Pick of the Web
In an African voice: a profile of Sorious Samura
The broadcasting schedules of global media have little space for Africa, still less for Africans who want to tell their own stories. Sorious Samura, the Sierra Leonean journalist, has forced the river to flow upstream in a series of remarkable films. As his latest, “Surviving Hunger”, is shown worldwide, openDemocracy's media editor Caspar Melville profiles him.
How should the BBC be regulated?
The BBC is under the spotlight following Lord Hutton’s report, which criticised its coverage of the British use of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. How can the broadcaster recover from its latest collision with power?
It's <i>still</i> the economy, stupid!
Heavenly business, Gordon Gekko, and Super Bowl forecasting – plus figures and quotes of the week
'This machine kills fascists'
How committed are we to free speech? In the first of his new monthly columns on life in America, Siva Vaidhyanathan, passionate champion of liberty, abandons the cause when faced with airport security, his wife and the ghost of Woody Guthrie.
Media power: telling truths to ourselves
The crisis in Britain over the Iraq war, its intelligence and its reporting, is one of media as well as politics. John Lloyd asks: can journalism, both press and television, tell stories for active citizens rather than cynical couch potatoes?
Iran between worlds
How do Iranians see the world – its foreign policy establishment, its dissident intellectuals, and its ordinary people? Charles Grant, recently in Tehran for a week's discussions, presents a vivid portrait of a political system under pressure.
Tony Blair and Iraq: a public tragedy
The Hutton report reveals the crisis of the British model of governance. Tony Blair and the BBC alike have fed the public realm’s “manipulative populism”, says David Marquand. Will Blair’s leadership now be consumed by it?
Headscarves and freedom
Young women’s public display of Islamic belief exposes Europe’s fears about immigration. Dave Belden takes the long view.
Genocide and global citizenship
Can humanity learn a new way of thinking, and thus break the pattern of a century of violence?
The greater power
President Bush gets fundamental. Senator Kerry storms home in the New Hampshire Primary. In the third of his weekly columns on the US election, Todd Gitlin looks at the key figures and does the math.
Back to the Future
Want to know the five top stories of 2004? Take a trip on Professor Ivor Clue’s time machine.
Cold Mountain up close
In the story of an epic wartime journey whose source lies in the intimacy of a profound love, the novelist Candida Clark finds both humanity and wisdom.
Anthony Minghella’s latest cinematic epic is a great love story. As such, it is also a great anti-war story.
The film is set during the American Civil War of 1861-65, but apart from early scenes – which vie with Saving Private Ryan for sheer realism – there are no battles, few explosions, no sense of war-plan or stratagem. Nor are there martyrs or heroes.
Making history: the future of the World Social Forum
The World Social Forum in Mumbai was democracy in action in search of a fairer, people-centred world, says one of its Indian organisers. But to advance its global ambitions, must it look beyond Brazil as the site of future forums?
A space of freedom: the World Women's Forum
This Swedish activist combines observation of everyday Indian experience with her own political commitment to draw a lesson from Mumbai’s World Social Forum: women in the global justice movement are taking possession of space and voice.
Hutton - the wrong inquiry
A press corroded by cynicism could not see that the death of a British weapons scientist was a private tragedy, not a political scandal.
From the magic mountain: the World Economic Forum
The annual Davos conference pulsates with brilliant people. Why do so many of their fine ideas dissolve with the winter snow? Simon Zadek, an insider-outsider with attitude, sends a daily diary from the high-altitude conference.
The Campbell Code
The Hutton report on the death of a British scientist blames the BBC and clears Tony Blair, but misses the larger truth of the Iraq weapons affair: the British government’s system of command and control.
The conclusion of the Hutton Inquiry into the death of the British weapons inspector David Kelly has coincided with the call by David Kay for a “fundamental fault analysis” into the intelligence used to justify the coalition’s
Libya, Oh Libya!
Gaddafi the “statesman”, Iraq the “market economy”, Dick Cheney the “evil genius” and Neo-con fashion!
Changing the script
The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq will lead the United States and Britain to invoke humanitarian concerns as the war’s primary justification. The evidence of their long entanglement with Saddam’s regime tells a different story.
Kodak moments at the World Social Forum
Seeing Nordic hunks and Indian tribals exchange email addresses, this Indian journalist and filmmaker knew that the Mumbai jamboree was a window on a new world.
This week's guest editors
Our guest editors James Ron, Leslie Vinjamuri, Sophie Arie and Archana Pandya introduce this week's theme of:
Our guest editors James Ron, Leslie Vinjamuri, Sophie Arie and Archana Pandya introduce this week's theme of:
A Turkish Spring?
Woolwich - terror or conflict?
Palestinian borders
Nobel Women's Initiative
Europe from the bottom up
The media in Europe
Mali: the plot thickens
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Remote control war
oDRussia at journalismfestival .com
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Martin Rose Bliss Was It in that Dawn to Be Next Door
Vron Ware Up in Arms
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Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture
Paul Rogers on Global security
Mary Kaldor on Human security
Lis Howell On broadcasting
Dan Hancox Revel, Riot and Rebellion
Martin Rose Bliss Was It in that Dawn to Be Next Door
Vron Ware Up in Arms
Jim Gabour Sunday Comics
James Warner Standing Perpendicular, as books do
Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture
Paul Rogers on Global security
Mary Kaldor on Human security
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