Untold Stories

News Points: Rice's Afghan Blinders

In back-to-back front-page stories Saturday and Sunday (9/1/07 and 9/2/07)  the New York Times gave readers  sharply different assessments of the situation in Afghanistan six years after the U.S.-led invasion to defeat the Taliban -- the one a sobering account of significant setbacks for allied forces over the past year based on the newspaper's first-hand reporting, the other a senior administration official's casual citation of Afghanistan as success story that went unchallenged in the Times account.

Click here to read more from News Points and Jon Sawyer

Ethiopia: Fighting for a free press

Earlier this month we posted the first letters from Africa by Bill Freivogel, director of the school of journalism at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and a former colleague of mine at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Bill and a group of SIUC colleagues met with journalists in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda on a tour sponsored by the State Department.

I was struck by Bill's fresh perspective, as someone making his first visit to Africa. His Letter from Ethiopia is equally vivid, not only on the feel of Addis Ababa's street scene but also on what it's like to struggle for press freedoms in an authoritarian society (and with a government, as it happens, closely allied to the United States).

July 21
Jon Sawyer

Click here to read more from News Points and Jon Sawyer

Iraq: Death of a Nation?

Mohajereen

Sabieh Fayhaa walks half a kilometer for clean water in Chikook, a neigborhood that is home to about 650 displaced families in western Baghdad.  People in the neighborhood say they have no access to schools and medical care and that they have received no aid from the government or organizations such as the Iraqi Red Crescent.

July 20, 2007

Click here to read more from David Enders' coverage of Iraq

Iraq: Death of a Nation?

Watched

When I ask Baghdadis about whether their neighborhoods are safe, they do not say, “It is okay, the Iraqi police or army are there.” They don’t mention the US military. The only ones who have told me it is safe have said that things are okay “because of the Jeish al-Mehdi.” This goes for an increasing number of neighborhoods, especially in Rusafa (East Baghdad).

July 20, 2007

Click here to read more from David Enders' coverage of Iraq

El Charco

We arrived and found a group of campesinos living in an old gymnasium in town. Many of them were from Pueblo Nuevo, a town an hour upriver that was caught in fierce fighting between FARC and the Army a few months ago. They also told us that the guerillas helped them grow coca and they were afraid to return to their town. Their situation has definitely gone from bad to worse. We made a trip the next day to Pueblo Nuevo to see if there was anyone left...

July 16, 2007

Click here to read more from Phillip Robertson and Colombia.

We arrived and found a group of campesinos living in an old gymnasium in town. Many of them were from Pueblo Nuevo, a town an hour upriver that was caught in fierce fighting between FARC and the Army a few months ago. They also told us that the guerillas helped them grow coca and they were afraid to return to their town. Their situation has definitely gone from bad to worse. We made a trip the next day to Pueblo Nuevo to see if there was anyone left...

July 16, 2007

Click here to read more from Phillip Robertson and Colombia.

We arrived and found a group of campesinos living in an old gymnasium in town. Many of them were from Pueblo Nuevo, a town an hour upriver that was caught in fierce fighting between FARC and the Army a few months ago. They also told us that the guerillas helped them grow coca and they were afraid to return to their town. Their situation has definitely gone from bad to worse. We made a trip the next day to Pueblo Nuevo to see if there was anyone left...

July 16, 2007

Click here to read more from Phillip Robertson and Colombia.