The Frontline Club

On 8 November, the people of Myanmar will go to the polls in an election that is being seen as a step towards full democracy after nearly half a century of military rule.

Myanmar has seen reforms come into effect since 2010, when military rule was replaced by a military-backed civilian government, but how far have these reforms gone and what more needs to be done?

One of the largest and once one of the richest countries in Southeast Asia, what impact have successive military regimes had on Myanmar?

With a panel of experts we will explore what life is like in Myanmar, the political and ethical divisions, and what change the election will bring.

Chaired by Paul French, an author and widely published analyst and commentator on Asia, Asian politics and current affairs. He is author of North Korea: State of Paranoia and the international bestseller Midnight in Peking.

The panel:

Hkanhpa Sadan is general secretary of the Kachin National Council, Kachin National Organisation. He is one of the founding members of the exile Kachin political movement based in the UK with branches across Europe, the US and Asia.

Dr Richard Cockett is editor and correspondent at The Economist. He is the author of several books, including Sudan: Darfur and the Failure of an African state and Blood, Dreams and Gold: The Changing Face of Burma.

Robert Cooper worked for ten years for the European Union High Representative, Javier Solana and later Catherine Ashton. From 2012 he served a further year as a special adviser on Myanmar. He served as a diplomat from 1970 to 2002, his posts included Tokyo, Brussels, Bonn, head of the policy planning staff and Asia director.

Wai Hnin Pwint Thon is a campaigns officer at Burma Campaign UK. She is the daughter of Mya Aye, one of the leaders of the 88-generation Students Group. Born in Rangoon – because of her father’s activities she faced harassment and discrimination and left the country in 2006 to continue her studies.

In this multi-award winning companion piece to The Act of Killing, filmed before its release, Joshua Oppenheimer further explores the terrible legacy of the Indonesian genocide fifty years ago, this time through the lens of one family.

Adi was born in 1968, two years after his brother Ramli was slaughtered in front of many eyewitnesses. Now an optometrist, Adi lives with his elderly parents and his children. Not only does he live under the ongoing rule of his brother’s killers, but he must listen to his children regurgitate the propaganda that instigated the killing, and is still being perpetuated in schools.

Adi decides to confront some of the perpetrators of the genocide, who are surprised when his questions are more probing than Oppenheimer‘s. His breaking of the silence leads to some electrifying scenes, in a film where the beauty of the Indonesian landscape belies the bone-chilling horrors carried out there in the name of democracy.

Radically different to Oppenheimer’s previous film, The Look of Silence is equally shocking and keenly observed. Filmed in his characteristic visual style, the film bears witness to the collapse of fifty years of silence.

“One of the greatest and most powerful documentaries ever made. A profound comment on the human condition.” – Errol Morris

“Profound, visionary, stunning.” – Werner Herzog

In this double Sundance winner, Matthew Heineman takes us deep into the world of Mexican drug cartels by embedding himself with two vigilante groups on either side of the US-Mexico border.

In Arizona’s Altar Valley — a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley — Tim “Nailer” Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across the border. Meanwhile, in the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as “El Doctor,” shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years.

Heineman repeatedly places himself in harm’s way, filming the chaos as Mireles’ vigilante group begins taking over towns – in the process adapting many of the violent tactics of the drug lords they’re trying to overpower. A visceral journey into North America’s heart of darkness, Cartel Land is a chilling meditation on the breakdown of order and the borderline where life trumps law.

After years of negotiations, world powers have reached a historic deal with Iran, limiting their nuclear activity in return for the lifting of international economic sanctions.

The deal has been met with a mixed response – some celebrate it as a diplomatic triumph, while others describe it as a precursor to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

For the first First Wednesday after the summer break we will be debating what the Iran deal means for the country, the region and relations with the West.

Chaired by Azadeh Moaveni, a former Middle East correspondent for Time magazine, she has reported on Iran and the region for much of the past decade. She is the author of Lipstick Jihad, Honeymoon in Tehran, and co-author, with Shirin Ebadi, of Iran Awakening.

The panel:

Kasra Naji is special correspondent for BBC Persian TV and author of Ahmedinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader.

