Fortress-America Walls Keep a Mean-Spirited Nation Inside
Former Associated Press senior foreign correspondent and Essential Edge contributing editor Mort Rosenblum, who currently lives occasionally in the United States but primarily in France, sent the following dispatch on how America's penal system...
Arrest in the Netherlands: How an Afghan war crime came to light
Dutch police arrested a former Afghan communist army commander allegedly involved in a massacre of more than 1,000 men and boys in Afghanistan 36 years ago. This article was first published by the Christian Science...
Arrest in the Netherlands: How an Afghan war crime came to light
Dutch police arrested a former Afghan communist army commander allegedly involved in a massacre of more than 1,000 men and boys in Afghanistan 36 years ago. This article was first published by the Christian Science...
Bombing hospitals and getting away with it
The recent bombing by US warplanes of a Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Afghanistan only underlines, yet again, that belligerents do not have the right to destroy humanitarian havens just because it serves...
Helping to ‘fix’ global media coverage
World Fixer is a new company which connects employers and trusted fixers or facilitators around the world. Its 2,000 members are already working with media outlets around the world to improve their coverage of...
The ARTacama Project- Art Meets Science Mapping the Cosmic Microwave Background
Mark Devlin is an experimental cosmologist exploring the underlying structure of the universe. Jackie Tileston is an artist, and Christine Pfister not only heads one of Philadelphia’s most innovative galleries for contemporary art, but...
Dominican Republic busts child sex parties to combat trafficking
The following piece by Anastasia Moloney on human trafficking in the Dominican Republic was first published by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a non-profit media trust.
A boy walks past waves churned up by the approaching...
Human rights abuses in Mali: the problems persist
With the United Nations’ human rights sessions coming to an end in Geneva, contributor Christopher Woodburn writes about Mali’s worsening situation.
With countries such as Libya and Sri Lanka remaining profound issues of a concern,...
Our Responsibility: 100 Years after the Armenian Genocide
Vicken Cheterian is a Geneva-based author, journalist and media specialist, whose latest book Open Wounds, Armenians, Turks and a Century of Genocide has just been published by Hurst (See more details at the bottom...
Oman: The Call of Desert Sand
Italian-American Journalist Donatella Lorch, a former New York Times correspondent based in Peshawar, Nairobi and New York, writes a regular column, Tangled Journeys, from her current home in Katmandu. She recounts here her family's...
Williams and O’Reilly: Not the only truth-fudging in the name of journalism
The recent incidents of two leading American TV personalities claiming to have covered specific events, when they had not, only come across as yet more nails in the journalistic coffins of those still seeking...
They don’t make them like this anymore. Veteran CBS journalist Bob Simon in Action
Journalist, writer and Central Asian specialist Thomas Goltz sends us this memory at the Azerbaijani Oil Baths of Bob Simon, who died tragically in a car crash in New York City on 12 February,...
Don’t Expect a ‘Grexit’: Greece Can’t Escape Europe
The following article by Wayne Merry, a former US diplomat and a now a member of the American Foreign Policu Council, was first published in The National Interest http://nationalinterest.org
Global financial markets currently obsess about the...
Oklahoma had 3 times as many earthquakes in 2014 than California
Earthquakes are synonymous with California to most Americans, but West Coasters might be surprised to learn they’re far from the new center of the seismic landscape in the United States. This report by  Michael...
How to Save Afghanistan’s Democracy
Afghanistan’s last election almost tore the country apart. The next one has to be different. In an opinion article for Foreign Policy, Tabish Forugh explores the pitfalls - and options - for the country's...
How Sierra Leone’s Fight Against Ebola Tested Cultural Traditions.
The following piece is written by Amy Maxmen, a science and medical journalist who travelled to Sierra Leone with a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone—A great quarrel followed the...
Better Mapping for Better Journalism
Willie Shubert of the Washington DC-based New Security Beat explores new visual tools for improving environmental journalism.
Nearly every local story has a global context. This is especially true when it comes to the environment, and there...
Imaginative cartoons: Reaching out for AIDS, Malaria and Ebola
Geneva-based animator Firdaus Kharas, founder of Chocolate Moose Media, is an an expert in behaviour-change communications who has produced global campaigns for reaching out to crisis-affected populations. Here is the story behind his latest motion...
Letter from Katmandu: The air I breathe – my relationship with black carbon
The following piece is contributed by Donatella Lorch, a former New York Times correspondent, based in Katmandu, Nepal. It was first pubished on her site tangledjourneys - A personal perspective on human interest stories from an American...
Tim to the rescue: Legislating accountability
Nick van Praag sends this piece on the exceptional work achieved by US senatorial aide Tim Rieser regarding the reciprocal release of prisoners and the thawing of relations between the United States and Cuba.
Tim...
Why the Swiss need to value their foreigners
The following piece by Swiss-American journalist and author Edward Girardet was initially written for Swissinfo, a news website funded by the Swiss Foreign Ministry and the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. It was accepted and edited...
Sierre Leone in the time of Ebola
How frontline workers see the Ebola response in Sierra Leone. Nick van Praag, who is just back from this West African country, shares some random impressions. Â
With all due respect to Bob Geldof, people...
North Korea: first steps towards change?
Journalist Christopher Woodburn explores new directions for North Korea.
Long-considered the last bastion of Stalinist socialism in the post-cold war era, the hermit kingdom—as it sometimes called—has purportedly made some ground-breaking changes which may pave...
Old Friends – A 19th century photo album journey
A 114-year-old family photograph album is discovered by chance on eBay and won – despite a last-minute collector's challenge. The album had never been considered lost or missing because no one in the family...
Afghanistan – What went wrong?
The following essay by Geneva-based journalist and author Edward Girardet was published by the Cairo Review of Global Affairs in October, 2014. Girardet is also co-editor of the 4th fully revised Essential Field Guide...
