Embedded with the Taliban
Award-winning Afghan journalist, Najibullah Quraishi, was in northern Afghanistan shooting footage for a different PBS Frontline documentary when he was approached by a fan who said he’d be willing to get him “an interview or a comment from the Taliban.” Two months later, Quraishi found himself near the border with Tajikistan, with veteran and young mujahideen from throughout Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Uzbekistan and Chechnya, belonging to the Hezb-i-Islami group.
He spent a week embedded with the men as they crossed rivers, built makeshift bombs, argued on their cell phones over logistics and even set up roadside IEDs that, in the end, failed to explode and kill their targets. The video (which can be viewed online) gives an unprecedented and human view of the day-to-day operations of these “hapless Afghan bombers”, as The Guardian UK calls them, and shows how far some reporters can and will go to show us the other side of the story.
Haiti Dispatch: Listening to Locals
As I arrived in Port-au-Prince just before the one month anniversary of the earthquake, I was surprised by the sense of normalcy in the streets. At first glance, it seemed like people everywhere were going about their business, the tap-taps loaded down with passengers and goods, the timachann (small merchants) lining the sidewalks and crowding the intersections with their baskets of fruits and vegetables. Of course, this was all happening against a never-ending backdrop of rubble and destroyed buildings, some of them with signs announcing that there were still dead bodies inside, but it was happening nonetheless. Once I thought about it for a second, it occurred to me I shouldn’t be all that shocked that the residents of the capital city were going on with their lives. Perhaps because life is a struggle for the majority of Haitians on a good day, here it was only a month after one of the most devastating natural disasters of our times, and in some ways, life in Port-au-Prince was a lot like I remembered it from the last time I was there.
That initial feeling quickly gave way to the realization that those who were hustling were doing so because they had no choice. Not only had almost everyone I spoke to either lost family members or friends, and likely their house, but invariably they said that they had no adequate shelter, and weren’t getting enough to eat. Most of those on the streets were doing what they always did: trying to survive.
The Last Bo Speaker
The last member of a unique tribe off the coast of India has passed away, and she has taken what was a nearly extinct and ancient language with her. Boa Sr was 85 years old; the eldest of the Great Andamanese, who now number just 52, but fail to speak “Bo”. Sr was apparently “very lonely as she had no one to converse with,” according to an Indian linguist who knew her over many years.
Illegal Trafficking in Haiti and Beyond
Here’s the latest post in the Americas Quarterly Blog — a publication of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, focused on Latin American politics and civic society issues:
Eight out of the ten Americans who faced charges of child abduction soon after the earthquake hit Haiti, walked away from jail in Port-au-Prince last week. Orphanage founder Laura Silsby and her nanny have stayed behind to face more questioning and a judicial system that is trying, but is in shambles.
As the case moves forward, incriminating evidence has surfaced: the Americans have been linked to a notorious Dominican sex-trafficker-turned-legal-adviser and to business interests in the U.S. But all of this brings up many more questions about the nature of international adoptions.
Haiti Dispatch: L’Union Fait La Force (Unity Makes Strength)
A middle-aged man holds a Haitian flag near Champs de Mars in downtown Port-au-Prince.
Global Health Connections: North Carolina, Zambia & Malawi
Good friend, former fellow student at UC Berkeley Journalism School and colleague, Rose Hoban, has won a Gracie Award! The Gracies are an important award for women journalists in radio and television, reporting on women’s issues.
Rose won the distinction for her series called “Global Health Connections” which aired on public radio station WUNC in March of 2009, exploring research being done in North Carolina, the initiatives they’ve spawned, and their health impacts in Malawi and Zambia. Through a collection of reports, online photo essays and blog entries, Rose documented humanitarian issues, midwifery, nursing and medical training in Southern Africa, among other topics.
Haiti Dispatch: The Tax Office
The Haitian government’s Direction Générale de Impôts (office of taxation) lies in ruins in downtown Port-au-Prince .
Selling Food Stamps for Kids’ Shoes
This week, Colorlines, a magazine on race and politics, published a really great piece by friend and colleague, Seth Freed Wessler. “Without the help of welfare, Eva doesn’t have enough money left at the end of each month to feed her daughters full meals. It is the first time in her life, she said, that she hasn’t had enough money for food,” Seth writes in the opening paragraphs. “Now, with no other source of income, Eva breaks the law, selling her food stamps to pay for the rent, phone bill, detergent and tampons.
“Selling Food Stamps for Kids’ Shoes” was reported in Connecticut over many months, revealing a portrait of poverty and the welfare system in recession-deep America.
Haiti Dispatch: Faith and the Earthquake
The mood in much of Port-au-Prince was more joyful than one would have expected during the three days of mourning on the eve of the one-month anniversary of the earthquake. On downtown streets and under the tarps of makeshift churches in every neighborhood, the singing of hymns started as soon as the sun rose, and didn’t stop until well after dark.
Haiti Dispatch: Metal Scraps
I just got back from a walk around some of the hardest-hit areas downtown, by the main cathedral, several schools, government buildings, etc. Grand Rue (as the area is known) is one of the oldest parts of the city, and is really devastated. The smell of death is still pretty heavy coming from many places, especially from schools and churches, most of which were in the midst of afternoon classes and prayers at the time of the quake. And you can even still see the bodies in some of those buildings, pinned under massive pieces of concrete and debris.
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