The Frontline Club

From 25 January the world watched as protesters took to the streets across Egypt and gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square day after day before their demands were finally met on 11 February and President Hosni Mubarak resigned.

Egyptian author, political and cultural commentator Ahdaf Soueif will be joining us in conversation with BBC presenter Mishal Husain, to discuss her experiences at the heart of the protest in Tahrir Square during those momentous 18 days, looking at the roots of the pro-democracy movement and addressing the question of where her country goes from here.

Born in Cairo and educated in Egypt and England, Ahdaf Soueif is the author of two collections of short stories; Aisha (1983) and Sandpiper (1996), two novels; In the Eye of the Sun (1992) and the bestselling The Map of Love which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1999. And a collection of essays, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground (2004).

Frontline Club Exclusive: Julian Assange in conversation with Slavoj Žižek moderated by Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman

Last year, whistleblower website WikiLeaks released three of the biggest ever leaks of classified information in history: the Iraq War Logs, the Afghanistan War Logs and Cablegate.

Since then the world has undoubtedly changed. Ambassadors have resigned amid scandals exposed by leaked cables; the UK government has ordered a review of computer security; and, at the same time, a huge wave of protest has swept the Middle East and North Africa – in part fuelled, some believe, by WikiLeaks revelations.

Discussing the impact of WikiLeaks on the world and what it means for the future, for this very special event WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange will be in conversation with renowned Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek.

Focusing on the ethics and philosophy behind WikiLeaks’ work, the talk will provide a rare opportunity to hear two of the world’s most prominent thinkers discuss some of the most pressing issues of our time.

It will also mark the publication of the paperback edition of Living in the End Times, in which Žižek argues that new ways of using and sharing information, in particular WikiLeaks, are one of a number of harbingers of the end of global capitalism as we know it.

The event will be chaired by Amy Goodman, the award-winning investigative journalist and host of Democracy Now!, a daily, independent news hour which airs on the internet and more than 900 public television and radio stations worldwide.

When more details about the News of the World phone hacking scandal were revealed earlier this year, there were calls for greater regulation of the press. At least 90 well known public figures allegedly had their voicemails listened to by journalists at the paper, prompting a discussion about celebrities’ right to privacy.

At the same time, the use of super-injunctions (or ‘gagging orders’) by celebrities to stop the press revealing details about scandals has also been called in to question. The issue, which has been debated heavily in the past, flared up again when details of celebrities who had allegedly taken out super-injunctions were posted on Twitter in May.

Some say super-injunctions are necessary to protect the private lives of public figures, but others argue they are an example of discriminatory justice used predominantly by men who are rich and famous.

Join us at the Frontline Club where we will be focusing on issues of privacy, justice and journalistic ethics and asking if the current system of law and regulation is – or is not – in need of reform.

Chaired by Clive Coleman, BBC Legal Affairs Correspondent.

With:

William Bennett, a barrister who specialises in defamation and privacy law. He is based at 5RB, the leading media law chambers;

David Allen Green, a lawyer and writer. He is head of media at Preiskel & Co and was selected as one of the “Hot 100 Lawyers” for 2011 by The Lawyer. He is also legal correspondent of the New Statesman and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2010 for his “Jack of Kent” blog;

David Aaronovitch, writer, broadcaster, commentator and regular columnist for The Times;

Peter Oborne, the Daily Telegraph’s chief political commentator.

In association with BBC College of Journalism.

The explosion of the internship in the past 10 years has begun to raise some serious questions about the implications for a generation expected to work wage-free in order to move onto the career ladder.

Ross Perlin, an ex intern himself and the author of Intern Nation will be at the Frontline Club to take part in a panel discussion about internships and his investigation into a trend which, he argues, is destroying "what’s left of the ordered world of training, hard work and fair compensation".

This issue was highlighted in early February when it was reported that a selection of prestigious internships at major City firms, media outlets and PR companies were auctioned off to party donors at the Conservatives’ annual Black and White Party.

Are internships for the privileged, and to what extent are those professions where intern experience is compulsory now closed off young people from lower income families?

Or with no framework in place to protect their rights, is the internship a money-saving system for businesses, formalising the exploitation of young people by requiring them to do jobs that would otherwise be paid positions and work long hours without pay?

Join us at the Frontline Club to discuss the world of the intern and the culture of work.

Chaired by Martin Bright, political editor of The Jewish Chronicle and founder of New Deal of the Mind, an organisation which aims to boost employment in Britain’s creative industries. In 1996 he was appointed education correspondent at The Observer, where he also worked as home affairs editor, in 2005 he became political editor of the New Statesman, a job which he left in January 2009.

