News
Hostile environments for journalists
The Independent today looks at survival training for journalists working in hostile environments. The Frontline Club’s John Owen adds his wise tuppence to the article, “I do not accept any justification for not getting safety training to journalists. If they cannot afford paying for training, they should not send people,” he says. “If newspapers can […]
Frank Gardner on getting back to work
[video:youtube:vIYF6rg5uPQ] Frank Gardner, the BBC journalist who was shot by Al-Qaeda gunmen and left for dead in Saudi Arabia in June 2004, talks to Attitude TV about getting back to work, the Saudi shooting and about his recent assignment to Afghanistan.
Belfast Post does a week in Helmand
Is everybody going to Afghanistan this week?? Maybe it has something to do with someone else’s arrival there at the weekend. In addition to Liz Perkins from the South Wales Evening Post, Lesley-Anne Henry will be in Helmand all week for the Belfast Telegraph.
ABC News man on Singapore drugs charge
Peter Lloyd, the New Delhi based South Asia correspondent for ABC News, was arrested for selling the drug “Ice” in Singapore at the weekend. He is expected to be charged today and could face up to twenty years in prison. The Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said, “Let me make this general point to […]
Editorial preferences
[video:youtube:L5XIhIpVUfI] Photo District News has more on the disembedding of photojournalist and blogger Zoriah Miller, “The official reason which they chose to use for disembedding me was that I had supplied the enemy with information on the effectiveness of attack,” he said. “I told the public affairs officer, listen, I really have to disagree with […]
Corkscrew into Camp Bastion
Liz Perkins, Health reporter on the South Wales Evening Post, is heading to Afghanistan for one week to report on the soldiers stationed at Camp Bastion. After arriving in Kandahar, it’s on to another plane, a “corkscrew” landing and… cricket, I was warned beforehand to be prepared that it would descend to the ground in […]
Those Were the Days
I really must get around to reading Michael Asher’s Khartoum. Every time I stay at Meskel Square’s house I flick through his copy (I note a corner is still turned down at page 164) and think what a good read it looks. At every turn of this Arab-African city you get a sense of history, […]
Daily Mirror Palestine war diaries published
The memoires of Barbara Board, a Daily Mirror reporter for ten years, are to be published by her daughter Jacqueline in a new book, Reporting From Palestine. Barbara worked as Daily Mirror’s frontline war correspondent from Palestine in the 40’s and 50’s, “It was fascinating to discover everything she had done as a female reporter […]
The View from Khartoum
So it’s almost a week now since the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court revealed his evidence against President Omar al-Bashir. And it’s still pretty difficult to work out where things are going. The consensus among aid workers and UN staff here is that things will stay quiet while Khartoum goes down the diplomatic road, […]
US Army worried about falling behind new technology but still ahead of most
My Frontline colleague, David Axe, has written an interesting piece over at Wired.com about the US Army’s use of social media tools. He reports that Army Secretary Pete Geren is worried about senior army leaders falling behind new technology. David nevertheless thinks the Army is ‘way ahead of the other US military services when it […]
Eric Silver dies aged 73
Tim McGirk writes on the TIME blog about the funeral of freelancer Eric Silver, a 73 year old originally from Leeds, who made Jerusalem his home and died recently of pancreatic cancer, Eric turned down a job back in London as a foreign editorial writer to return to Jerusalem as a freelancer. It was a […]
Central African Refugees Clash over Fields, Herds
Clarisse Larlombaye was nearly ruined when a herd of cows got into her rice field one night. The tiny 900-square-meter plot, outside the U.N.-run Gondje refugee camp in lush southern Chad is the sole source of income for Larlombaye and the two other Central African refugees she shares it with. In recent years, Larlombaye and […]
Breakfast in Khartoum II
The best carrot cake in East Africa Yes carrot cake for breakfast. I’ll be bringing you an update on the impact of Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s evidence against President Bashir as soon as I have the faintest idea what’s going on. It’s fair to say that reaction here is mixed.
Escape from Iran
Ahmed Batebi who fled from Iran after eight years in prison tells his story in a short video on the New York Times. Using footage he shot on a small camera Batebi tells the story of his journey froma activist to refugee as he slipped over the border into northern Iraq with the help of […]
War Reporting Links: The ‘state’ of the British military
1. Standpoint have published an article by a Ministry of Defence insider claiming that the department is ‘unfit for purpose’. Though I’ll be glad to see the back of the cliché, there’s some interesting observations here. Too many civil servants and consultants, not enough military understanding the insider claims: “I once attended a meeting of […]
Afghanistan – Not won yet
Aryn Baker talks over a slideshow of some great shots of British troops in Afghanistan on the TIME Magazine wesbite. Click the image above to play the slideshow. The article accompanying the images is called Afghanistan – A war that’s still not won, The villagers couldn’t–or wouldn’t–fight back. “We are afraid,” says Madin. “The Taliban […]
What next?
