Frontline Club bloggers
When a Spade is a Long-Handled Digging Implement
Reporters Without Borders has reopened the debate on how best to cover the issue of tribe and tribalism during Kenya’s election violence. Its verdict on the Kenyan media is bizarrely damning: …the Kenyan media failed in its duty to report fully on the political crisis and violence that followed last 27 December’s presidential election because […]
Getting into Colombia’s top security jail
Contacts are often made at the bar after a few stiff drinks (well, that’s what I tell myself) but in this case, it started on the golf course. I’d promised The Financial Times to get an interview with any one of Colombia’s notorious ex-paramilitary warlords who were in jail. “That would be gold dust,” said […]
Video: The shooting of Brad Will
It occurred to me that many of you may as yet have not seen the last few minutes of the life of journalist Brad Will – he taped his own shooting. It is strong stuff: be warned. This is a link to the video on YouTube.[video:youtube:brt4YFnMdZ8]
Brad Will’s parents announce indy investigation into journo’s death
Kathy and Hardy Will, parents of the Indymedia journalist Brad Will who was shot dead in Oaxaca more than a year ago, have branded the Mexican investigation into the journalist’s death “frustrating and disappointing” for its failure to find those responsible. Will was shot dead by plain-clothed armed men on October 27th 2006 whilst covering […]
Mexican President wants to ease tension between Ecuador and Columbia
President Calderon of Mexico telephoned his counterparts in Ecuador and Columbia this week – Rafael Correa and Ãlvaro Uribe – to discuss the increasingly tense situation between the two countries since Columbia strayed onto Ecuadorean soil over the weekend and killed ‘the second-highest-ranking leader in Colombia’s largest leftist guerrilla group,’ the FARC and 16 other […]
Africa Reading Challenge
Siphoning Off A Few Thoughts is hosting an Africa Reading Challenge. The idea is to read six books this year which are about Africa, set in Africa, written by an African etc and then post reviews. I wish I had a few more imaginative books sitting in my unread pile: Elizabeth David’s Provincial Nile Cuisine, […]
They’re Not Getting Around
So I finally got something right. Last week I was panicking because colleagues in Joburg had begun calling me to find out if the gentle scent of teargas was once again wafting around Nairobi. This was a concern because my folks had just arrived on holiday. And they had travelled largely because I had reassured […]
From the NATO Review
I’ve cross-posted this on the Frontline blog. Vaughan features in an article in the latest edition of NATO Review. Vaughan discusses how he got into journalism, military minders and the importance of independent reporting, Managing correspondents in the field has become very much more complex, not least through the expansion in the size of the […]
Teacher Faces Jail in Ethiopia after Exposing Paedophile
So you work tirelessly to expose paedophiles working in a children’s charity village in Ethiopia. Your work helps convict one British sex abuser. And for your trouble you face being sent to prison on Friday, possibly for six months because the charity involved has sued you for defamation rather than welcome your work in blowing […]
How Not to Write About Africa
It’s difficult to know where to begin with an NPR correspondent’s recent justification for using the term “Dark Continent” in a preview of George W’s trip to Africa. “I had no idea the term would be found offensive,” said Cochran, who joined NPR in 1981. “I will concede antiquated but I was unaware it was […]
Talk of ‘illegals’ in Beverly Hills
Hollywood, Los Angeles, February 2008The bar was beautiful, and so was she. Utterly Los Angeles, she wore a knee length dress with a low-cut top, allowing her audience to enjoy her full breasts framed by a fake fur coat that hung off her shoulders. The Beverly Hills hotel bar was comfortably full of what its […]
Geldof Shines a Light on Africa
Great piece by Bob Geldof in this week’s Time on George W’s Africa policy. It starts with a slightly terse exchange between the two… I gave the President my book. He raised an eyebrow. “Who wrote this for ya, Geldof?” he said without looking up from the cover. Very dry. “Who will you get to […]
A New Type of Kenyan Politician
Barack Obama with his Kenyan relatives. Granny Sarah is second from right, front row Barack Obama’s twin messages of “hope” and “change” are playing pretty well in the US. They’re playing even better in Kenya where his relatives are praying for peace. Here, the allure is simple. After years of misrule by politicians whose only […]
What Happens When Kofi Goes Home?
