Middle East and North Africa
Arms Trade and Counter-Terrorism: Developments in Yemen’s Civil Conflict
Since Yemen’s civil war began in 2014, the country has been embroiled in fighting between forces loyal to the president, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, and Shia Houthi rebels. Is enough consideration of Yemen’s humanitarian contexts being taken in arms exporting and counter-terrorism? With a judicial review aiming to halt UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia beginning in February – and US involvement in the country changing under the Trump administration – we will discuss the role of foreign powers in Yemen’s civil conflict.
Kleptoscope Two: The Alchemy of Making Money from Sand
The second evening in the Kleptoscope series explored the illicit wealth originating from the Middle East that flows through the capital’s economy.
In the Picture with Paula Bronstein: Afghanistan – Between Hope and Fear
‘Mob rule took over’ she said quietly, ‘and they killed her’. The grief and anger at Farkhunda Malikzada’s funeral is one of many harrowing events Paula Bronstein has documented. But her latest book, Afghanistan – Between Hope and Fear, captures not only the tragedy of a country ravaged by war: it also shows the joy.
War Zone Freelance Exhibition – The Story Behind the News
By Thomas Colson A panel of freelance journalists and photographers joined an audience at the Frontline Club on Thursday 28 January 2016 to discuss the story behind a new exhibition of freelance war photography. Osie Greenway, Anne Alling, Benjamin Hiller and Jeffry Ruigendijk introduced photography and footage from their time in the Middle East – particularly Iraq, Syria and Lebanon […]
Water Wars: Is a Drying World Stoking the Migration Crisis?
By Hannah Lawrence In a heated debate on Wednesday 11 November at the Frontline Club, a panel of writers and scientists discussed the extent to which a drying world is a contributing factor in the ongoing migration crisis.
Critiquing the media’s approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict
By Dan Tookey On Wednesday 12 June, the Middle East Monitor launched Ibrahim Hewitt’s new book Memo to the Editor at the Frontline Club. The book is a compilation of letters addressed to the editors of major UK newspapers. It is a critique of how they have misreported major issues in the Israel-Palestine conflict from […]
Writing Revolution: The Voices from Tunis to Damascus
By Helena Williams On Tuesday 29 May, the Frontline Club showcased ‘Writing Revolution: the Voices from Tunis to Damascus’, a book which celebrates some of the best new writing to emerge from the Arab Spring. The collection of articles and essays focusses on what the revolutions, which have rumbled across North Africa and the Middle […]
Screening: Opium Brides + Q&A
Afghanistan produces around 90 percent of the world’s opium, fueling the global heroin trade, funding fundamentalist groups like the Taliban and bringing billions of dollars a year into the country’s economy. Award-winning Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi travels deep into the Afghan countryside to reveal the deadly bargain local farmers are being forced to make in order to save their own lives. The screening is followed by a Q&A with reporter Najibullah Quraishi and producer Jamie Doran.
Screening: In the Hands of Al Qaeda + Q&A
Award-winning Guardian journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad and director Safa Al Ahmad risk their lives to get inside Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Ghaith Abdul-Ahad and producer Jamie Doran.
Bam shuts the town down
By David Arnold, reporting from Sana’a Since arriving in Sana’a three weeks ago, I’ve been shocked by the contrast Yemen’s cosmopolitan capital provided to scaremongering international representations. For those outside it, Yemen remains synonymous with terrorism, yet in my experience people here are less concerned with Al-Qaeda bomb scares than with where next months salary […]
Insight with Jeremy Bowen: The Arab uprisings
By Anna Reitman Coming straight from a day of reporting on the latest unrest between Israel and Gaza, the BBC’s Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen was at the Frontline Club on 14 November to discuss the historic events that have reshaped the Middle East. He reflected on their political context, history and the evolving landscape as documented in […]
And all that Jazz
By Merryn Johnson “I’m very happy to face serious opposition: If I would say what I say and talk about Jewish political power without facing serious, relentless opposition, it would mean that I am talking nonsense… and apparently I’m not.” — Gilad Atzmon Gilad Atzmon certainly does face serious opposition, but he also revels in it. […]
“Poetry on a deadline” – remembering Anthony Shadid
By Merryn Johnson A gathering at the Frontline Club was held in remembrance for Anthony Shadid, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, who died in February this year while crossing the border out of Syria. The room was filled with family, friends and colleagues, including his wife, Nada Bakri; Jonathan Rugman, foreign affairs correspondent at Channel 4 News […]
Remembering Anthony Shadid
Anthony Shadid spent most of his professional career covering the Middle East, first for the The Associated Press; then The Boston Globe; then The Washington Post and finally The New York Times for which he was working when he died in February this year while crossing the border out of Syria. At this special event we will be joined by friends and colleagues of Anthony Shadid to remember the life and work of this most esteemed journalist.
Followed by a drinks reception.
Remembering Anthony Shadid
Anthony Shadid spent most of his professional career covering the Middle East, first for the Associated Press; then The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and finally The New York Times – for which he was working when he died in February this year while crossing the border out of Syria. At this special event we […]
#FCBBCA: Crisis in Syria – what can be done?
Almost a year since the uprising began in Syria, 7000 people are estimated to have died at the hands of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The death this week of the revered journalist Marie Colvin – a founding member of the Frontline Club – has intensified the media spotlight on what has become a humanitarian crisis.