So the prosecutor published his evidence and President Bashir now stands accused of war crimes, genocide and murder. There was a mix of reaction here in Sudan from the angry to the considered and it seems the government may be mulling over exactly what to do. Could a palace coup be an option? After speculation […]
Forgotten film season at the Frontline Club
The Forgotten season starts at the Frontline Club from 4 August. The season consists of nine documentary films from some of the world’s forgotten stories, Ranging from female soldiers in Sri Lanka to a forgotten war in Nagorno Karabakh, a covered up massacre in Uzbekistan to conscientious objection in the US Army – these films […]
Chad’s Budding Roadblock Entrepreneurs
Corruption is big business in Chad, a country whose teetering economy is propped up by billions of dollars in foreign aid. When Chadians can’t make an honest buck, they’ll make a dishonest one. In Afghanistan and Somalia I paid out maybe a couple hundred bucks in bribes combined. Here in Chad, I’ve had to pay […]
Zoriah Miller says he was censored
Democracy Nation talk to Zoriah Miller, the American photojournalist we previously blogged about here and here, who was booted out of Iraq last week. He describes the aftermath of the attack he photographed that led to the US Army immediately disembedding him, I immediately began to take as many pictures as I possibly could, which […]
Covering counter-insurgencies: Afghanistan vs Iraq
Kip is a contributor to the Abu Muqawama blog. He’s served with the US Army in Afghanistan and Iraq. In reaction to the recent deaths of 9 US soldiers in Kunar province, Afghanistan, he explains why he believes the difficulties facing coalition troops in Afghanistan haven’t received as much coverage as the war in Iraq: […]
A fixer goes to America
Jeremy Gerard provides an update on the fixer known only as Ahmed Ali. A few months ago things weren’t looking good for Ali and his new life in America. However, things are picking up for the man who helped Oliver Poole work as a journalist in Iraq and who features in his Red Zone book, […]
Kim Sengupta talks to Ahmed Rashid
[video:brightcove:1657894487] Ahmed Rashid spoke recently at the Frontline Club with the BBCs Lyse Doucet and today it’s another Frontline Club member’s turn Kim Sengupta. He talks to the fighter turned foreign correspondent in The Independent today. He recalls how the Pakistani authorities banned him from working and the Taliban said he must be killed, “It […]
Cambodia journalist gunned down
Magnum snapper John Vink writes about going home to Phnom Penh to discover Khem Sambo, a local journalist, and his son were gunned down in the street, Today the cremation ceremony took place at the Toul Tompoung pagoda. Sambo is the 12th journalist killed in Cambodia since 1993. link Radio Australia has more on the […]
Blocked in Chad
Frontline blogger David Axe writes on the Danger Room blog about the joys of getting around Chad. Roadblocks equal a local road tax. He’s got through $500 in just a month paying off the blockers. At least at one roadblock the ‘guards’ let him hold onto his wallet, I was driving through a U.N.-administered refugee […]
One year on: Reuters still waiting for US Army video
The U.S. military said on Friday it was still processing a request by Reuters for video footage from U.S. helicopters and other materials relating to the killing of two Iraqi staff in Baghdad a year ago. Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed in a U.S. helicopter air strike in […]
Warren Zinn on the suicide of Joseph Dwyer
Photographer Warren Zinn reacts to the news of Joseph Dwyer’s death. Dwyer was a US Army medic in the Iraq when Zinn took the photograph above. He writes about his reaction to the news in the Washington Post, For years, I’d proudly displayed the front page of USA Today featuring the photo. It was a […]
Khartoum Bound
A UN-AU hybrid patrol sets off for Siliea in West Darfur. The helmets have been painted blue but no-one has got around to removing the old Amis logo Heading to Khartoum to see what comes out of the International Criminal Court. Readers of this blog will know that prosecutors have President Bashir himself in their […]
Them and Us
Nick Parker of The Sun in Burma Blogging seems to be doing something strange to the relationship between journalists and press officers. Once upon a time a press officer might help a reporter with a story – providing a quote, setting up an interview, forwarding a policy paper and so on – and the reporter […]
Taliban shadow governor killed?
In a little-reported story from the north-west of Afghanistan – no doubt overshadowed by the car-bomb attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul – villagers in Qayser district used “a machine gun, sticks and stones” to chase away Taliban members, killing, in the process, the shadow-governor for Faryab province. The militants had tried to abduct […]
