Congo
Preview Screening: Concerning Violence + Q&A
Based on Frantz Fanon’s landmark 1961 book, The Wretched of the Earth, Concerning Violence explores the mechanisms of decolonisation. It is a bold and fresh visual narrative on Africa, told through newly discovered archive material of the struggle for liberation from colonial rule in the late ‘60s and ‘70s. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Göran Hugo Olsson.
Seeds of Hope: Sanctuary and recovery in the DRC
By Ratha Lehall On Monday 14 July, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of Seeds of Hope, a documentary which focuses on the effect of rape in Eastern Congo, where it has become a widely used weapon of war. The film centres around one woman, Masika, who is herself a victim of rape, and her determination to provide a […]
Screening: Seeds of Hope + Q&A
Seeds of Hope follows multiple-rape victim Masika Katsuva, who has rescued some 6,000 women and children in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo by offering them shelter in her centre. Filmmaker Fiona Lloyd-Davies follows Katsuva and the centre’s inhabitants, as they reshape their lives to build a new future. The film also speaks with the perpetrators, among them soldiers from the Congolese army, who give extraordinarily open testimony as to why they rape and their attitudes toward their horrific acts. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Fiona Lloyd-Davies.
Hearts of Oil: Virunga Sneak Preview + Q&A
By George Symonds “They are like my family.” “They’re just fucking monkeys.” On Thursday 15 May 2014, the Frontline Club screened Virunga, a masterful documentary that portrays both the highest of human empathy, and lowest of murderous greed in eastern DR Congo. Present for the Q&A were director Orlando von Einsiedel, producer Joanna Natasegara and investigative […]
Window of opportunity for the DRC
By Richard Nield The coming year could be a window of opportunity for the international community to tackle the violence and lawlessness that has claimed more than 5 million lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the past 15 years. The panel: Kassim Kayira, Noëlla Coursaris Musunka, Jean-Roger Kaseki, Patrick Smith, Ben Shepherd. Photograph: […]
Defending justice in the DRC
By Holly Young The event on the 8 February at the Frontline Club was a screening of Justice for Sale, followed by a Q&A with Femke van Velzen, one half of a documentary duo – twin sisters who make up IF Productions. For Femke and Ilse, this is their third film about the Democratic Republic of Congo. […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 19- 25 December
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 19 December to Sunday, 25 December fromForesightNews By Nicole Hunt EU and Ukrainian officials meet in Kiev on Monday for the annual EU-Ukraine Summit, with rumours abound that President Viktor Yanukovych is planning to skip the meeting in favour of the EurAsEC summit taking place in […]
Extremism, the changing news industry and a special preview reading of Bang Bang
There are still some tickets left for tonight’s discussion on both far right and Islamic extremism – but book now if you would like to be there. In the week ahead we will be joined by two key players in the news industry, David Carr of the New York Times and Richard Gizbert of Al Jazeera English, to discuss its […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 12-18 September
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 12 September to Sunday, 18 September from ForesightNews By Nicole Hunt The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors meets in Vienna on Monday, with Iran likely to be high on the agenda following last week’s report expressing increased concerns over ‘undisclosed nuclear related activities’ […]
Leah Chishugi – Everything is a Benefit
Watch the full event here. By Oliver Franklin “I thought it was a nightmare… a dream,” Leah Chishugi, survivor of the Rwandan genocide and author of A Long Way From Paradise, told a particularly sober crowd at yesterday’s Frontline event. Stifling back emotion, Chishugi was describing the 6th April, 1994, a day she happened to […]
Axe in Congo: Giving It Away
by DAVID AXE U.S. Army and Congolese army doctors render free medical care at a clinic in Kinshasa, as part of the Medflag ’10 exercise.
