Frontline Club bloggers
In praise of… the WikiLeaks Truck
Described as part prank, part art and part activism, the WikiLeaks Top Secret Mobile Information Collection Unit has been bothering US authorities in recent months. A white van emblazoned with the WikiLeaks logo by the artist Clark Stoeckley, the Collection Unit has paid unwelcome visits to notable sites including the White House, Capitol Hill and […]
Title
Bahrain, December 1990 Vaughan Smith sat in Bahrain for two months wondering how to bluff his way into the Gulf War. And while he waited, staying temporarily with a friend, whose bookshelves he explored, he searched for inspiration in books that charted the exploits of the prisoners-of-war who had escaped from German camps in the […]
Aftermath: Kosovo’s civil wars photoessay
In the coming days we will be posting some of the best content from the last two years of the Frontline broadsheet, including an outstanding photoessay from each edition. Today we bring you Andrew Testa’s piece from Spring 2010 — a special report on the aftermath of Kosovo’s vicious civil wars. (You can subscribe to […]
Kidnappings, executions & bloodbaths: a photoessay from Mexico
In the coming days we will be posting some of the best content from the last two years of the Frontline broadsheet, including an outstanding photoessay from each edition. Today we bring you Julián Cardona’s piece from Summer 2009 — a special report from the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez. (You can subscribe to the […]
Ministry of Defence reviewing communication strategy for a networked world
The Ministry of Defence is considering proposals that would empower more members of their staff to communicate so it can compete more effectively in a networked information environment. In particular, the MoD will decide whether to free deployed commanders from aspects of existing constraints which mean their operations are usually communicated through spokespeople. A more […]
Julian Assange Sydney Peace Prize: full video
Last week at Frontine, WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize gold medal for Peace with Justice. You can read our report of events here. Below you can find the full video of the event. A write up of a Q&A section with Assange, which followed the speeches, can be found here […]
Thomas de Waal: Narrative of Peace necessary in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict
Caucasus Conflict Voices is a voluntary grassroots initiative to amplify alternative views on the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. Today marks the 17th anniversary of the 1994 ceasefire, but both sides are as far away as ever from signing a permanent peace deal. Marking the anniversary, the second […]
A Q&A with Julian Assange (part II): on Lockerbie, copycat leaks sites, and protecting whistleblowers
Yesterday WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize gold medal for Peace with Justice at the Frontline Club. You can read our report of events here. After Assange gave his acceptance speech, there was time for a question and answer session. He spoke in depth in reponse to many questions, giving insight […]
A Q&A with Julian Assange (part I): on the Arab Spring, phone hacking, and WikiLeaks’ ethics
Yesterday WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize gold medal for Peace with Justice at the Frontline Club. You can read our report of events here. After Assange gave his acceptance speech, there was time for a question and answer session. He spoke in depth in reponse to many questions, giving insight […]
Julian Assange Sydney Peace Prize: full audio
Yesterday at Frontine, WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize gold medal for Peace with Justice. You can read our report of events here. Below you can find the audio of each of the speeches. Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees, director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, gives his introduction: Former SBS World News […]
Julian Assange receives Sydney Peace Prize at Frontline
WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize gold medal for Peace with Justice at the Frontline Club this afternoon. Assange is now one of just four people to have been given the award. Nelson Mandela, the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso and a Japanese Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda are the only others […]
MRTV: Thousands of Mexicans march against drug violence, demand justice for dead
May 8th 2011 – Thousands of protesters marched to Mexico City’s Zocalo Sunday demanding an end to the violence generated by President Felipe Calderon’s ‘war’ against drug cartels.
Bin Laden death sets up end game for the Taliban
If Pakistan has become such a dangerous place, as the joke doing the rounds of the streetside cafes goes, that even Osama bin Laden isn’t safe there, then the leaders of the Taliban waging war in Afghanistan had better start looking over their shoulders. Conjecture about the involvement of Pakistani authorities in the operation that […]
Is Silvio losing his grip?
