Reviews: 

“Amity and Prosperity is at heart a David and Goliath story fit for the movies. It has everything but a happy ending: bucolic setting concealing fortune and danger; poor but proud locals who’ve endured sequential boom bust cycles of resource extraction . . . tough, reluctant victim-heroes . . . and a courtroom drama, as a tenacious husband-wife legal team takes on the industry and the state . . . [a] valuable, discomforting book” —Jo-Ann Wypijewski, The New York Times Book Review

Speaker

Eliza Griswold is the author of The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam, which won the 2011 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize. Her translations of Afghan women’s folk poems, I Am the Beggar of the World, was awarded the 2015 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. She has held fellowships from the New America Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and Harvard University, and in 2010 the American Academy in Rome awarded her the Rome Prize for her poems. Currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York
University, she lives in New York with her husband and son.

Please note: this event is now a day later that originally advertised because of late changes to speaker’s travel. 

In a strange turn of events, now it seems the meeting is back on track for June 12th. Trump left a channel of diplomatic communication between the two nations following his open letter. A US delegation arrived in North Korea on Sunday 27th May for preparatory talks. The US has stated preparations for the talks continue to go well.

The world is poised to see how talks between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un play out, if at all. There are some who believe Trump has badly misunderstood his counter-part, as North Korea has made plain there will be no attempts to denuclearise at all, unless there is a unilateral agreement. The Trump administration is thin on foreign policy experts, leaving planning to Mike Pompeo and the hawkish John Bolton, who has repeatedly advocated for regime change in Pyongyang. In such an unpredictable climate, what can realistically be achieved from this summit? What can we say about this huge world story if the talks are cancelled again? And further, how much can we really know what’s going on in the minds of these two world leaders?

Chair

Kimberley Leonard

Kimberley Leonard is the World News anchor on Sky News. Based in London, she has over 15 years of international experience, working as an anchor, reporter and producer for some of the world’s leading news channels. In the last two years, Kimberley has covered the ongoing tension on the Korean Peninsula, most recently leading Sky’s live coverage of the historic summit between Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-In in the DMZ. A native Kenyan, Kimberley spent nearly a decade working in the Gulf before moving to the UK in 2015.

Speakers

Jihyun Park

Jihyun Park is a North Korean refugee who has settled in the UK. She is the North Koran Outreach and Project Officer at the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea. She manages the Korean-language output, builds relations with North Korean refugees, and oversees all projects for the program. She holds a Mathematics and Science degree from a university in North Korea. Prior to leaving North Korea, she was a teacher in a high school. She gave testimony of her experiences at the UN Commission of Inquiry’s London hearings. Her story has featured in a high-profile Amnesty International campaign, various magazines and newspapers, and in two short documentaries.

Gideon Rachman 

Gideon Rachman is chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times. Before this, he was Asia editor at the Economist including spells as a foreign correspondent in Washington, Brussels and Bangkok. His particular interests include American foreign policy, the European Union, and globalisation.

Dr John Nilsson-Wright

Dr John Nilsson-Wright is senior research fellow for northeast Asia with the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House, senior university lecturer in Japanese Politics and International Relations at Cambridge University and an official fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge. He was head of the Chatham House Asia Programme from March 2014 until October 2016. He comments regularly for the global media on the international relations of East Asia, with particular reference to Japan and the Korean peninsula.

The area of East Ghouta is said to be one of the last strongholds of resistance by Syrian opposition forces and as such the target of renewed violence by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad and his foreign allies.

The panel invited for the talk included Dr Abdulkarim Ekzayez, a Syrian medical doctor and an epidemiologist; Leila Al-Shami, a founding member of Tahrir-ICN, a network that aims to connect anti-authoritarian struggles across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe along with Dr Idrees Ahmad, a Lecturer in Digital Journalism at the University of Stirling. The evening was hosted by BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen.

Bowen began by asking Dr Ekzayez how he manages to work and provide medical care in hostile situations such as East Ghouta to which replied:

We see the same patients that we discharged a few days ago, with even more serious injuries, but they (hospitals) don’t have space to treat patients, they don’t have the medical supplies…they don’t have food, water or any essentials. Even the word catastrophe can not describe what’s happening in East Ghouta.

What can done about the conflict in Syria? UK could expand its Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, support the 5.5m Syrian Refugees into work + schools & help rebuild Raqqa – @BowenBBC at @frontlineclub with @LeilaShami pic.twitter.com/64thtTW1ap

— James Denselow (@jamesdenselow) March 13, 2018

He went on to explained that the Assad regime causes delays and confiscates certain medical supplies provided by UN humanitarian convoys and  they hardly reach the population or meet their basic needs.