So we have a deal to end Kenya’s bloodshed. Great. And it waters down the power of the president, which is an important step to ending Kenya’s winner-takes-all politics of tribalism. But why was Raila Odinga, the opposition leader soon to be installed in the new post of Prime Minister, looking hatchet faced throughout the […]
The Great Pastry Crisis
Deeply disturbing news arrives from Sudan. President Bashir has ordered a boycott of all things Danish in response to those cartoons of the prophet Mohammed being republished in newspapers over there. I suspect the Danish bacon industry will be unconcerned. But wait. What about the pastries served at Ozone, possibly the best coffeeshop in the […]
Waiting and Seeing
The storm clouds have been gathering for a few days. Last week the opposition ODM said they would hold “peaceful” demonstrations on Thursday. Meanwhile, Kofi Annan has been looking increasingly like someone who thought he would have been back in time to be guest of honour at the African Cup of Nations final. His rather […]
Tom Cholmondeley was back in court today. This time it’s for the latest appeal hearing as his defence team try to overturn the trial judge’s order to hand over their list of witnesses to the prosecution. Like most people I thought that to shoot one person dead was unfortunate, but to be accused of murder […]
Lights in Tunnels aren’t Always Good
Kofi Annan. Source: Ricardo Stuckert/ABr On Thursday the endlessly upbeat Kofi Annan, who is mediating Kenya’s peace talks, said he was beginning to see “light at the end of the tunnel”. Well it’s starting to look as if the light at the end of the tunnel is actually the light of an oncoming train. (With […]
Where’s the war?
You turn up for a war and the war doesn’t show up. Frontline club member, and fellow blogger here, Ben Hammersley along with the world’s press corps didn’t find the story he was expecting in Pakistan this week, This is a strange job. Most people, upon seeing impending trouble, tend to run the other way. […]
White Elephants and Windfalls
As African airports go, Eldoret International Airport is one of the finest. The taps in the toilets all work, its runway is long enough for a 747 and there are no queues at check-in. All as it should be for an airport that opened barely 10 years ago and cost $49m. It’s a darn sight […]
Things I’d Like to Believe But Can’t
The road from the airport home was mercifully empty tonight. I arrived back in Nairobi at about 7-15pm just when you expect roads to be clogged with cars, matatus and trucks. But apart from three police checkpoints and the inevitable accident (the law requires drivers to leave their vehicles in situ until a police officer […]
Public or Private?
Social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo are awash with video and pictures uploaded by the general public. News organisations are grappling with what they can and can’t use from the sites, but there is no agreed standard and recent months have seen them make a litany of mistakes. In January, Steve Herrmann, Editor of […]
The Talib who turned
There was little in the dismal reception room to dispel the all-pervading cold of the snow outside. Mice scurried among the relics of half-eaten food on plates scattered around an unlit wood-burning stove. Apart from a few blankets and a couple of kalashnikovs the space was bare. Perhaps I had expected finer trappings for Musa […]
Video: Exhibition Remembers the Dead
Even today there is no definitive count of how many pro-democracy demonstrators were slaughtered by Mexican army troops in the Tlatelolco zone of this capital on Oct. 2, 1968. Was the death toll a few dozen, as the government claimed? Or closer to 300, as some intrepid journalists reported? Did President Gustavo DÃaz Ordaz approve […]
Tension
It feels like the least fun Christmas Eve ever here in Islamabad tonight. Voting in the Pakistani general election is due to start in ten hours, and every TV channel is running election coverage. They seem to have run out of new things to talk about, as such programmes do, but the tickers along the […]
The Point of Poetry
Call me a Philistine, but I’ve never much seen the point of poetry. Sure the War Poets did some good stuff. But when you are capable of stringing together sentences into a few coherent paragraphs why bother chopping it into lines and verses? It seems a bit, well, contrived. Maybe it takes a war? Whatever. […]
Ben Hammersley covers Pakistan elections
Founding Frontline club member and From the Frontline blogger Ben Hammersley is on the move. He heads to Pakistan today for a week to cover the upcoming elections. He’ll be blogging along the way and you can follow what he’s up to as soon as his blog reawakens here. Ben has more on his personal […]
Kenya’s Aid Irony
Nairobi is the aid hub for East Africa and the Horn. The city is filled with charity workers flitting to Somalia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and so on. Its vast United Nations complex is reckoned to be one of the biggest contributors to the city’s economy. But when it comes to tackling a […]
Mexican Human Rights Commission is ineffective, says report
Human Rights Watch released a damning report today, calling Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission ‘ineffective’ and ‘disappointing’. ‘When it comes to actually securing remedies and promoting reforms to improve Mexico’s dismal human rights record, the CNDH’s performance has been disappointing,’ reads the report, which also points out that the Commission’s failures hasn’t been due to […]
Knifepoint on Valentine’s Day
La Marquesa is a sprawling national park and forest out in the mountains between Mexico City and Toluca, and seemed like the perfect place for me and my man to get some time alone today, the day for lovers. As it turns out, it wasn’t such nice place to be alone.