tagged w/ VG-blog-CP
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This week, most Somalian radio stations abruptly stopped playing music or international news programs.
According to the New York Times:
At least 14 radio stations...stopped broadcasting music on Tuesday, heeding an ultimatum by an Islamist insurgent group to stop playing songs or face "serious consequences." ...
The insurgent group, Hizbul Islam, issued its ultimatum 10 days ago and set Tuesday as the deadline to comply, saying that music was “un-Islamic.” In other parts of the country, insurgents have taken over or shut down some radio stations. Last week, the Shabab, the country’s most powerful insurgent group, said it was banning foreign programs like those broadcast by the BBC and Voice of America, calling them Western propaganda that violated Islam.
I interviewed the leader of Hizbul-Islam, Sheikh Hassan Aweys, back in 2006 when Kaj and I were in Somalia shooting "Mogadishu Madness" for Vanguard.
Back then he was the spiritual leader of the Islamic Court Union. In the piece, we covered his earlier attempts at helping the ICU implement Sharia law and the reaction from the Somali community when he did so.
We captured exclusive footage of the uneasy peace that prevailed, albeit briefly, and interviewed other Islamist leaders who held the city, exposing the stated goals and fears of people the U.S. government branded as terrorists.
Shortly after we returned to the U.S. to show viewers what we had seen, Ethiopian troops, backed by U.S. forces, invaded Somalia and drove the Islamists into hiding. The country returned to a state of war. In retrospect, was the U.S. justified in backing Ethiopia to invade Somalia so they could overthrow the Islamic government that Aweys had helped establish?
Things certainly got a whole lot worse. As a journalist, of course I cringe at the idea of banning a free press. But if 20 years of fighting has taught us anything, its that its time to start thinking outside the box when it comes to bringing stability to Somalia.
I wonder if Aweys would grant us an interview today or if we’d be banned along with the rest of the press. Certainly makes me look at this whole radio ban differently.This week, most Somalian radio stations abruptly stopped playing music or... more
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Yesterday, a Russian judge who had tried high-profile racist murder cases was shot dead in the stairwell of his home.
Eduard Chuvashov had sentenced a group of ultra-nationalists, mostly teenage skinheads, to up to 23 years in jail for the murders of migrant workers from Central Asia. Chuvashov had faced threats on several radical websites, and authorities believe his killing is most likely related to the work he did.
Three years ago, I went to Russia looking for the source of viral videos I had seen on the Internet showing neo-Nazi skinheads kicking and beating people in the streets with no apparent provocation. In the Vanguard documentary "From Russia With Hate," I reported the attacks were coming almost daily in Russian cities.
I was in Moscow on Hitler's birthday, April 20, and found foreign students confined to their dorms because nationalist fervor surrounding the anniversary was so high it wasn't safe for dark-skinned people to go outside. I filmed ultra nationalist politicians preaching hatred to crowds of disenfranchised youth in Moscow, and I interviewed a member of parliament who openly espoused using violence to terrify immigrants from former Soviet territories in the Caucuses and Central Asia.
I also visited a secret, military-style training camp, where we watched neo-Nazis crawl through fire learning to become guerilla fighters. It was there I met the creator of many of the Internet attack videos, who proudly showed me his "propaganda films" of youth gangs setting upon and bashing nonwhites to terrorize the ethnic immigrant community.
Not long after my visit, one of the leaders I interviewed was arrested and jailed, and I wondered if the Putin government was finally cracking down on the ultra-nationalists. Far from it.Yesterday, a Russian judge who had tried high-profile racist murder cases was shot... more
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This week the US accused two senior military men from Guinea Bissau of being major "drug kingpins." Guinea Bissau is a major transit point for cocaine smuggled from Latin America to Europe.
The idea that senior government leaders are involved in the country’s drug trade is nothing new. With chronic poverty, rampant corruption and loose borders, Guinea Bissau has proved to be a willing partner in flooding Europe with cocaine. For years, the tiny West African country has been plagued with bad government.
In fact, when I produced "Cocaine Mafia" for Vanguard last year, I originally planned to shoot it in Guinea Bissau. However, shortly before we planned to leave last March, the army chief of staff, Gen. Batista Thagme Na Waie, was assassinated in an explosion. A few hours later, President Vieira was brutally hacked to death with machetes.