Caught with his polls down, and, many believe, his pants down, the Italian prime minister – due in court in April on sex charges – faces ever-louder howls of outrage and calls to quit. His control of the media and populist touch have seen him through similar crises before, but can he escape this time? […]
Insects: new broadsheet photoessay
By Jean-Jacques Gonfier, from the Spring 2011 issue of the Frontline broadsheet (subscribe here) … Open publication
Media coverage of Osama bin Laden’s death on Storify
I’ve been collecting some interesting articles and tweets on media coverage of the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on Sunday evening. Rather than a usual ’round up’ style blog post, I thought I’d experiment with Storify to bring some of the strands together. I was impressed; it’s very easy to use and update. […]
Fukushima: in the shadow of the Semipalatinsk mushroom cloud
As Japan struggles to contain the Fukushima nuclear crisis, comparisons are being made with the Chernobyl disaster, which happened on 26 April, 1986, when an explosion and fire at the Ukrainian power station released enormous quantities of radioactive material across Russia and Europe. Deaths due to the contamination have been put close to a million. […]
Have our leaders learned nothing from the war in Afghanistan?
Conversation among decision makers who gather in London’s private dining rooms has turned from Afghanistan to Libya. Over rare beef and fine wine, they voice concern that Western governments have again embarked on a rushed military adventure, in a far away place, on a vague premise, with no clearly defined goal, and no apparent […]
Report: Whistleblowers make the world a safer place debate (II)
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange makes his case at Kensington Town Hall. Photo by Sophia Spring. You can view the full event here. This is part II of our report on the special debate, “whistleblowers make the world a safer place,” organised by the Frontline Club in collaboration with New Statesman magazine. Part I can be […]
Report: Whistleblowers make the world a safer place debate
Download this episode View in iTunes Watch the event here. Sir David Richmond makes his case against whistleblowing at Kensington Town Hall. Photo by Sophia Spring. More than 850 people crammed in to Kensington Town Hall on Saturday evening for our special debate in collaboration with New Statesman magazine, “this house believes whistleblowers make the […]
Mexican journalists get survival tips for covering drug-related violence
Mexico’s people desperately need quality journalism if they’re to understand what’s going on in this huge terrain. It’s my guess that as general elections approach in 2012, the suppression of reporters is only going to get worse.
Eight modern-day whistleblowers (part II)
Mordechai Vanunu talks to the press after winning his freedom in 2004. Credit: Getty Images Concluding our run-down of some of the most prominent whistleblowers in recent memory….. Clive Ponting A former senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, Clive Ponting leaked information about the sinking of Argentine warship General Belgrano in 1984. […]
The revolution ate my homework – Five Yemeni bloggers you should be following
Much of the West’s knowledge of what’s happening in Yemen at the moment is coming from a handful (I can count them on one hand) of foreign journalists based in the capital Sana’a. As brilliant as those guys are they’re no substitute for local Yemeni journalists who know both the language, the people and the […]
Eight modern-day whistleblowers (part I)
Daniel Ellsberg, publisher of ‘The Pentagon Papers,’ speaks at a press conference, 1970s. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images This Saturday, the Frontline Club and New Statesman host a special adversarial debate, "this house believes whistleblowers make the world a safer place". Here we profile some of the most prominent whistleblowers in recent memory… […]
Egypt’s digital revolutionaries: It’s not about the technology
The special joint event organised by the Frontline Club and the BBC Arabic Service brought together some of the key players, journalists and experts to discuss what has taken place in Egypt over the last few months. The first half of the evening at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, considered the role of technology […]
MRTV: The future of foreign reporting?
Frontline has asked me to blog about my work here in Mexico, as well as the process of setting up, making a living, trying not to get into too much trouble, and attempting to make ends meet.
So here’s the deal.
Five years since the first tweet: a Twitter revolution in breaking news
Today, Twitter is celebrating its birthday. Five years after the first tweet was published, its impact on the field of Internet communication and many others beyond has been much debated. Recent events in Tunisia and Egypt re-ignited the debate over Twitter’s role in the political process and whether the world has seen its first Twitter […]
Journalists in Yemen under pressure
Walking home in the orange light of the narrow streets of Sana’a Old City, the sila (sunken road) circling the ancient tower houses was the same as it is every night – deserted – bar the occasional check point of tired looking soldiers wrapped up in trench coats with kafiyas bound around their heads. I […]
Visualised: A day in the life of Twitter
Continuing an inadvertent theme on the blog, I’ve just come across this visualisation of a day in the life of Twitter by informatics researcher Chris McDowall: Mapping a Day in the Life of Twitter from Chris McDowall on Vimeo. It’s worth viewing in full screen, in HD, on Vimeo as you can see some of […]
Yemen Friday prayers protests: Last (wo)man standing
In the heat of the midday sun orderly rows of coloured prayer mats stretched for the best part of a mile. What should be one of the busiest roads in Sana’a filled with people, squeezing in and around hundreds of tents currently housing around a thousand activists, permanently camping on the road in a spectacular […]