He further added: “My interpretation is that they (Assad Regime) use this tactic to weaken the community, because this scenario happened many times before…in Baba Amr in Homs, in Eastern Aleppo and other places. First, they besiege the area, then they target all the civilians, so people don’t have access to healthcare or any essentials.”

The lack of a concerted effort on part of the international community was raised by Al-Shami. She pointed out that the UN has not managed to get aid in these besieged areas such as Eastern Ghouta and starvation is being used as a weapon of war. She commented:

This should not be a negotiating principle, this is a basic humanitarian standard.  The aid has to reach these communities in need. We need more efforts, we need air drops of aid. The international community has to start asking questions when a regime purposefully stops aid and starves people, what they can do?

"Civil society, suppressed under Assad but multiple in opposition controlled areas = hope for future of #Syria" #EastGhouta @frontlineclub pic.twitter.com/NYsZSDvL2C

— Suzy Madigan (@Suzy_Madigan) March 13, 2018

Further along in the discussion Bowen turned to Dr Idress to see what he thinks the international community can do besides watching the conflict unfold and discussed UN’s classification of words such as ‘besiege’ and ‘hard to reach areas’.

In terms of expectations from the UN agencies Dr Idress explained:

The problem is that the UN has no international backing. The UN alone cannot enforce resolutions. Its efforts have been repeatedly thwarted even for humanitarian efforts and we have had 11 vetoes from Russia which blocks any kind of accountability. In the absence of this it doesn’t have any mechanism with which to confront the regime. So, it’s incumbent on the states which are supposed to be guarantors of world order, but what we have seen is a collapse of that.

One of the questions raised from the audience in this open discussion was on the support for the Syrian government. On this Dr Ekzayez commented that the Syrian regime is not similar to any other authoritarian regime. It relies roughly on 2500 people within its core structure and each person from this inner core was holding positions of power within institutions such as the army, The Ba’ath Party and society agencies. They similarly had links within communities who had shared interests with the regime.

After the formal ending of the conversation for the evening the panel and audience continued to discuss their individual points on the unfolding of events in East Ghouta in the members room on the lower floors of the Frontline Club.

John Laurence covered the Vietnam War for CBS News from 1965 to 1970 and was judged by his colleagues to be the best television reporter of the war. His documentary film, The World of Charlie Company, won every major award for broadcast journalism and also the George Polk memorial award for best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and enterprise abroad. He is also the author of “The Cat from Hue: a Vietnam War Story“. It won the Overseas Press Club Cornelius Ryan Award for “best book on international affairs” in 2003.

Join us for a screening of The Ransom followed by a Q&A with film director Rémi Lainé in conversation with former chief foreign correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph Colin Freeman.

The Ransom dives into the secret system of Kidnap & Ransom, designed by major insurance companies in response to the 30,000 kidnappings committed every year around the world. International insurance companies have created kidnap & ransom, ultra-confidential contracts that are experiencing an unprecedented boom. Following a pending case in Venezuela, The Ransom, filmed in Africa, Europe and the USA, features insurers, negotiators and ex-hostages who speak out for the first time.

With exclusive access to leading hostage recovery agents, The Ransom reveals the cat and mouse games employed to bring a hostage out alive.

By following a few central characters in this interconnected world – often expressing themselves for the first time – The Ransom questions the price of one man’s life and reveals the impact of this vast global organisation on countries with a heightened risk of kidnapping such as Venezuela or Somalia. By emphasising prevention and increasing protection devices, aren’t we just increasing the vulnerability of those who don’t have the means to protect themselves?

“and the price of a man’s life has been determined by the price of things” (Saint-Just)

Using fringe social media platforms like 4chan, an anarchic and anonymous message board, and automated accounts on Twitter, they have been credited with rallying support for Donald Trump, spreading the story of French President Emmanuel Macron’s leaked emails ahead of this year’s French elections and some argue the rise of the AfD party in Germany.

But who is behind this movement, what do they want? Are they gaining an outsized influence on global politics? Join us for a panel discussion, analysing the varying impact the movement has had in the US and across Europe, as well as the increasing splinter groups straying from the umbrella of the Alt-Right, and the future of the movement.

