Correspondent
Languages
AFP / Said Khatib

The slow heal of wounds in Gaza

Mohammed Abed Wednesday 27 March 2019

"For a few moments, a bullet feels like nothing more than a pin prick. I felt my blood freeze. I saw people screaming and the blood gushing from the newly-formed hole in my leg. But no pain, just a burning bubbling up from my stomach," writes Mohammed Abed, describing the moment he was shot by the Israeli army as he covered protests last year.

Read more
AFP / Kazuhiro Nogi

Starting again in Japan

Sara Hussein Tuesday 26 March 2019

"Every time I move countries, there comes a moment when I find myself saying or doing something that previously struck me as totally alien," writes Sara Hussein, a correspondent who has been posted in Japan for a year after eight years in the Middle East.

"In Tokyo, that moment came a few weeks ago, a year into my posting -- I seriously considered buying a medical face mask."

Read more
AFP / Farshad Usyan

Saying goodbye to Kabul

Allison Jackson Friday 22 March 2019

"Several weeks before finishing my posting as Kabul bureau chief, I had a dream that olive oil could be the unlikely panacea for my insomnia," writes Allison Jackson, who has just finished a year and a half posting to Kabul.

"In the dream I walked into an organic supermarket in the Afghan capital’s heavily fortified green zone – imagine a minimalist version of a Whole Foods Market outlet, but surrounded by concrete blast walls and razor wire."

"A senior UN official chopping up kale shared the olive oil remedy for my chronic sleeplessness."

"And then ... boing! I was awake again."

"But at least, for once, I hadn’t been dreaming about a suicide attack."

Read more
AFP / Stringer

Waiting for the Taliban

David Harding Tuesday 19 March 2019

"Around 3:40 each afternoon, Anastasia sits at a piano below a huge chandelier in a Qatar hotel and begins playing," writes David Harding, based in Doha.

"For the next 90 minutes, the Moroccan-style cavernous lobby echoes to songs including Beyonce's +Halo+, Adele's +Hello+, +A Whole New World+ from Disney's Aladdin and Henry Mancini's +Moon River+'."

"So far, so normal."

Read more
  • AFP / Zinyange Auntony
  • AFP / Zinyange Auntony
  • AFP / Zinyange Auntony
  • AFP / Zinyange Auntony
  • AFP / Zinyange Auntony
  • AFP / Zinyange Auntony
  • AFP / Zinyange Auntony
  • AFP / Zinyange Auntony

Travels through Zimbabwe

Ben Sheppard Friday 15 March 2019

"Recently, I was back in Zimbabwe to take a 1,000-km road trip...to report on the country's troubled post-Mugabe 'reboot' and to seek stories away from the news headlines and outside the political scene of Harare," writes Ben Sheppard, a reporter based in Johannesburg.

The stories he found "all offered glimmers of hope for Zimbabwe's future, but they also exposed how much resilience is required on a daily basis... and .... the excitement of being on the road in Zimbabwe was tempered by the sense of its decades of wasted potential during the Mugabe years -- and a gloomy feeling that the country's struggles are far from over."

Read more