While neither murder was ever solved, it is widely believed that both men were rivals for control of the country’s cocaine trade. Trafficking dropped in the aftermath, possibly because drug lords no longer knew who could guarantee their security, and we decided to focus our story on where the cocaine went from there as a result.
We instead traveled to southern Italy, where African smugglers gain easy access to the European continent. When we reached the tiny town of Castel Volturno, one of the largest cocaine trafficking hubs in Europe, we felt as if we had stumbled into a slum that could just as easily be located in Guinea Bissau. Castel Volturno is a notoriously lawless town, overwhelmed with poor immigrants and controlled by the local mafia.
I've reported from a lot of hot spots in the world, but Castel Volturno oozes with a special eeriness. We were searching for a drug trade that was practically invisible, but all the time we could feel the watchful eye of the Camorra, the local mafia, whenever we moved. People were often afraid to talk to us about cocaine or who was running the place, but we pursued every angle we could while our unseen targets watched us.
Check out "Cocaine Mafia" here:
This week the US accused two senior military men from Guinea Bissau of being major... more
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I grew up hearing about Colombian drug cartels dumping huge amounts of cocaine into the United States to feed America’s insatiable craving for the fine white powder that made entertainers and socialites feel amazingly cool. Our government went to war against drugs with billions of dollars and helicopters, social programs and guns. Eventually, for lots of reasons, cocaine use trailed off in the United States. In recent years the drug lords have seen their trade route through the Caribbean produce fewer mansions, private armies and the lifestyle of kings. But they found a new market.
In recent years, Europe has been consuming more cocaine than anywhere else in the world. So I headed there to find out how all that coke was getting into Europe.
Unlike the US, where coke was associated with high rollers and the rich and famous, cocaine today is the European everyman’s drug. We found it in pubs in England, public bathrooms in Italy and wherever young people gather to have a good time. The UK, Italy, and Spain have become the largest consumers of cocaine in the world. The bulk of it still comes from South America, but the trade route has changed. In order to meet their growing demand, South American drug lords use West Africa as their crucial transit point to get the drug into the European Union. With chronic poverty, rampant corruption and loose borders, parts of West Africa have proved to be willing partners in flooding Europe with drugs.
I tracked the drug at one point to a South American drug trafficker who’d settled in Guinea Bissau, but I had to find out where it was going from there. My producer, Joanne, and I traveled to southern Italy, where we heard smugglers gained easy access to the European continent. When we reached the tiny town of Castel Volturno, one of the largest cocaine trafficking hubs in Europe, we felt as if we had stumbled into an African slum.
Castel Volturno is a notoriously lawless town, overwhelmed with poor immigrants and controlled by the local mafia. I’ve reported from a lot of hot spots in the world, but Castel Volturno oozes with a special eeriness. We were searching for a drug trade that was practically invisible, but all the time we could feel the watchful eye of the Camorra, the local mafia, whenever we moved. People were often afraid to talk to us about cocaine or who was running the place, but we pursued every angle we could while our unseen targets watched us.
Cocaine Mafia (Video)
You can watch "Cocaine Mafia" or any of the previous episodes of Vanguard online.
Recently on the Vanguard Blog:
- Lining up - Mitch Koss
- Does Sri Lanka offer lessons for Obama? - Darren Foster
- Kaj’s robot and weapon firing skills are put to the test - Lauren Cerre
- What Do You Want to Watch? - Mitch KossI grew up hearing about Colombian drug cartels dumping huge amounts of cocaine into... more
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From music to movies to newspapers, the media industries are struggling to figure out how to use the Internet without losing their shirts. With some combination of envy and disgust, they've watched from the sidelines as the pornography industry seized every opportunity to get before the wider audience all of them sought. But today, the technology that once pushed the adult industry forward is stripping away its profits.
