Media coverage
Screening: On The Ground at Grenfell
It’s been nearly 2 months since the Grenfell Tower fire. In this time, 9 survivors, local residents and volunteers have felt compelled to make a film recording the events to dispel myths and misconceptions surrounding the fire and the people in the community and to provide personal stories of people who have been directly affected by the tragedy.
Kandahar Eyewitness Account – Felix Kuehn
It was perhaps twenty minutes after the call to prayer had sounded and we were breaking the fast, sitting on the floor around a plastic sheet with plates of rice and meat, when I was knocked sideways to the ground. It takes a split second till you realize what happened; the shock-wave had blown out […]
Felix in Kandahar – Eyewitness Account
Please see the previous blogpost for more on this story, but here is Felix Kuehn (my friend and colleague in Kandahar) on CBC Radio talking an hour or two after tonight’s bombing: Just press play on the Houndbite bar above. Felix will be updating his blog and reposting here tomorrow morning when he wakes […]
Guest Post: Votes we can believe in (Felix Kuehn)
It’s the middle of summer down here in Kandahar, with temperatures peeking around 50 degree celsius by noon. In the run up to Afghanistan’s second presidential and provincial council elections foreign troops stepped up their efforts, launching multiple operations to prepare the ground for voters. British casualties passed the 200 mark, with friends from London […]
“Go tell the world about our fake election”
So it finally happened. The election that we’ve been waiting for and looking forward to at least since last winter took place today all over the country. I’ll refrain from writing anything about the rest of the country. There are plenty of places to get a good sense of what happened. Make sure to check […]
Quote of the Day: Alexander Cockburn
I’m reading Kaplan’s Soldiers of God at the moment, and came across this nice little gem: "In the January 20, 1980, issue of the Village Voice, the left-wing writer Alexander Cockburn employed such a rationale to justify the Soviet invasion of the month before: ‘We all have to go one day, but pray God let […]
Wait and See…
Tribal elders in Kandahar like to explain how they’re waiting to see what will happen before committing themselves to any particular ‘side’. Well, we’ve all been waiting to hear from President Obama on his grand plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan – or the latest neologism, ‘Af-Pax’. Two days ago, finally, we heard. In the words […]
Afghanistan: the forgotten war?
Is Afghanistan at risk of being forgotten by the outside world? Not at the moment, you might think, what with lots of print generated each day at the hands of foreign reporters. Obama, too, is considering his own surge of resources to the country, and it seems the larger newspapers on both sides of the […]
Far From the City
In case you were wondering what’s happening outside the city in the districts, here’s a story and a half. Ghorak district is north-west of the city, and not especially important in itself. Off the top of my head, it was the first district that the Soviets abandoned during the 1980s when they started their slow […]
Mullah Omar releases his ‘eid message
Just like last year, Mullah Omar, the sort-of Taliban leader, has released a message on the occasion of ‘eid, the Muslim religious festival. Lots of interesting things in what he says, so you ought to read the full text (available in pretty passable English translation here). But before you get there make sure to read […]
“No Peace Without Islam”
Received one of the irregular news update bulletins from Kavkaz Center just now. Was just googling to find the precise details of a reported press conference held by Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Mansur in Somalia this week. For more on Sheikh Mukhtar see this recent interview. “No Peace Without Islam” is the title of a new […]
Behsud: Kuchi atrocities?
The story is so small and on such a local level that nobody is particularly interested. With an ever-growing insurgency, are international readers really interested in a conflict within the conflict, in which there are no international actors, nor anyone the ‘international community’ need particularly pay heed to… Even within Afghanistan, it doesn’t merit any […]
On the radio
Just popping in to post for Alex here… He’s back in Nairobi writing up the story he worked on in Somalia and he’s on deadline. Therefore, just a quick post from me to guide you to the BBC Radio 5 Live interview with Alex for the iPM show and, repeated again, for the Pods and […]