The Frontline Club

A year ago, in the midst of the uprisings across the Arab world, when the news agenda was moving at a relentless pace, we brought together a group of journalists to talk about thepracticalities of life as a freelance foreign correspondent. One year on, we take stock of the opportunities, challenges and risks that we have seen for freelancers. Should inexperienced freelancers be deterred from he...

Provoking adoration and revulsion in equal measure, Hugo Chavez is a leader like no other. In October last year his loyal supporters came out to vote him back into office for his fourth presidential term. In his new book, Comandante, acclaimed journalist Rory Carrollsheds light on the inside story of Chavez’s life and his political court in Caracas. He will join the The New Yorker‘s Jon Lee Anderson and others to ask, after more than ...

This event is organised by Verso Books and Independent Jewish Voices, and is dedicated to Eric Hobsbawm. What is a homeland and when does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for such places throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land? Join Shlomo Sand and a panel with historian Donald Sassoon

This event is organised by Bahrain Pro-Democracy Group in UK and Sayed Alwadaei, political activist in UK. It is the longest and most peaceful revolution, yet the least covered by the Western media. When the youth of the Gulf island of Bahrain decided to join the Arab Spring on 14 February 2011 they were responding to the call for change that had resonated in the corners of the Arab world. Two years later, they have remained faithful to their revolutions, slogans and human va...

This event is in association with the Royal African Societyand will be held at Conway Hall. The recent fighting involving the M23 rebel group that has put eastern DR Congo back o...

In light of the hostage crisis in Algeria and the French-led offensive against Islamist militants in Mali, we will be looking at the situation on the ground in these, and neighbouring countries. In a statement in response to the hostage crisis David Cameron has described a new front in the fight against terrorism. With a panel of experts and journalists we will be examining who these groups are, where they come from and where their allegiances lie. We ask whether François Hollande was r...

This event is organised by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Followed by a drinks reception. Egypt’s revolutionary uprising in 2011 raised important questions about the kind of journalism that would be viable in the country’s changing political dynamics. Suddenly the output of bloggers, online radio and social media news operations, which had all formed part of the groundswell of action against dictatorship and repression, posed an explicit challenge to...

Within cities and countries around the world the gap between the rich and the poor is widening in a global trend that some economists have warned will have detrimental effects on society. In the US which has one of the highest levels of inequality in the West, the richest 10% of Americans receive about half of the nation’s income. In a time when economic growth in many countries is slowing and governments are advocating fiscal austerity, is the question of inequality being factored in to the ...

This event is organised by Granta. In the new issue of Granta magazine, themed Betrayal, veteran war reporter Janine di Giovanni writes of her recent trip to Syria, the people she encountered there and their stories of life in a country torn apart. Janine di Giovanni has reported on more than a dozen wars for nearly twenty years. She is an award-winning reporter and author, and the former president of the Jury of the Prix Bayeux for...

October this year will mark 12 years since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and with the 2014 deadline looming join us as we look ahead at the path to troop withdrawal. Are the Afghan Army and the police ready to take on full responsibility for national security? How is the Karzai administration handling the transition and what will we see emerge from the elections in 2014? In 2012 coverage of the situation in Afghanistan has been sparse, the war has become costly and unpopular with...