The 14-billion-dollar-a-year industry is facing its most serious economic slump in decades. Porn producers led the way in technological innovation and media distribution in the '80s and '90s. They were often credited with ensuring the domination of VHS over Betamax in the costly war for control of the format used on home video tapes. They boosted cable subscriptions, popularized the DVD as the successor to tape and leapt onto the Internet as the obvious new vehicle to give people access to porn in the privacy offered by their personal computer screens. Secure online payment systems and streaming video, not to mention nuisances such as spyware and spam, advanced with the increasing popularity of porn and the public's apparently insatiable appetite for watching online sex.
When I proposed to my bosses at Current TV that I look at the porn industry for answers to the quandary of other popular media, eyebrows shot up around the office. Was this just an excuse to look at porn at the office and hang out with naked women all day? As I ventured behind the scenes, what I saw surprised me in ways I never expected. The business people and techies I met were young professionals with credentials as impressive as those from some of the hot Silicon Valley startups. And contrary to their image as Internet pioneers with an ever-increasing market, I found porn producers just as perplexed as other media as piracy and the plummeting costs of production sucked away the sizable profits they used to enjoy. Even the sex has changed in the race to keep a step ahead of copyright thieves and amateur porn pushers. It's never been clearer that if the industry wants to survive in this day of age, it needs to adapt to a changing marketplace.
Editing "Porn 2.0" for Vanguard's documentary series was a challenge because the subject matter we were covering could not be shown on television. At the same time, we couldn't just show the talking heads of industry executives bemoaning the downturn. On the first day of work for our new crop of interns, I handed out a boxful of hardcore adult DVDs and told them to look for some "tasteful" clips we could use on the air. I knew the assignment would either get me called on the carpet for offending the newbies or go down in Current history as the coolest internship assignment ever. Luckily, it was the latter.
Vanguard: Porn 2.0 (Video)
Recently on the Vanguard Blog:
- What world have we entered? - Mitch Koss
- Hey Electronic Arts, when you going to do a pirate video game? - Kaj Larsen
- Christof’s Doc, the Porn Community, and Obscenity… - Mitch Koss
- You Have a College Degree: So What? - Tracey Chang
- What Transformers 2 has to do with Japan's falling population - Adam Yamaguchi
- Why Should You Trust Us? - Mitch KossFrom music to movies to newspapers, the media industries are struggling to figure out... more
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Since today is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I was going to blog today about the sometimes baffling era that we’ve entered since the end of the Cold War—and how trying to figure it out is one of Vanguard’s missions.
But since this is my last blog before Christof’s doc Porn 2.0 premieres on Wednesday, I’m going to write instead about the ramifications of the Big Bang in American jurisprudence that led to the creation of the modern porn industry, mainly in the San Fernando Valley, just over the ridge from Hollywood, where we in Vanguard have our offices.
First, you have to understand that while many varieties of porn are legal, obscenity is still not considered protected speech under the First Amendment. If it’s obscene, it can, and often still is, banned.
The trick is how you define obscenity. Throughout much of the 20th Century, the standard that judges used was “I know it when I see it.” Under this standard, where a few judges could impose their personal standards on the behalf of all citizens in our republic, a lot of stuff was banned.
But then, starting in 1973, with a US Supreme Court decision called Miller versus California, the standard for what’s obscene shifted from “I know it when I see it” to “contemporary community standards.” That is, if a particular community tolerated something, it was okay. That’s why the first places modern porn was available in the early ‘70s was in seedy theaters in collapsed commercial districts. The idea being that since the community in these blighted districts contained a number drug users and sellers, prostitutes, homeless people, etc., the addition of a theater showing pornos wasn’t going to see like that much of a burden—maybe the theater even paid some taxes.
But then technology expanded the community. With video tape and home videotape players, it became possible for porn consumers to go into an adult store, leave with porn on tape, and watch it at home. Suddenly the community where porn was consumed had broadened. With DVDs, and the Internet, the community broadened further---now it’s a cyber community. Just as the Internet made it possible for extremists—who might otherwise be marginalized in the communities where they reside—to find each others and make communities, so too with porn. So now, attorneys who defend porn producers in an obscenity cases are considering the option of trying to subpoena marketing data from Internet search companies—if it turns out that lots of Americans are on-line searching for the particular activity that is accused of being obscene, then, under the community standards provision, maybe it’s not. Partly, it depends on how big a community has to be.
