“In brief and in clear words, don’t come to Iraq at this specific time. The way to Baghdad from the north is too dangerous. They can easily chase you and hurt you. Roads are extremely danger even for Iraqi people.” (Excerpt from an E-mail from an Iraqi friend in Baghdad, just before my trip –…
On the 26th December 2004, at around 9am, the coastlines of Sumatra, Thailand, The Nicobar and Andaman Islands, The Maldives and Sri Lanka were all hit by a massive Tsunami that had originated just off the coast of Indonesia. In Sri Lanka, beachside properties were pulverised and over 30,000 people lost their lives. A further…
I’m writing this en route from Istanbul to Munich after departing Dushanbe this morning. We’ll overnight in Munich and return to San Francisco at 6:30PM on Sunday evening. All told, we’ll have spent approximately 48 hours in aircraft in the last two weeks. We’ll also have spent at least 48 hours in various seats of…
At the centre of the conflict in Darfur is the issue of ethnic identity. On the face of it all Darfurians are Muslim and are Sahelian or Saharan people, an age-old mixture of Arab and African resulting from centuries of inter-mixing and inter-marriage. I sat in the market place in Zalingei in West Darfur one…
It didn’t feel like I had slept at all but my alarm bleeped obnoxiously…five a.m. I was so excited the night before that I’d stayed up late, plotting, planning and packing. Then of course there were those last minute e-mails and a special request to take a picture of Fred Siwaks art work once I’d…
NORTH IRAQ Though polite, my host is guarded and visibly nervous. I wait with my translator in a room decorated with photos of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. We have just arrived in a refugee camp in Northern Iraq, unexpected. In another room, phone calls to Syria are being made, to confirm the name of…