When A Stray Dog’s In Trouble, Katmandu’s Canine Rescuers Jump To It
This piece by Donatella Lorch, a former New York Times reporter now living in Katmandu, was first published by NPR. See link:
The phone calls start in early morning. They are strikingly similar.
"There is an...
IRIN’s new challenge – independent humanitarian reporting
Swiss journalist Daniel Wermus writes on the establishment of IRIN, a former UN humanitarian news agency, in Geneva as a new - and independent - media organization.
Life and death – can there be an...
Modern assassins, murder and social media
Steven Sotloff’s murder and decapitation is a tragedy in itself, but it also marks a turning point both for journalism and the communications strategy for the world's most murderous insurgencies. Terrorists these days are...
Info constructive: la révolution danoise (Constructive information: the Danish revolution)
Essential Edge French-language editor Daniel Wermus explores the role of media in Denmark with regard an interesting experiment relating to society.Â
Geneva
Les médias libres sont-ils là pour dénoncer… ou aider la société? Le concept «info...
The Silver Fox Remembered
With the death of former Soviet Foreign Minister and Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze earlier this month, journalist and writer Thomas Goltz remembers.Â
Livingston, Montana -- Eduard Shevardnadze and I bonded during the siege and fall...
Frontline Earth: Maidan, Taksim, Tahrir – Revolution 2.0
The following piece in French is by Essential Edge French editor Daniel Wermus.Â
Geneva -- Chaque bouleversement technologique a, dans l’histoire, produit un bouleversement social. L’imprimerie a déclenché la Réforme. La révolution industrielle, le mouvement...
Senegal turns toward agro-ecology
The following piece is by Essential Edge French editor Daniel Wermus.
Le Sénégal veut se tourner vers l’agro-écologie
Le processus « Changement de cap dans l’agriculture », lancé après Rio+20 par le Comité de la sécurité alimentaire mondiale,...
The Killing of a journalist – Plus statement of the AFPA
By Edward Girardet. (Followed by an open letter of the Afghanistan Foreign Press Association (AFPA).
The brazen assassination of veteran British-Swedish radio journalist Nils Horner by unknown assailants in the streets of Kabul earlier this...
By air, by land and by Karma – transportation in Nepal’s Himalayas
The following article on travelling in Nepal was written by Donatella Lorch, an American-Italian journalist living in Katmandu.
Katamandu -- I learned a new expression this week: Controlled Flight into Terrain or CFIT meant to...
The PCDN Network – More than just information
For anyone - UN or NGO aid worker, policy analyst, researcher, journalist, donor, private sector - serious about being effective, the Peace and Collaborative Development Network (PCDN) is more than just an information tool,...
Switzerland’s Immigration Vote: Nationalism, racism or fear.
A version of this was first published by Le News, the free English-language weekly for the Lake Geneva region. This includes the cartoon by award-winning American artist Jeff Danziger - excellent cartoons on his website...
The UN Takes on FGM/C in an Art Exhibit at the Palais
“A woman wounded is a nation wounded.” The exhibition of paintings currently on display at the UN’s Palais des Nations in Geneva is both graphic and direct. It is sponsored by Canada, Ghana and...
In Nepal’s Himalayas, the uphill battle is against plastic
Letter from Katamandu
Journalist Donatella Lorch has sent us this dispatch from Nepal.Â
As any tour company will tell you, Nepal is the land of the Gods. It is the birthplace of Buddha and home to...
Haiti’s potential train wreck
The following piece by Nick van Praag was published by Keystone Accountability 27 November, 2013.
Port-au-Prince -- Haiti’s railway lines, which were laid in the 19th century, fell into disrepair long ago. But there is...
In the heart of earthquake land, Kathmandu waits for the Big One
Journalist Donatella Lorch contributed this piece from Katmandu, where she lives with her family.Â
Katmandu, Nepal -- January 15th was the 80th anniversary of the 8.4 magnitude earthquake that destroyed Kathmandu in 1934. Within a...
40 Years Later: Remembering Trang Bang
This piece by journalist and author William T. Dowell was first published by The Essential Monday, 18 June, 2012.
As David Burnett points out in the story below this one, iconic news photography and reporting...
Global governance: the role of the media?
The following piece is by Essential Edge French editor Daniel Wermus.
Gouvernance mondiale : et les médias ?
Geneve -- Profession sinistrée à bien des égards, le journalisme pourrait-il élargir son offre ? Par exemple en prenant la fonction...
LA TERRE A LA UNE: Le médiactivisme
The following piece in French on media dealing with global issues is written by Essential Edge French editor Daniel Wermus.
Geneva -- Guerres, réchauffement climatique, faim, pollution chimique, corruption, clashes ethniques et religieux… Stop ! Beaucoup...
Syrie: former des journalistes aux enjeux humanitaires
The following article in French on the need to train humanitarian journalists in Syria is written by Essential Edge French editor Daniel Wermus.
Geneve -- Toutes les crises humanitaires l’ont montré. Sans une information fiable...
Le News : une locale internationale pour intégrer les expats
The following article on the new English-language weekly, Le News, for the Lake Geneva Region in French is by Essential Edge French editor Daniel Wermus.
Geneve -- Depuis fin octobre, un hebdo gratuit anglophone vise...
Jokhar Tsanaev and the Boston Marathon
The following piece was contributed by Montana-based journalist and writer, Thomas Goltz, a Caucasus and Central Asian region specialist, and contributing editor to The Essential Edge. It offers some exceptional background and insight as to...
Rio+20: Abort, retry, fail?
The Rio+20 sustainability summit may be looking more and more like a big bust but greenies have not given up on it yet, writes Peter Hulm.
The leaders of IUCN, the International Union for Conservation...