But, as you watch Christof’s doc this Wednesday, you’ll see that prosecutors are not what’s threatening the porn business today. But I won’t give the plot away: Watch on Wednesday.
This Week On Vanguard: Porn 2.0 (Video)
Porn 2.0 airs this Wednesday on Current TV at 10pm ET/10pm PT.
Recently on the Vanguard Blog:
- You Have a College Degree: So What? - Tracey Chang
- What Transformers 2 has to do with Japan's falling population - Adam Yamaguchi
- Why Should You Trust Us? - Mitch Koss
- My Second Tour of Sri Lanka - Mariana van Zeller
- Chinese Mobsters and Megacities - Joanne Shen
- The world: A dangerous place for do-gooders - Kaj LarsenSince today is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I was going to... more
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Last night I made an appearance on Top Chef. (And by appearance I mean I was in the background tasting food with several patrons of the mock restaurant). As an amateur chef myself, it was a privilege to sample the talents of folks who have spent so much time studying the craft of preparing amazing food. The episode was shot at RM Seafood, a sustainable seafood restaurant in Las Vegas. The challenge was to prepare a three-course meal for restaurant patrons (my wife and I) that included sustainable seafood. The message was clear: when seafood is prepared by the best of the best, it should be done responsibly.
Working for a network co-founded by Al Gore, I like to think of myself as a socially conscious and responsible citizen. Over the years, Vanguard has produced numerous stories about the environment from Madagascar to Greenland. I drive a Prius and shop for produce every Sunday at the local farmers market. (Wow, just writing that down makes me realize what a crunchy pinko I’ve become since moving to California). At the grocery store, I look for phrases like “line-caught” and “free range.” But like many eco-conscious consumers, the same rules often don’t apply when it comes to dining out for one of our favorite cuisines: sushi. To many of us, those tiny glistening jewel-colored rectangles just don’t look like fish. Even when we do acknowledge what we’re eating, it still feels like nothing could be more “organic” than eating a perfectly prepared piece of fresh fish in its most raw and natural state. But it’s that type of thinking that’s contributing to an environmental disaster. The three most popular items on the sushi menu, Tuna, Yellowtail, and Eel, are on the verge of disappearing. In fact, the rising global demand for sushi is causing the planet to fish out its seas completely, with some researchers estimating that all commercial fisheries will collapse within the next 40 years. More urgently, the World Wildlife Fund warns that if fishing practices don’t change, the Atlantic blue fin tuna faces extinction within the next TWO YEARS. Yet, it is still very difficult for many of us to give up our Toro.
So… earlier this month I began my quest to learn how to make my own sustainable sushi. Now, while I like to consider myself a decent cook, I’m no sushi chef and fully acknowledge that cleaning and eating your own raw fish can be a dangerous, if not downright insane, endeavor. But like many things Vanguard, I carefully researched and laid out a plan of attack and lunged forward with the idea. After weeks of reading, consulting seasoned sushi chefs, practicing cutting techniques (which I watched on YouTube), and multiple trips to my local Japanese market, Mitsuwa, I finally came up with a menu of alternative sushi fit for serving someone other than the neighborhood cat. Last Sunday, our Vanguard editor, Yasu, a native of Japan, bravely agreed to come over and taste the results. I’m proud to say that my weeks of preparation paid off. I got his nod on halibut nigori with yuzu, sole sashimi with ginger and ponzo, and miso-glazed black cod. All not only delicious, but sustainable fish. And we managed to avoid killing ourselves-- always a plus. Here’s to sustainable sushi!
Download this iPhone application from the Monterey Bay Aquarium for your guide to sustainable seafood.
Recently on the Vanguard Blog:
- Celeb Oxy Watch: Sam Jones III of Smallville - by Mariana van Zeller
- Hearing the voices in Afghanistan - by Kaj Larsen
- Running the Math on Big Brother’s Pills - by Darren Foster
- An overview of Cuba: Past, Present and Future - by Adrian BaschukLast night I made an appearance on Top Chef. (And by appearance I mean I was in the... more
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I was in Washington, DC, for the Dalai Lama’s visit last week and met His Holiness at a ceremony to honor my late mother-in-law, Julia Taft, who worked with him on numerous human rights and refugee issues until she died of cancer last year. He called her a champion of the 50-year struggle for a free Tibet, and although he expressed sorrow at her premature death, he reminded our family that “dying is part of life,“ one of the tenets of his Tibetan Buddhism that teaches reincarnation.