A panel of experts on the situation came to the Frontline Club on Friday for a #FCBBCA event exploring possible solutions to the situation.
Rebuilding Libya
View in iTunes Watch the event here. By Alan Selby Much has happened since this time last year. The 15th of February 2011 saw the first Libyans take to the streets of Benghazi against a brutal dictatorship which ruled over them for 42 years. The events that followed sent shockwaves around the world, led to a […]
BBC Screening:The Ayatollah’s Seal
by Rosie Scammell In the wake of intimidation of BBC Persian journalists by the Iranian authorities, last night saw the screening of ‘The Ayatollah’s Seal’ – the first documentary to be made about the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Refused access to Iran by the Ministry of Culture (there were more important topics for the […]
Rebuilding Libya
On 15 February 2011, inspired by their Tunisian and Egyptian neighbours, the people of Libya took to the streets in Benghazi calling for the end of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s brutal regime.
Join us at the Frontline Club to discuss the task of rebuilding Libya a year after the uprising began. We will be looking at the work of the National Transitional Council (NTC) and the tensions that remain. What are the prospects of a peaceful future?
Insight with Wadah Khanfar former director general of Al Jazeera
Former Director General, Wadah Khanfar, will be joining us at the Frontline Club in conversation with Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow to discuss the rise of Al Jazeera, the role he played in its development and where it can go from here.
#FCBBCA: Voices of the revolution
IN ASSOCIATION WITH BBC ARABIC
For the first #FCBBCA event of 2012 we will be marking one year since the beginning of what has become known as the “Arab Spring” by bringing together some of the leading digital activists and bloggers across the region.
For this special event we will be asking bloggers and digital activists to select a panel that they believe are the key voices of the uprisings across the Arab region.
Further details of this remarkable event will be available in December.
THIRD PARTY EVENT: Looking back – moving forward? A humanitarian perspective
From the popular uprisings in the Middle East, to the intervention in Libya, and now the tragedy unfolding in the Horn of Africa, many of this year’s top stories have been dominated by humanitarian issues.
In this end of year debate, leading figures from the humanitarian world gather to discuss the main challenges to protecting and assisting people caught up in conflict and disaster. They will also explore prospects for principled humanitarian action in 2012.
#FCBBCA: Israel and the Arab spring
EXTERNAL EVENT HELD AT THE ROYAL INSITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN
IN ASSOCIATION WITH BBC ARABIC
With leaders toppled in Tunisia and Egypt, continuing uprisings in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, the Arab world has seen tumultuous change in recent months. Where does all this upheaval leave Israel? We will be focusing on the response of Israel to the revolutions sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa.
With a panel of Israeli experts and journalists we will explore how Israel and its people view the demands for democracy which are ousting friends in the region such as President Hosni Mubarak.
The week ahead at the Frontline Club: Focus on Israel, reporting Libya and art meets war in Saudi Arabia
Tonight we will be joined by the "rock star of Saudi contemporary art" Abdulnasser Gharem, an artist and lieutenant colonel in the Saudi army, he will be discussing how he balances these two professions in Saudi Arabia. Screenings in the week ahead include Danfung Dennis’ Hell and Back Again, a cinematic revolution in documentation. With unrivalled artistry, […]
Reporting the Arab Spring: the mirage of the ‘authentic voice’
I’m breaking the radio silence on the blog to post the introduction to my latest book chapter for Mirage in the Desert: Reporting the Arab Spring. (Not to be confused with Mirage in the Dessert…that is something entirely different.) My chapter uses the case of the Gay Girl in Damascus blog, (a hoax which purported […]
First Wednesday: No going back for protesters in Syria
The month of Ramadan will be crucial for the Syrian uprising and the position of Bashar al-Assad and his regime on 29 August could determine the country’s future. The critical nature of coming weeks was acknowledged by the panelists who took part in the Frontline Club’s First Wednesday discussion on Syria on the night that […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 25-31 July
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 25 July to Sunday, 31 July from ForesightNews The week starts off with two high-profile court hearings on Monday. Former Egyptian Interior Minister Habib al Adly is scheduled to go on trial in Cairo on charges of ordering the deaths of protesters, but the hearing has been […]
FULLY BOOKED Insight with Leila Ahmed: A Quiet Revolution
Leila Ahmed was raised in Cairo in the 1940’s, by a generation of women who never dressed in veils and headscarves. To them, they seemed irrelevant to both modern life and Islamic piety. Today, the majority of Muslim women throughout the Islamic world again wear the veil. Why, Ahmed asks, did this change take root so swiftly, and what does this shift mean for women, Islam, and the West.
Leila Ahmed, who is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity at the Harvard Divinity School, will be joining us at the Club in conversation with Azadeh Moaveni, Iranian-American writer, journalist and author of Lipstick Jihad, to discuss her new book A Quiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence, from the Middle East to America and her surprising discoveries about Muslim women, Islamism and democracy.
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 […]
FULLY BOOKED On the media: what does the future hold for Arab state media?
Join us at the Frontline Club when we will be discussing what the future holds for state media, the impact of channels such as Al Jazeera and BBC Arabic, and the ways that people are using the internet and other social media to circumvent that power.