South of West

• The orange road

  Posted: February 27, 2012, 5:32 pm by Rob Crilly

  The road back from Abbottabad yesterday afternoon, just outside Haripur, was flanked by little stalls selling oranges. Not just one or two stalls, but probably about 30 or so. This after all is orange season. The chap at this stall … Continue reading →

• Whose conference was it anyway? Somalia meeting disappoints

  Posted: February 24, 2012, 9:02 am by Rob Crilly

  And so we have another commitment from world leaders to help rebuild Somalia and assist its transition to a moderate democracy. Apparently this means a pirate taskforce (link is here but behind a paywall). Perhaps when you hold a conference … Continue reading →

• Recent reading on drones

  Posted: February 20, 2012, 3:30 pm by Rob Crilly

  Drones – not just for assassinating Jihadi suspects when you really don’t want to have to go to the trouble of detaining them and sending them to Gitmo, because you once promised to shut it down… Here’s what I’ve been … Continue reading →

• Drone Wars

  Posted: February 17, 2012, 3:43 pm by Rob Crilly

  Francis Fukuyama has been building his own surveillance drone. His post makes for a rather interesting read full of techy details, before he goes on to make a rather important point: I want to have my drone before the government … Continue reading →

• Railways, rabid wolves and man-eating lions

  Posted: February 8, 2012, 1:12 pm by Rob Crilly

  Don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for a railway story. And nowhere are they richer or more symbolic than South Asia. Built by the Brits and nationalised at independence, Pakistan’s railways are now mired in economic failure – … Continue reading →

• Debunking the “original sin” of online newspapers

  Posted: February 7, 2012, 11:50 am by Rob Crilly

  Media industry executives love to talk about the "original sin" that newspapers supposedly committed, by not charging for content when the web was young -- but this theory misses the point that the media game as a whole is being played according to fundamentally different rules. Continue reading →

• Debunking the "original sin" of online newspapers

  Posted: February 7, 2012, 11:50 am by Rob Crilly

  Reblogged from GigaOM: This is an interesting post. As a journalist, I still have a massive problem with content being given away for free and the way in which consumers now assume it should be free. However, it also spells … Continue reading →

• Darfur diplomacy row

  Posted: February 6, 2012, 6:05 pm by Rob Crilly

  Ibrahim Gambari is head of Unamid, the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur. He’s a diplomat. And one of the things about being a diplomat is that you go to things when you are invited. That’s the diplomatic thing to … Continue reading →

• Pakistan: A hard country to write about

  Posted: February 5, 2012, 9:05 am by Rob Crilly

  Anatol Lieven, author of Pakistan: A Hard Country, is in the country ahead of an appearance at the Karachi Literary Festival next weekend. His critics – who think he is too soft on Pakistan’s military dictators – won’t be surprised … Continue reading →

• Five Months in Kano, and an Abrupt Return

  Posted: February 1, 2012, 2:40 pm by Rob Crilly

  Reblogged from Sahel Blog: Regular readers probably noticed a drop-off in posting around September; daily posting did not resume until last week. During the interval I was in Kano, Northern Nigeria, doing my dissertation fieldwork. My dissertation is not about … Continue reading →

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

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

The end of the fish cakes