Saeed Kamali Dehghan is a staff journalist with the Guardian. He has previously written from the Iranian capital, Tehran. He is now based in London and was named 2010 Journalist of the Year at the Foreign Press Association awards.

James Rubin is a writer, commentator and lecturer on world affairs and US foreign policy. He contributes a weekly column to The Sunday Times. He served under President Clinton as assistant secretary of state for public affairs and chief spokesman for secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright from 1997 to May 2000.

Con Coughlin is The Telegraph‘s defence editor and chief foreign commentator. He is the author of several books including Churchill’s First War: Young Winston and the fight against the Taliban, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, and Khomeini’s Ghost: The Iranian Revolution and the Rise of Militant Islam.

Red lines have been set and crossed, inquiries have been conducted and talks have been attempted, and yet the conflict in Syria continues to devastate the lives of its population. In what can only be described as one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history, more than 200,000 have died and 12.2 million are now in desperate need of aid.

The levels of suffering are unimaginable and yet the international community seems to be standing by. Over four years since the conflict in Syria began, we will be asking if there is any sign of light at the end of the tunnel.

We will be reflecting on the decisions that have been made and how they have contributed to the current state of affairs in Syria. With that understanding, we will look at the situation in the country today and how developments could be made.

Chaired by Owen Bennett-Jones, freelance journalist and host of Newshour on the BBC World Service. As a correspondent with the BBC he has reported from over 60 countries. He is author of Pakistan: Eye of the Storm and his first novel Target Britain.

The panel:

Jonathan Littell is a novelist and journalist. He is the author of Syrian Notebooks: Inside the Homs Uprising, documenting his time in Hom in 2012. His novel The Kindly Ones, originally published in French as Les Bienveillantes, became a bestseller and won the coveted Prix Goncourt and the Académie Française’s Prix de Littérature. Previously he worked for a humanitarian agency, Action Contre La Faim, in Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Orwa Nyrabia is a Syrian film producer and activist. Born in 1977, raised in Homs, he lived in Damascus until the end of 2013. An actor by training, he worked as a journalist, and since 2005 has dedicated most of his time to documentary, producing the award-winning Silvered Water and Return to Homs. As an activist, he was a board member of the Syrian revolution’s leading constellation, Local Coordination Committees (LCC), served as LCC’s head of humanitarian aid and is associated with the Violations Documentation Center, a Syrian independent human rights organisation.

Laila Alodaat is a Syrian human rights lawyer specialising in international law of armed conflicts. She is also a trainer of international humanitarian law and has worked on several conflict situations including Syria, Libya, Iraq and Pakistan. She currently works on the MENA agenda programme at the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and is also the Chair person of Syria Justice and Accountability Centre and a board member of Badael, a Syrian organisation working to promote non-violence.

Nerma Jelacic is a former journalist who has spent the last 15 years working on war crimes and criminal justice issues in conflict and post-conflict countries. From 2008 to 2014 she worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia before joining the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), an organisation investigating and documenting atrocities in Syria which has already resulted in the completion of three trial-ready case-files.

This Autumn Unreported World’s intrepid reporters welcome a formidable new colleague, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, the Channel 4 News presenter, as they investigate stories from some of the most difficult and hidden parts of the world.

In this series they reveal official corruption in South Africa’s townships, capture the astonishing lifestyle of Nigeria’s ‘millionaire pastors’, follow Paralympians in Gaza hoping to get to London 2012 and in Uganda they profile a hospital offering pioneering surgery, saving babies from a deadly brain condition. This latest run of Unreported World will continue to deliver compelling investigate reports that reveal remarkable characters living extreme lives.

To mark the launch of the series, Channel 4 invite you to join Siobhan Sinnerton, Commissioning Editor for News & Current Affairs for an exclusive talk. With reporters Evan Williams, Seyi Rhodes, Jenny Kleeman, Oliver Steeds, Peter Oborne and Ramita Navai as they reveal the highlights, challenges and dangers of their extraordinary jobs.

In the fifth of this series Vin Ray, former BBC executive will be in conversation with International Editor for Channel 4 News Lindsey Hilsum.