Chair

Mike Wendling is a reporter, radio journalist and author of the forthcoming book “Alt-Right: From 4chan to the White House” (Pluto Press, April 2018). He works within the BBC’s Digital Current Affairs department, where he is a blogger and editor at the BBC’s experimental social news unit, BBC Trending. He’s produced and presented dozens of documentaries for Radio 4 and the World Service about US politics including the series America’s Own Extremists, and programmes about Native Americans and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Speakers

Megha Mohan is a presenter/reporter at the BBC’s social news unit BBC Trending. There, she has reported and field produced on subcultures on the internet across Africa, the US and Europe. This has included on the War on Drugs and online rise of President Duterte in the Philippines, livestreaming in China, meme culture in India, and the spread of propaganda and misinformation in Burundi. She has been part of award winning teams for the BBC World Service such as Newshour, World Have Your Say and World Update. She regularly appears on BBC News TV to discuss social media trends. Prior joining the BBC, she spent extensive time working for NGOs in the Great Lakes in Africa.

J. Lester Feder is a senior world correspondent with BuzzFeed News, now based in London focusing on nationalist movements. He has covered human rights issues around the world since joining BuzzFeed News in 2013. In 2015, he was named Journalist of the Year by theNational Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association in the United States for his reporting on fights over LGBT rights from places including the Vatican, Uganda, and the former Soviet Union. Before joining BuzzFeed News, Feder covered the Obama administration and Congress for Politico in Washington.

Dr Joe Mulhall is Senior Researcher at HOPE not hate. Formerly he was a visiting lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London where he also he completed his PhD on the postwar far right. He held a Research Assistantship at Harvard University and obtained an MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA from the University of Liverpool. He has published extensively (both academically and journalistically) on the international far right and Islamism and discussed his research on the BBC, CNN and Channel 4 news and written for the Guardian and New Statesman among others. He recently co-authored HOPE not hate’s new report The International Alternative Right: From Charlottesville to the Whitehouse. He also sits on the board of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

Patrik Hermansson is a researcher of far-right extremism at HOPE not Hate. He has a MSc from LSE and a degree in Political Science from Uppsala University in Sweden. He’s also a contributor to Swedish anti-far-right extremism magazine Expo and recently came out of a one-year infiltration of the international Alternative Right for HOPE not hate, which was featured in a New York Times exclusive and is being made into a documentary film, My Year In Kekistan.

HOPE not hate is a unique type of anti-fascist and anti-extremist organisation. For the past 14 years, they’ve been leading the fight against fascists and extremists internationally – using a potent blend of research, undercover operatives and public engagement to close down the space white supremacists and racists operate in.

Read HOPE not hate’s new report on the alt-right (and alt-light) The International Alternative Right: From Charlottesville to the Whitehouse? which involves Patrik’s undercover work.

Drone pilots Lisa, Heather and Daniel reveal how drone warfare, presented as efficacious and selective, is much more liable to error than US officials are ready to admit. The “safe distance” at which it is conducted has very real and damaging effects both for civilians and drone operators.

The primordial act of killing is dehumanized and sanitized, and leaves Heather with post traumatic stress disorders, Daniel with suicidal thoughts and a looming charge for espionage, and compels Lisa to travel to Kabul to seek pardon from the communities she contributed to grief.

As shown in the Ed Snowden case, the US government is quick to punish dissenters: a different war on terror is waged on whistleblowers breaching the secrecy of US military and speaking out against lies and abuses relating to the drone war.

In the discussion that followed, director Sonia Kennebeck highlighted how whistleblowing has become increasingly dangerous and all the more important to investigative journalism in today’s information society. She highlighted how the Intelligence Support Activity, a surveillance system classified as a weapon in itself, is able to watch everyone everywhere without us even knowing.

British barrister and former intelligence official Frank Ledwidge explains that humanitarian law is not fit deal with the relatively unrestricted warfare of drones, and the issue is likely to aggravate as more countries (Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and increasingly China) develop drone capabilities.

Findings by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism seem to corroborate the argument that drone warfare emboldens decision makers and hide the scale of harm away from public scrutiny: reporter Jack Serle logged US air strikes on Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan demonstrating much higher casualties compared to US official figures.

Drones have numerous civilian applications. One of them, filming, was skilfully used by Kenneback to demonstrate just how intrusive the National Bird’s “unblinking stare” is.

But like any new technology it demands open societal debate. The harmful consequences of secrecy and censorship are boldly portrayed by Kennebeck, whose documentary powerfully  advocates for more transparency both at home and abroad.

In town for a team meeting, Charles Sennott and Gary Knight, founders of GroundTruth, shared their commitment to training up-and-coming talent in global correspondents in an age when digital media seems to cast doubt on the reliability of political news.

