Tag: CNN

The Coming Battle for Idlib

New York- Some six and half years ago I trekked from Hatay province in southern Turkey to a small rebel-controlled town in Idlib governorate in northeastern Syria. The fighters I met at the time were local Sunni Arabs and indigenous Sunni/Sufi…

TWD Mali Media Offensive

New York- In the wake of the French military intervention in Mali late last week, I felt like it was time for TWD to kick into high gear. On Monday, I appeared on BBC Arabic’s News Hour programme from the beeb’s…

Midnight City

Barcelona- In finishing up my tome on Mali for Jane’s it is almost preposterous how fast that story keeps progressing along an entirely negative trend line. I was knocking around google this morning as I like to do from time to time…

Mali Malaise

Barcelona- Wanted to post some more images from my two weeks in the broken, beautiful Malian republic. I’ve noticed that there seem to be two black-or-white schools of thought on Mali: it is painted as either not nearly as bad as…

Heat

Bamako- Between a Lisbon airport strike, a Tunis one, and other obstacles, I finally reached the Malian capital a few nights ago. It’s hot as blazes here and quite friendly overall. A low lying city of red, dusty sprawl, I…

Halfway Around the World

Istanbul, Köln, & New York- It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do an update after about three weeks of nonstop travel and work. I’m just going to post a mishmash of backlogged things of no particular importance.…

I & I

Addis Ababa- Finally made it down to sub-Saharan Africa after a completely sketchy 24 hour excursion to Bahrain to get a first-hand glimpse into the repression there-story forthcoming. The internet connectivity situation here in Addis does not seem so great…

My Media Round Up This Week

New York- I had kind of a busy week with (background) appearances on PBS Frontline on Tuesday with Canadian journalist Martin Smith’s interview with Amrullah Saleh where they wove in shots from the fourth annual Jamestown terrorism conference at the…