Lindsey Hilsum has recently returned from China where she spent two years as China correspondent and head of the Beijing bureau. She covered the uprising in Tibet, the Sichuan earthquake and the Olympics.

As International Editor, she won the 2005 Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year Award for her reporting from Fallujah and Beslan, amongst other stories.

She reported the 2003 war in Iraq from Baghdad for 10 weeks, and has returned to Iraq several times.

During the NATO Kosovo campaign she was in Belgrade; she has also spent extended periods in Zimbabwe and the Middle East.

She won the 2003 Royal Television Society Specialist Journalist of the Year award for her reports from the Palestinian refugee camp at Jenin, and has twice won awards from Amnesty, including one for her coverage of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

Previously she reported for the BBC, the Guardian and other newspapers from Africa and Latin America, where she was an aid worker for OXFAM and UNICEF.

She is a regular contributor to the New Statesman, the Observer and Granta.

“Popa’s photographs are a powerful enquiry into a pervasive form of violence against women. They are a tragic reminder of just how vulnerable and powerless women are globally, and expose the futility of universal declarations”. So declares Mark Sealy, director of Autograph-ABP, who will be moderating this event featuring Romanian photographer Dana Popa.

By photographically documenting the experiences of sex-trafficked Moldovan women, Popa has drawn attention to an issue of slavery, immorality and shocking exploitation. Moldova is one of the main source countries for trafficking women and children, up to 10% of the female population are sold into prostitution abroad.

Popa worked with International Organisation for Migration and Winrock International in Moldova, where she documented the disturbing experiences of these women. Finally, she captured the spaces where trafficked women are forced into prostitution in the brothels of Soho, London. Her project and book entitled not Natasha, after the nickname Eastern European prostitutes are often labelled with, takes an in-depth look at the hopes, fears and sorrows of the women and families she met. With the help of her poignant pictures, Popa will speak at the Frontline Club about how not Natasha came about, the issues it involves and her experiences as a photographer.

In the fifth of this series Vin Ray, former BBC executive will be in conversation with International Editor for Channel 4 News Lindsey Hilsum.

Lindsey Hilsum has recently returned from China where she spent two years as China correspondent and head of the Beijing bureau. She covered the uprising in Tibet, the Sichuan earthquake and the Olympics.

As International Editor, she won the 2005 Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year Award for her reporting from Fallujah and Beslan, amongst other stories.

She reported the 2003 war in Iraq from Baghdad for 10 weeks, and has returned to Iraq several times.

During the NATO Kosovo campaign she was in Belgrade; she has also spent extended periods in Zimbabwe and the Middle East.

She won the 2003 Royal Television Society Specialist Journalist of the Year award for her reports from the Palestinian refugee camp at Jenin, and has twice won awards from Amnesty, including one for her coverage of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

Previously she reported for the BBC, the Guardian and other newspapers from Africa and Latin America, where she was an aid worker for OXFAM and UNICEF.

She is a regular contributor to the New Statesman, the Observer and Granta.

“Popa’s photographs are a powerful enquiry into a pervasive form of violence against women. They are a tragic reminder of just how vulnerable and powerless women are globally, and expose the futility of universal declarations”. So declares Mark Sealy, director of Autograph-ABP, who will be moderating this event featuring Romanian photographer Dana Popa.

By photographically documenting the experiences of sex-trafficked Moldovan women, Popa has drawn attention to an issue of slavery, immorality and shocking exploitation. Moldova is one of the main source countries for trafficking women and children, up to 10% of the female population are sold into prostitution abroad.

Popa worked with International Organisation for Migration and Winrock International in Moldova, where she documented the disturbing experiences of these women. Finally, she captured the spaces where trafficked women are forced into prostitution in the brothels of Soho, London. Her project and book entitled not Natasha, after the nickname Eastern European prostitutes are often labelled with, takes an in-depth look at the hopes, fears and sorrows of the women and families she met. With the help of her poignant pictures, Popa will speak at the Frontline Club about how not Natasha came about, the issues it involves and her experiences as a photographer.