Axe in Congo: Litter Training
by DAVID AXE Kinshasa — Corrupt and impoverished, Congo doesn’t have much in the way of emergency services. Wrecked cars become semi-permanent urban art installations on the side of the road. When fires break out, it can take hours for anyone to respond. MONUSCO, the U.N. peacekeeping force, has been forced to put out some […]
Axe in Congo: Can’t Please Everyone
by DAVID AXE Kinshasa — A free health clinic was one of the culminating events of the U.S. Army-led "Medflag ’10" training exercise in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While American instructors trained up Congolese medics, U.S. and Congolese officials oversaw registration of civilians to attend the clinic. The civilians lined up before a board […]
Axe in Congo: Training the Congolese Army
by DAVID AXE Kinshasa — Soft power can be tedious, exhausting, frustrating. A hundred U.S. Army doctors and medics are in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, to train several hundred medics from the Congolese Forces Armees de la Republique Democratique du Congo. The Americans’ idea: to leave the Congolese more capable and more professional than […]
Axe in Congo: The Army’s Training Dilemma
by DAVID AXE Kinshasa — Colonel Gilbert Kabanda, the surgeon general of the Forces Armees de la Republique Democratique du Congo — the Congolese army — is a tiny man, barely more than five feet tall. But he has a big speaking voice. On September 6, he took the stage at the opening ceremony for […]
Live tonight: Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army
Live Broadcast by Ustream.TV We’ll be discussing whether it’s the end for Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army at the Frontline Club tonight, 16 April, at 7pm GMT/11am PST. As usual, if you can’t make it to the Club in person, we’ll be streaming the event live on the Frontline Club Events page and […]
Finbarr O’ Reilly in Congo
Reuters photographer Finbarr O’Reilly has been travelling through the Democratic Republic of Congo taking some incredible photographs along the way. The Boston Herald showcases 38 images as a part of their excellent Big Picture series. Reuters recently held a live chat with Finbarr in Liberia which we hosted on this blog. Photo by Finbarr O’Reilly […]
Broke without fixers
Jonathan Miller writes about the "secret weapon" of television news on the Channel 4 World News blog. He’s talking about the fixers he’s worked with in the DRC, Zimbabwe, Gaza, Pakistan, Serbia and Sudan. "When fixers deliver," Miller says, "We make good telly," Fixers are all-too-often the unsung heros of our business. They work long […]
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 […]
Rwanda Finally Ditches Nkunda
So General Laurent Nkunda has been arrested in Rwanda. About time too. His thuggish rebellion scattered 250,000 people in the last months of 2008 as he flexed his muscles and played games with the lives of the families he claimed to represent. There are still questions to be answered – will Rwanda hand over […]
Finbarr O’ Reilly discusses Congo LIVE
Reuters snapper Finbarr O’ Reilly will be discussing his experience in the Democratic Republic of Congo and what first took him to Africa live online today, Wednesday, Jan. 14. Finbarr will use the excellent mobile phone video broadcast tool Qik to broadcast live at 17.00 GMT / 1200 ET. You can follow Finbarr on Twitter […]
The life of a journalist is quite lonely
Marcus Bleasdale, photojournalist, Frontline Club member and regular on this blog, talks in the Daily Telegraph about how he got into photojournalism in his late twenties after a successful career in banking. Fascinating to hear more about his path into photography and how working the war zone beat has changed him. What with the banking […]
My African Predictions for 2009
This year I lost $200 in bets on the US presidential election and remain committed to swimming naked to Tuti island in the middle of the Nile on my next visit to Khartoum. That is not enough to stop me making a few more predictions of the events that will shape the African news agenda […]
New Rebel Group in DRC
Just when you thought you had a handle on what was happening among the myriad militia groupings in the Democratic Republic of Congo, The Independent reports the emergence of a new rebel army The findings of collaboration with the Tutu rebels by the Rwandan government came on the same day that some of its leaders […]
Who’d Have Thought It?
Certainly not Tony Blair, Paul Kagame’s new best friend and adviser, who has said Rwanda does not control Laurent Nkunda and his rebel army. Nor Foreign Office minister Lord Mark Malloch-Brown who told me exactly the same thing in Goma last month Lord Malloch-Brown said the region’s rich tin ore and coltan seams were a […]
For Sale: Lord’s Resistance Army feature
Earlier this year photographer Kate Holt and I chartered a plane to fly from Dungu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the tiny village of Doruma which was recovering from repeated attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army. We found people living in fear of the next assault, as LRA raiding parties roamed the jungle […]
Micahel J. Kavanagh and Taylor Krauss reporting from Congo
Michael J. Kavanagh, from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, reports from a refugee camp in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo with footage from cameraman Taylor Krauss. Earlier today we blogged how the two got caught up with the secret police in the DRC. You can read the full story on the World Focus website, […]
Detained by Congo secret police
Cameraman Taylor Krauss was held by secret police in the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this week. He talks about the experience on the World Focus site, I knew a padded handshake could solve things in a country where [former president] Mobutu used to tell his citizens to “fend for themselves.†But I also knew […]
Didace Namujimbo shot dead in South Kivu
Didace Namujimbo, a radio journalist with the UN-backed Radio Okapi station, was shot dead on Friday night. He is the second journalist from the station to have been shot dead in the South Kivu provincial capital Bukavu in the last eighteen months, “Once again a Radio Okapi journalist has been killed in Bukavu. Didace Namujimbo […]
Our man in Goma
The Ihusi Hotel, Goma I’m finding it pretty tough to pity Rob out in Goma at the moment. I know hotels can get a bit a dull a bit quickly, but come on Rob… Mustn’t grumble, ehh?
