South of West

• A Few Things

  Posted: January 30, 2010, 5:44 pm by Rob Crilly

  Here are the bits and pieces that I’ve been reading this week. Goodbye Africa: Reflections on a continent – in which departing McLatchy corr Shashank Bengali writes about his domestic staff, but not in the usual expat way. This is moving and heartfelt “I am a British journalist” – in which much missed Khartoum-based blogger Meskel Square [...]

• Jerry Fowler Quits Save Darfur Coalition

  Posted: January 29, 2010, 7:22 pm by Rob Crilly

  There’s a report knocking around that Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition, is leaving because of “bitter infighting”. This rather aroused my curiosity, given the way David Rubenstein was fired as executive director in 2007. The coalition and wider movement have long been accused of ignoring the realities of Darfur, and of getting [...]

• Clooney And Me

  Posted: January 28, 2010, 12:51 pm by Rob Crilly

  There were three people who declined all requests for interviews for my book: President Omar al-Bashir, Musa Hilal and George Clooney. At least Hilal had the decency to decline my requests. The other two simply didn’t respond. If I had got the chance to ask Clooney a few questions, this is what I would have [...]

• Celebrity Advocates

  Posted: January 26, 2010, 1:44 pm by Rob Crilly

  Those of you who have followed this blog over the past few years will know my views on celebrity advocacy. Or more particularly my views of celebrity advocacy as applied to Darfur. Broadly, the likes of Mia Farrow, Matt Damon and George Clooney have done an incredible job of raising awareness, funds and pressure for [...]

• It’s Not Always About the Story

  Posted: January 23, 2010, 9:48 pm by Rob Crilly

  Yesterday I posted on what I thought was a rather silly piece about how there were too many journalists in Haiti. My normal position is that few things benefit from less coverage. But I modified that by adding in references to an excellent piece by Andy Kershaw in The Independent. Since then, I’ve spent a [...]

• Covering a Crisis

  Posted: January 22, 2010, 12:45 pm by Rob Crilly

  Interesting debate on coverage of Haiti and the aid operation. I was rather unimpressed by this view, from The New Republic… …in Haiti, the dozens of redundant dispatches are stressing an already perilously fragile situation, as all the journalists scrambling to get into the country chew up valuable capacity and resources. Surely there’s a better way. The [...]

• A Mint Idea

  Posted: January 19, 2010, 1:03 am by Rob Crilly

  In the annals of good ideas, Somalia’s plan to print money would be a conspicuous absentee. However, this appears to be exactly what the Transitional Federal Government – currently in control of two Mogadishu blocks, 300 camels and a Panamanian-registered tugboat (I made that up, but you get the picture) – is planning to do. [...]

• Somalia and Yemen

  Posted: January 19, 2010, 4:05 pm by Rob Crilly

  Unhappy new year in Somalia. This just in from the UNHCR… The number of Somali casualties and displaced civilians continues to grow as fighting in central areas of Somalia rages on. Since the beginning of the year, fighting and general insecurity have displaced an estimated 63,000 people in Somalia. As the world wakes up to Yemen’s problems and parallels are [...]

• What They’re Saying About Saving Darfur III

  Posted: January 18, 2010, 11:28 am by Rob Crilly

  Today it’s Adam Mynott, who served as BBC East Africa Correspondent for four years on Saving Darfur The crisis in Darfur is complex, multi-layered and has its roots deep in history.  It is not, as it is often portrayed, a straightforward issue of good versus bad. Rob Crilly has spent more time than any other journalist I [...]

• Odds and Sods

  Posted: January 16, 2010, 6:27 pm by Rob Crilly

  Football United: Football Has Become the Air That Sudan Breathes: Stephen Constantine, Sudan’s national football coach, on a different side to a country known for war, oil and famine World media’s view on a year of President Obama: Don’t expect any criticism in Kenya, unlike elsewhere How did it come to this?: The Economist on Sudan’s elections [...]

• A Way Ahead for Sudan Advocacy?

  Posted: January 15, 2010, 11:47 am by Rob Crilly

  The Darfur advocacy movement has been going through a period of self-examination. A new American president, a changed pattern on the ground and a growing realisation that conditions for many of the displaced have not eased despite almost six years of campaigning has provoked some headscratching about the way ahead. Readers of this blog will know [...]

• Save Darfur, Ban the Burqa

  Posted: January 13, 2010, 12:31 pm by Rob Crilly

  Last year the head of the UN-AU hybrid force commander announced that the war in Darfur was over. Since then there has been a slew (OK, two) of reports from Darfur that reinforce the idea that the region has settled into an uneasy calm. A calm full of tension, kidnapping and banditry to be sure, [...]

• What They Are Saying About Saving Darfur 2

  Posted: January 12, 2010, 10:15 am by Rob Crilly

  MARTIN GEISSLER, ITV News Saving Darfur is an engaging and insightful look into one of Africa’s most intractable conflicts. Rob Crilly has as good a grasp of the people and the politics of the region as anyone writing on the subject today. This book’s triumph is the author’s ability to make the complexities of the crisis accessible, through [...]

• In Today’s Predictable Headlines: World Cup in Doubt

  Posted: January 9, 2010, 8:46 am by Rob Crilly

  I went to bed listening to the BBC World Service. After years covering wars in Africa, there are still some stories that are so shocking they make it difficult to sleep. This was one of them: Players in Togo’s national football team have told of their shock when gunmen fired on their bus as they drove [...]

• Moral Imperatives and an Ethical Analysis of Darfur II

  Posted: January 8, 2010, 10:38 am by Rob Crilly

  Been thinking more about the motivations behind Darfur activists’ interest in Sudan, their ethical frameworks and moral reasoning following on from a previous post I wrote on Ben Wallace-Wells Darfuristan piece. It was prompted by Bec Hamilton’s invitation to comment, in which she took exception to Wallace-Wells interpretation of the peace v justice debate, which came [...]

• Beware: Shameless Plug

  Posted: January 6, 2010, 10:32 pm by Rob Crilly

  It’s been fun and painful in equal measures. At some stage I’ll post more fully on writing a book – well this particular book – but for now it’s enough to say that the whole thing is pretty much done, apart from the promotion stuff which I hope will be the best bit. Along the way [...]

• Things Get Worse in Somalia

  Posted: January 5, 2010, 5:00 pm by Rob Crilly

  Press release from the UN’s World Food Programme: Rising threats and attacks on humanitarian operations, as well as the imposition of a string of unacceptable demands from armed groups, have made it virtually impossible for WFP to continue reaching up to one million people in need in southern Somalia. Rising threats and attacks on humanitarian operations, as [...]

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Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes