The ubiquitous adverts say “War. Revolution. Family. Punk rock. All part of growing up”. And the “Punk is not ded” illustration is dead-on smart marketing. So, altogether then, every reason to be suspicious of “Persepolis”. It’s an...

Its Thursday. So it must be Zimbabwe. To the naked eye (and ear) the news filtering out of Harare looks relatively positive. There was the aborted pass-the-parcel game with a shipload of arms from China destined for the land-locked...

Today’s blog comes from behind the placards as Amnesty International UK took to the streets for two very different causes. The day started off in Westminster outside Portcullis House for several Amnesty activists. They were joined by...

If youre a US talk radio host and youve got the vice-president on your station, youre going to put a few listeners questions to him, right? Right. Well thats what Scott Hennen did on station WDAY in Fargo, North Dakota, back in October...

I was in Paris this weekend for the Winning Press Freedom conference , featuring a fantastic line-up of experts and journalists looking at reporting conditions in China. We heard from the BBC’s foreign news editor and the head of AP...

Looking ahead to this years Media Awards as a celebration of Human Rights reporting there have been a few reminders in the news of the dangers faced by journalists as they cover stories in volatile regions. We need only cast our minds...

Phew, thats ok then! Death penalty states in American can now go back to executing people with lethal injections. The Supreme Court has ruled that there is nothing unconstitutional about these killings and that the state of Kentucky...

That’s what we were asking each other in our team meeting this morning as we discussed the news which seems to centre rather a lot around women today. Most of us struggled to get past two. (If you can reach the right answer within 10...

Do you remember the scene in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly* when Clint Eastwood shoots down his Mexican partner just at the moment the hangmans noose tightens around his neck? Clints the sharpshooter, and the two are working a scheme...

Two weeks later and the people of Zimbabwe still have no idea who the country’s official president is because elections results have still not been declared. The BBC is reporting that a high court judge will decide on whether the...

“Mass shooting slays most of Royal family’. No, it didn’t happen here but remember the extraordinary day when a Crown Prince shot dead most of Nepal’s Royals , including his father King Birendra, before turning the gun on himself? It...

Is it NIger (stress on the beginning)? Or is it NigER (long stress on the end)? A whole country and I’m not sure how to pronounce it. And neither, I’ve noticed, do British news-readers when (rarely) they have a news report from there...

Today we here in the press office thought wed take our lead from the Daily Express. So like the Desmond title we are going to give Egyptians our attention. However, sadly for those gossip-lovers out there, were not talking about the...

One of the things that I enjoy about working in the media is being in the thick of key moments as they happen. Until yesterday my two top faves were helping to cover events at Canary Wharf on September 11, 2001 for BBC London, and...

I'm in Nottingham at the Amnesty AGM – yesterday 300 of us laid red roses to spell 'Human Rights for China' in solidarity with the Tiananmen Mothers, who each year are prevented from doing likewise to commemorate the killing of their...

Barely a day goes by at the moment without the Chinese authorities’ appalling human rights record falling into the spotlight, and today is no exception. Sadly, early yesterday morning the human rights activist Hu Jia was sentenced to...

The sickening death of Banaz Mahmod is widely covered today. This, you’ll remember, is the case of the young Kurdish woman who was killed by members of her family in London for the “crime” of having a lover her family didn’t approve of...

I admit my blogs seem to be following a bit of a ‘Bob’ theme. Dylan yesterday, Marley today… I promise it won’t be Monkhouse tomorrow. But in his song, ‘The Real Situation’ Bob Marley describes how many Jamaicans living in poorer inner...

Bob Dylan summed up the current events surrounding Zimbabwe’s elections succinctly when he wrote this : “Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won't come again And don't speak too soon...

Can’t beat a bit of stardust on a Friday, and well a big thanks to Emily Dugan in The Independent for providing it. She’s tracked down the TV presenter Konnie Huq. The former Blue Peter star is also one of the 80 odd torchbearers when...