Calvin Sims, seasoned US foreign correspondent and chair for the evening, identified a ‘tectonic shift’ in global politics as a ‘pandemic of populism’ now affects elections in the UK, Europe, and US.

The ensuing debate asked how successful mainstream and off-beat media channels are in producing meaningful political analysis for a generation typically craving entertainment.

The panel (left to right): socio-political journalist and author Laurie Penny, eminent American broadcast journalist Michael Goldfarb (The New York Times, NPR), GroundTruth Co-founder and Managing Editor Kevin Grant, and – joining us stateside via Skype – freelance Bloomberg journalist Matt Negrin.

Election as spectacle

Sims’ began by asking how appropriate it is to engage with humour in covering this election.

A visibly excited Matt Negrin enthused that he is likely the only person left in New York not yet weary of wall-to-wall media coverage of the election, ‘It’s so much fun. The race is close enough that it’s still interesting to cover.’

Grant went someway in agreeing, expressing the collective surprise many in the media have felt witnessing Donald Trump’s continued extremist statements even after being selected as the GOP’s candidate. ‘Trump is not normal, he has never been normal his entire life,’ he said, ‘The only way to cover this race is to be a little bit stupid,’ arguing a level of incredulity is helpful for real analysis.

Penny echoed the feelings of some in the audience saying she was ‘disturbed’ by the ‘excitement angle’ expressed. ‘It’s a real mistake to see this as fun in any way. Politics is a bad drug,’ she said, distasteful of a media frenzy that lacks sober questioning.

Goldfarb countered, it is essential the media depict Trump ‘as the threat to democracy that he is.’ The broadcaster went on to draw comparisons with the recent Brexit result and the imminent American decision, saying ‘resentment has nowhere to go’ for young angry men displaced from traditional ways of life, leading to extreme choices at the polling station.

Language can be unthinkingly recycled by media outlets without real discussion of its meaning – particularly in relation to voter demographics. ‘Critique of media is abysmal in America,’ said Goldfarb.

Several short videos produced by GroundTruth show that humour can capture an audience and convey real political information – as seen in a ‘Fact-Checking’ sketch with memorable dialogue.

Social media and youth in a digital age

‘The digital space was supposed to make things more democratic’ – and yet often a paucity of voices seems to dominate the debate, even online. ‘What should the media consumer do?’ asked Calvin.

Acknowledging that ‘journalism is in the grip of a massive financial crisis,’ Penny argued the media has not found a way of monetising meaningful critique for a mass audience.

Grant held that the media still has a way to go, and often ‘doesn’t get to the heart of policy matters,’ partially because ‘there’s no clicks in unemployment stories’. Media Matters found that roughly 0% of US TV coverage of the election had to do with policy.

Social media is growing in importance as an ‘alternative’ to ‘the shouting match on TV’ for many millennials seeking political discussion, according to Grant.

New opportunities are emerging on digital platforms, and there is hope yet for intelligent nuance in the ‘crass, uncivil discourse’ (in the words of Sennott) which election coverage so often appears to be.

On Wednesday 20 January 2016, in front of a sold out audience at the Frontline Club, a panel of experts – chaired by journalist Michael Goldfarb – set out to discuss what is in store for this election year in the United States.

With Donald Trump a serious contender for the Republican ticket, and Bernie Sanders challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democrat candidacy, much of the discussion focused on exactly how and why this unprecedented turn of events had arisen.

Chair Michael Goldfarb kicked off the discussion by asking: “Hand on heart, a year ago had you any idea that this is where we’d be in the presidential campaign of 2016? With Donald Trump well ahead of the pack of the Republican party, and with Bernie Sanders gaining traction on Hillary Clinton?”

“No… but perhaps we should have been,” said Xenia Wickett, head of the US programme at Chatham House.

Peter Trubowitz, professor of International Relations at LSE, highlighted the depth of white resentment “on both sides” of the political spectrum as a reason for Trump’s success. On the right, Trump is tapping into the blue collar and evangelical demographic; on the left, it’s the “college age, highly educated (…) turned off by Hillary and turned on by Sanders or at least some alternative (…) They want something that is more progressive,” said Trubowitz.

“I think they are angry both on the right and on the left, because they believe the political system isn’t working (…) I don’t think it is white resentment, I think it’s a matter of issues and it’s more complicated,” said William Lowery, vice-chair of the Republicans Overseas UK.

“People are sick and tired” of the current state of politics, said Lowery – Trump is successfully tapping into that.

