neighbour Salam al-Dosaki, a journalist with the local al-Hadba newspaper, police said. An argument ensued […]

Mexico’s missing children inspire artist

Jonathan Mirando García, age 7. Disappeared in the Tlapan neighborhood of Mexico City on Nov. 22, 2006. Distinguishing features: a mole on his nose.

Saul Hernandez Ramírez, 10 months old and 55 centimeters in size. Disappeared in Naucalpan, Mexico City, on an unknown date.

América Martínez Enriquez, 1 month old. Disappeared from Matamoros, in the state of Tamaulipas, on June 23, 2003.

The list of missing children in Mexico, crushingly, goes on for a lot longer. About 45,000 children are reported missing in Mexico every year, according to Aprenem (Asociación Pro Recuperación de Niños Extraviados y Orientación de la Juventud de México), an organization dedicated to trying to find them.

It was that staggering fact as well as the huge number of posters and ads for missing children around Mexico City that prompted Mexican artist Ilán Lieberman, 39, to create "Niño Perdido" (Lost Child). The exhibition, which will
be accompanied by a book of the same name later this year, opened Tuesday in the Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico in downtown Mexico City and is scheduled to travel to El Paso, Texas, in June.

Gaza: Missiles and Messages

You can now watch the full event here. A debate on media coverage of the conflict Gaza including contributions from: Jonathan Miller (C4) Alan Fisher (Al Jazeera) Harriet Sherwood (The Guardian) Ruthie Blum Leibowitz (The Jerusalem Post) via skype Lior Ben Dor (Israeli affairs specialist) Location: The Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London W2 2QJ […]

Unemployed in Tehran

Issa Saharkhiz talks about the difficulties of working as a journalist in Tehran to NPR. Or in his case, of not working. Saharkhiz tells NPR that every paper he’s ever worked on has been closed. Most recently, the Iranian authorities closed two popular publications he ran; the Daily Economic News and a monthly magazine called […]