NATO
Afghanistan, What End in Sight?
It’s coming up to 17 years of British military intervention in Afghanistan, and there seems to be no clear end in sight. As the Western media turns the spotlight on Syria and other conflicts in the Middle East, Afghanistan has become the forgotten war. Our panel discuss what strategy is in place to end the conflict, and the civilian costs of the war.
Preview Screening: Tell Spring Not to Come This Year + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors Saeed Taji Farouky and Michael McEvoy.
When NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan the Afghan National Army (ANA) took control of Helmand Province, an extremely dangerous region where attacks by Taliban fighters are the order of the day. The directors of Tell Spring Not to Come This Year accompanied an ANA company during a year of frontline duty in Helmand.
Conflict in Ukraine: One Year On
By Graham Lanktree A year since revolution erupted in Ukraine has marked increasingly violent changes inside the country. Yet the transformation remains unfinished and it is uncertain where the conflict and efforts to reform corruption will go next as fighting intensifies across the east of the country. To discuss the future of Ukraine, and whether 2015 […]
Libya: A Failed State?
Is Libya on the brink of becoming a failed state? Three years after Nato-backed rebels overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and the country was held up as the success story of the Arab Spring, Libya is deeply divided. As Libya’s parliament calls for foreign intervention to protect civilians from deadly clashes between rival militia groups, we will be asking what has gone wrong in the country.
The Afghanistan Debate
By Dan Tookey The Frontline Club abandoned familiar digs in Paddington on Tuesday 17 September in favour of the packed Shaw Theatre on the Euston Road. In partnership with BBC World Service for Afghanistan, they brought together five leading experts on Afghanistan to discuss the country’s recent past and near future.
Pakistan elections: a critical juncture
By Nishat Ahmed As Pakistan gears up for crucial general elections in just over a week, on 1 May the Frontline Club hosted a panel discussion, First Wednesday: Pakistan goes to the polls, to consider the country’s prospects. The panelists on the evening were journalist and author Irfan Husain, Pir Zubair Shah of the Council on Foreign […]
North Korea tensions, China GDP, Thatcher funeral, Italian presidential politics, and Friends of Syria – the world next week
By Jasper Wenban-Smith, international editor of ForesightNews. A round up of world news in the week ahead from journalist resource ForesightNews. Monday 15 April North Korea marks the anniversary of the birth of the country’s founder (and grandfather of its current leader) Kim Il-sung. There has been much speculation that the current regime may be […]
FULLY BOOKED On the frontline: Refocusing on Afghanistan
October this year will mark 12 years since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and with the 2014 deadline looming join us with author and award winning journalist Christina Lamb, Afghan American author Tamim Ansary and others, as we look ahead at the path to troop withdrawal.
Syria and the future of the euro set to dominate world affairs next week
A round up of world news in the week ahead from journalist resource ForesightNews. By Jasper Wenban-Smith, international editor of ForesightNews.
Who can prevent an Afghan civil war?
Posted by Nigel Wilson In a week that’s seen three “green on blue” attacks in Afghanistan, a divided panel came together to unpick the finer details of the country’s impending challenges. With foreign troops preparing to leave in 2014, the spectre looming over Afghanistan is a return to civil war. The expert panel debated whether […]
Can the Afghan National Army prevent civil war?
Chatham House rule applies to this event.
In 2014 America’s longest war will be over but what will become of the Afghan people? Join us as we ask whether the Afghan National Army can to keep the country from civil war or whether it is destined to see a similar scenario to what followed the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.
Just for YOU: NATO launches WE-NATO social media platform
NATO has launched a new interactive social media platform called WE-NATO. It’s primarily a WordPress blog which will attempt to encourage an "eye level conversation with netizens out there in the web". WE-NATO also wants to livestream a series of talks and conduct video interviews in the run up to the NATO summit in Chicago […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 30 January – 5 February
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 30 January to Sunday, 5 February from Foresight News By Nicole Hunt European leaders gather in Brussels on Monday for an informal meeting of the European Council, during which discussions are set to focus on jobs and the new fiscal stabilisation treaty agreed at their controversial […]
Five links from 2011: ‘Twitter’
I am picking out a few of the more interesting links from my 2011 delicious bookmarks. On Monday, I selected five from my ‘war reporting’ tag. Today, I’ve selected another five from among the bookmarks I labelled ‘Twitter’ in my delicious account. Enjoy! 1. ‘Visualising the New Arab Mind‘ Computational historian Kovas Boguta visualises the Twitter influence […]
BBC Editor says he was advised to pull journalists from Libya by Foreign Office
On the eve of the fall of Sirte, the BBC’s World News Editor has revealed that the Foreign Office “strongly recommended” to broadcasters that they pull their journalists out of Libya prior to the start of NATO’s bombing campaign. Speaking at yesterday evening’s Frontline Club event on the pressures of reporting conflict, Jon Williams said […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 3 – 9 October
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 3 October to Sunday, 9 October from ForesightNews By Nicole Hunt Though it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of which Silvio Berlusconi trial is currently in court, Monday sees the resumption of the most infamous of his four cases, in which he faces charges for abuse […]
Afghanistan: The mistake was not going in, but not knowing why we were there
If you want to take part in further discussion about the impact of the War on Terror on our world today and how it might shape our future, come along to our FIRST WEDNESDAY SPECIAL: Changing world – conflict, culture and terrorism in the 21st century on Wednesday, 7 September. The decision to go into Afghanistan was […]
Deaths in the Military, Mutiny, Mail and the Minister
To put it mildly, Germany’s Minister of Defence, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, will be facing a hostile parliamentary and media environment this week. Three military episodes are dominating headlines following reports from the German parliamentary ombudsman to the military. – The treatment of officer-cadets onboard the German Navy tall ship Gorch Fock, including events surrounding the […]
WRL: New media, Afghanistan, Iraq and Al Qaeda
A few bits and pieces I’ve spotted recently: 1. Leveraging New Media (pdf): A US military report on the Israeli Defence Force’s use of new media in the conflict in Gaza re-published in the Australian Army Journal. It’s from the middle of 2009 but I’d not picked it up before. It’s authored by Lieutenant General […]
Counterinsurgency blogged: A 30-day tour of Afghanistan
This looks like an interesting new blog which apparently kicks off today. US Tech Sergeants Ken Raimondi and Nathan Gallaghan are going to travel through five regional commands in Afghanistan blogging and vlogging along the way. Unsurprisingly, they think the story of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan isn’t being covered by the media: "We want to show […]
Blogging NATO Sec General calls for openness
NATO’s new Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has used a video blog to call for NATO to be "as open and transparent as possible". Fogh Rasmussen, who took up his post on Saturday and has been outlining NATO’s strategic priorities today, said he wants to use the blog "to have a discussion" about the security […]
NATO must ‘plug in’ to the global conversation
A military officer assigned to NATO says the organisation needs to engage with the new media landscape. In a guest post for Mountain Runner, Tom Brouns argues that NATO’s relevance on the Internet will play an increasingly important role in the extent of success or failure in Afghanistan. He notes that according to some observers […]
Dinner Briefing: Threats, response and reconstruction – Afghanistan in 2009
In the first of a new strand, this off-the-record background briefing on Afghanistan, will be followed by a 3-course dinner plus wine. Arriving at 7pm, guests will be given a glass of wine as they sit and listen to the discussion. Following this, they will be served dinner and afterwards will get a chance to […]