The dangers of war reporting

The extreme dangers of war reporting have been highlighted by two incidents in the battle for Tripoli - the reports by Sky's Alex Crawford from a rebel convoy entering the capital, and the plight of other journalists trapped in the Rixos Hotel. Jon Williams, the BBC's foreign editor, has defended the corporation's coverage, after it was beaten into the Libyan capital at the weekend by Sky News, reports the Guardian.On Radio 4's Media Show, he said war reporting was a combination of "luck and judgment". The paper says: "Williams applauded Crawford but said the BBC News team had made a judgment that it was not safe to travel with the convoy, while...

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Qaddafi Urges Residents to Fight Rebels

Libyan leader, Muammar Qaddafi on Tuesday made repeated pleas to the residents of the capital, Tripoli, to fight the rebels, who managed to take over the Bab Al Aziziya compound and rid it of Qaddafi forces.Qaddafi’s whereabouts are still unknown but he spoke on Syrian based TV channel, Al Rai, and at one point, the sound of chickens could be heard in the background."All the tribes in Tripoli, out of Tripoli, the young, the old, women, men and armed...

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Foreign journalists who covered the Libyan conflict from Gaddafi's side were trapped inside their hotel for a third day today

Foreign journalists who covered the Libyan conflict from Gaddafi's side were trapped inside their hotel for a third day today as gunmen still loyal to the regime kept them prisoner. With electricity and water cut off and no staff, the 30 or so journalists, including an AFP reporter, were grouped on the first floor of the Hotel Rixos, wearing helmets and flak jackets and listening to the sounds of gunfire outside. As the capital erupted in celebratory gunshots after rebels stormed and captured Gaddafi's heavily fortified compound, their guards denied that Tripoli was falling into the hands of the insurgents. As stray bullets struck the hotel,...

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The barra bravas: the violent Argentinian gangs controlling football

Like many of those living in Villa Fiorito, one of Argentina's most dangerous slums, Jose Mendez takes his shots at glory when he can – like the day five years ago when he slung the shirt of a rival football club over his shoulder and paraded through the streets of his neighbourhood like a returning warrior. Cigarette clamped between his teeth and basketball shirt hanging off his skinny frame, Mendez recounts the fight he waged to win his trophy: the crowded streets after a big match; the other fan putting up a struggle; Mendez, pumped up on chemicals and cheap beer, knocking him down into the street, smashing his face and kicking him until...

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Belfast family targeted by kidnappers have been left deeply traumatised.

Police investigating the terrifying tiger kidnapping where the partner and son of a security van driver were taken from their home have refused to rule out dissident republican involvement.Two masked and armed men forced their way into the south Belfast home in the Teeling Grove area of Dunmurry on Wednesday at around 6pm.His partner and 16-year-old son were abducted in a white Transit van and taken to Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, and held hostage overnight.The next day the man handed over a “substantial” sum of money, believed to be £200,000, to the kidnappers.More than 24 hours later the woman and teenager were found alive locked in a shed in...

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The phone-hacking scandal took a new twist on Friday as police said they had arrested a detective suspected of leaking information about the investigation into the News of the World.

Police separately said a 14th person, reportedly a former journalist at the now defunct tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, was arrested in connection with the original probe into the illegal hacking of mobile phone voicemails.The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said in a statement that anti-corruption officers had arrested a 51-year-old officer working on Operation Weeting, the force's phone-hacking investigation.Sky News television said he was accused of leaking information to The Guardian, the newspaper which has long been investigating the hacking at the News of the World."Officers from the MPS Directorate of Professional Standards Anti Corruption...

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James Desborough is fourth NOTW journalist recruited from 'The People' to be arrested, following Neil Wallis, Ian Edmondson and James Weatherup

The US editor of the News of the World, who provided the paper with a string of showbusiness scoops on both sides of the Atlantic, yesterday became the 13th person to be arrested by police investigating phone hacking at the now defunct Sunday tabloid.James Desborough, who became the newspaper's Los Angeles-based correspondent in 2009 after winning an award as Britain's best showbusiness reporter, flew back from America to be arrested by appointment...

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Maltese ship heading for Tripoli under fire

A Maltese ship heading for Tripoli to pick up refugees came under fire and could not dock in the port, Polish foreign ministry officials were quoted as saying on Sunday by Polish state news agency PAP."The ship is waiting for a better moment to enter the port because during its first attempt it came under fire," Paulina Kapuscinska, a spokeswoman from the ministry, told PAP.The ministry was not immediately available to confirm the report.Poland has evacuated most of its citizens from Libya and moved its ambassador from Tripoli to rebel-held Benghazi, but some 250 people from mixed Polish-Libyan families have stayed behind, the ministry official...

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I'll bring our girls home says former partner of Turkey murder victim as local waiter confesses to crime

THE former partner of a woman stabbed to death with her best friend in Turkey has left Ireland to bring home their bodies.Marion Graham and Kathy Dinsmore, both 53, from Newry, Co Down, are believed to have been murdered by teenage waiter Recep Cepis, who had been dating Marion's 15-year-old daughter Shannon.Raymond McGuinness, Shannon's father, flew to Turkey yesterday to comfort his daughter.He will also bring home Marion and Kathy's bodies.Raymond...

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A British adventurer has been killed by a starving polar bear which attacked an expedition organised by the British Schools Exploring Society.

Four other people were injured by the animal, which the group then shot dead, at the Von Postbreen glacier on the island of Spitsbergen, part of the Svalbard archipelago.The party of around 80 were on a five-week expedition in the Arctic run by the BSES, a youth development charity.The group alerted the authorities by satellite phone at 7.30am on Friday and the injured were airlifted by helicopter to hospital 25 miles away in Longyearbyen, the island's...

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More Journalists Killed in Mexico’s Drug War than in Afghanistan

For journalists covering the war on drugs beat in Mexico, a sojourn in war-torn Afghanistan might be a real treat:A tally kept by the Committee to Protect Journalists shows attacks on reporters have intensified since President Felipe Calderon launched an army-led crackdown against drug gangs at the end of 2006. More than 40,000 people across Latin America’s second-biggest economy have died in the conflict.At least Mexican 42 journalists have been...

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