As he reached out his hands toward us sitting in a semi-circle before him, his voice rose and fell in the sing-song tones that give him a strong presence in both English and Tibetan. “We’re all on the list to die. It is important that we live in every moment,” he said. Then he paused and began to chuckle to himself as he pointed to his chest. “And some of us are higher up on the list than others.”
His sense of humor helped put us all at ease as we struggled with our emotions in that bittersweet moment. But it also got me thinking. What will happen when the 14th Dalai Lama, now 74, dies? The succession of this sort of God/king figure has many people worried in his mountainous homeland. Ever since the Communist Chinese crushed the Tibetan uprising he led in 1959 and drove him into exile, the Chinese have tried to assert control over the overwhelmingly Buddhist ethnic majority in Tibet. The government, which is officially atheist, claims the right to name the next Dalai Lama, who Tibetans regard as a reincarnation of his predecessors. Not only is he a religious figure but a political one as well.
By tradition, the death of a Dalai Lama is followed by a search through the Tibetan countryside for the next reincarnation, a search that entails a sort of magic-tinged examination of omens and meteorological signs that led the priests of the faith to a 2-year-old male baby 72 years ago. That child grew into the man who reigns today over a worldwide constituency from his exile in the Indian mountain town of Dharamsala, high in the Himalayas. His Holiness has spoken vaguely of an election in Tibet to choose his successor, something the Chinese are unlikely to consider. Or perhaps he would choose his own reincarnation from among those who now follow him in exile.
Such questions of succession drew me last year to produce a documentary for Vanguard in another Buddhist stronghold in the Himalayas, Bhutan. Nestled between India and Tibet, the kingdom of Bhutan is often called the last Shangri-La, a mythical paradise largely cut of from the outside world. For more than a thousand years, the tiny kingdom survived in splendid isolation. The country had no roads, no electricity, no motor vehicles, no telephones, and no postal service until the 1960s. Even these days, guided by a policy of “Gross National Happiness,” it feels like a place frozen in time. But Bhutan’s beloved Fourth King chose to surrender his power to his people, telling them that if they depended forever on a hereditary monarchy, sooner or later they’d get a bad king.
I ventured to Bhutan a month before the country's historic first election and found many reluctant democrats who weren’t eager for self-government or clamoring for new leadership. Can an ancient culture preserve its precious heritage and modernize too? Will opening to the outside world let in more forces of evil than the people and government can manage?
Our resulting story, Lost in Democracy, is a touching and entertaining look at the Bhutanese tentatively trying to join the modern world without losing their soul. Last month, it was nominated for an Emmy, which was a wonderful way to finish up Vanguard’s last season. We’ve got lots more in store for you this season as we kick things off. Stay tuned!
Lost in Democracy (Video)
Recently on the Vanguard blog:
- Vanbedded - by intern Dan Ucko
- Balloon Boy and other attention-grabbers - by producer Tracey Chang
- What's Important - by producer Mitch KossI was in Washington, DC, for the Dalai Lama’s visit last week and met His... more
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Vanguard correspondent Christof Putzel had one foot out the door, on his way to shoot his first story of the season, when editors staged an intervention. "Your footage sucks," they said, pleading for him to put down his trusted Sony A1-U and let the pros handle the shooting.
After years of filming his own interviews, Christof says, "The idea of not having it kind of freaks me out a little." Blame the camera, not the man.
Vanguard is Current TV's original documentary series. Led by correspondents Mariana van Zeller, Christof Putzel, Adam Yamaguchi and Kaj Larsen, Vanguard features enterprising reports from around the globe. It airs every Wednesday at 10pm on Current TV.
You can view all Vanguard stories by visiting current.com/vanguard.Vanguard correspondent Christof Putzel had one foot out the door, on his way to shoot... more
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