The panel then discussed whether Trump would continue to feature so heavily on the agenda in six weeks time. Trubowitz pointed to Iowa as a potential turning point: “If they [Trump supporters] show up there then something serious is happening.” Washington-based journalist Adam Brookes agreed, and commented that “the bubble will pop” if Trump were to lose in Iowa.

With Clinton’s name most likely on the Democrat ticket, Goldfarb posed the question: “Who can beat Hillary?”

Wickett responded that the candidacy will be Clinton’s to lose, but that “she’s doing a really good job of losing.” The panel agreed that the abortion issue and Clinton’s gender will ultimately pull voters. Women – whether Republican or Democrat – will be more likely to vote for Clinton.

However, Lowery argued that “anyone can beat Hillary Clinton” – as Americans are reluctant to return to the drama of the Clinton family. Lowry also commented that Republic voters often believe that any of their candidates can – and will – beat Hillary Clinton.

V informative & thought-provoking @frontlineclub panel this evening on #USElection looking at how much more polarised US politics is getting

— Emily (@emily_wight) January 20, 2016

“Presidential elections are won in the swing states and at the centre,” said Brookes. The Vice President nomination for both the Republican and Democrat candidate could be vital for winning the swing states. The panel pointed to Michael Bloomberg as one to watch as a potential independent candidate.

In terms of implementing genuine change through policy, the panel noted that the topic of immigration seemed to present the most significant opportunity.

One audience member asked the panel to comment on how American citizens tended to vote – with a view to policy, personality or history? Lowery observed that the portion of voters motivated by policy is diminishing: “it’s very hard to make a policy re-tweetable.”

With just under a year to go until the presidential elections, Brookes concluded that there are still “all kinds of possible outcomes.”

On Monday 26 October, renowned Egyptian writer, feminist and activist Nawal El Saadawi joined journalist Wendell Steavenson and a packed audience at the Frontline Club for a discussion that spanned the topics of linguistic philosophy, feminism and globalisation – all of which were explored in the context of El Saadawi‘s own life experiences and recent developments in Egyptian politics.

Sitting in same room as legend #NawalElSaadaei @frontlineclub pic.twitter.com/93hzphE6My

— Nahla Al-Ageli (@NahlaInk) October 26, 2015

The discussion began with a focus on the United States’ continued military aid to Egypt. This was something El Saadawi felt passionately against, not just in Egypt’s case but on a global level. “Fair trade, not aid,” she said.

“The 2011 revolution was hijacked by the United States working with Egyptian politicians. Hilary Clinton came to Tahrir Square as soon as the revolution began. Why?”


The conversation then moved onto the subject of globalisation, and how colonising powers have always played the game of “divide and rule.”

El Saadawi expanded: “When Sadat and Reagan came, they brought the Muslim Brothers. Why? They wanted to fragment the country by religion. They wanted to fragment the country by class. They wanted to fragment the army. What is the difference between Syria and Egypt now? Syria is completely fragmented, because the army is fragmented. And this is why we are unified in comparison. This is why the Americans are against Sisi.”

When Steavenson questioned her about the way the Egyptian government has been punishing members of the Muslim Brotherhood with imprisonment and death sentencing, El Saadawi said: “I am against the death penalty. I am against putting anybody in prison. I am against all that. But I am also against a religious state. Whether Islamic, Jewish, or Christian. We cannot have true equality in any religious state, because all religions oppress women.”


She continued by explaining the extent to which gender inequality has been rooted in religion: “In the three major monotheistic religions, Adam was set free as an innocent, while Eve was a sinner because she ate from the tree of knowledge. Women are not expected to be equal. Why do you think I’ve had three husbands? Because they hated my intelligence. They wanted a stupid woman.”


Even though El Saadawi‘s main work and research focus revolves around injustice, she revealed her enduring optimism in the face of adversity. “I am always optimistic. I learned very much about this in the experience of prison. The women I was with were very pessimistic, because Sadat told us he will kill us. So every day they woke up crying, and I started dancing. I told them we will live and be free; just to have that idea gave me hope. When you have hope, you inspire people with hope, and hope is power. In the worst situations, I am hopeful.”


Steavenson asked about the moment when her sense of justice came into being, and why she initially became motivated to challenge injustice.

El Saadawi explained that when she was 7 and 8 years old, she felt something was not right in the way that she was treated in comparison with her brother. Her older brother was lazy and spoilt, whereas she was hardworking and neglected.

“During Eid, I received half the money that my brother received in gifts. I asked my parents why. They said because God said so. They thought they would shut me up by saying ‘God’. So my first letter ever when I was 8 years old was to God, but I still haven’t got an answer!”