With:

Ross Perlin, former unpaid intern and author of Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy, he is now gainfully employed researching obsolescing languages in China;

Fiona O’Cleirigh, freelance journalist and vice-chair of the London Freelance Branch of the NUJ. She set up the NUJ’s Cashback for Interns campaign, to help unpaid media interns sue former employers for the National Minimum Wage. The union has recently won its first intern’s National Minimum Wage case at London Central Employment Tribunal;

Andrew Scherer, marketing manager of internship agency Inspiring Interns, having started at the company as an intern and has seen almost 900 graduates find placements through Inspiring Interns. Currently completing a guide to internships to be published in the autumn.

Dupsy Abiola, founder and CEO of Intern Avenue, Oxford Alumni and former employed barrister. Intern Avenue hosts the world’s first Intern Directory™ and connects interns and employers by automatically matching them via their objective criteria.;

Dom Potter, co-founder of Internocracy, the youth-led social enterprise which works to lower the barriers and raise the bar in internships. Former intern he has since found work with the OECD, Involve and the Young Foundation. He is also a Trustee of TimeBank, a Fellow of the RSA and was Future 100 Young Social Entrepreneur of the year in 2009.

In June 2009 the world’s eyes were on Iran as people took to the streets in support of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Two years on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has held onto the presidency, although it is believed that the balance of power is moving away from him as he struggles with his former patron, Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

We will be discussing what is happening at the heart of Iran’s government and examining what has happened to the people’s movement since 2009 at June’s First Wednesday.

What impact have the protests in the Arab world and the toppling of Egypt’s and Tunisia’s leaders had inside Iran? Are we likely to see protests on the scale of 2009 in the future?

Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House will be back in the chair for June’s First Wednesday, giving you the opportunity to question a panel of experts.

With:

Saeed Kamali Dehghan, award-winning Iranian journalist who writes for The Guardian. He was named 2010 Journalist of the Year at the Foreign Press Association Awards;

Sanam Dolatshahi, producer for BBC Persian TV interactive programme;

Potkin Azarmehr, Iranian born blogger and activist;

Lindsey Hilsum, International editor of Channel 4 News;

Nazenin Ansari, Iranian journalist working as the diplomatic editor of Kayhan London, a weekly Persian-language newspaper.

As many established media organisations are forced to cut back on their foreign bureaux, new opportunities are emerging for a new type of foreign correspondent – the independent multimedia journalist.

But if the days of the foreign press pack who parachute in for a big story are numbered, what are the opportunities for this new generation of journalists and how can they make the most of them?

This event will seek to answer some of the questions raised during previous discussions about the changing nature of foreign reporting – namely “How do I do it?”.

We’ll be bringing together a panel of experts to talk about their experiences of reporting, including kit, the realities of going it alone, and working relationships with the established news organisations.

This event is in association with the BBC College of Journalism

Chaired by Matthew Eltringham, editor of the BBC College of Journalism website and events.

With:

Vaughan Smith, independent video journalist, co-founder of Frontline Television News agency a group of freelance journalists who reported from the frontlines of the world’s conflict from 1989 – 2003 following which in he founded the Frontline Club;

Ben de Pear, is Head of foreign news at channel 4 news. Before taking up this position he was a field producer for Chanel 4 and Sky news, and has worked all over Africa the middle east and the Balkans. He has been part of teams that have won numerous awards including last weeks Amnesty award for TV- for the third year in a row. The winning story which depicted executions in Sri Lanka was today cited by the UN as reflecting "crimes of the highest order- definitive war crimes."

Kitty Logan, independent video journalist and TV reporter specialising in coverage of developing countries and areas of conflict. Over the past nine years she has covered foreign news for several major broadcasters, including Sky News. She also regularly films for international aid agencies and the UN. She began her freelance career in Afghanistan in 2002 and has since worked in many other countries, including Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon and most recently Libya as a self-contained ‘one-woman-band’ – producing packages and lives for a 24 hour news channel. Kitty Logan uses a simple setup of camera, edit laptop and BGAN to allow her to operate solo from anywhere in the world.

Rosie Garthwaite, producer and occasional reporter at Al Jazeera English since 2006, she spent a year in the army in 1999 and went on to report on their activities as a cub reporter at 22 years old freelancing in Iraq. She has worked for The Baghdad Bulletin, Times, Reuters and BBC in Basra and Baghdad before going on to join the BBC as staff in 2004. She is author of How to avoid being killed in a war zone: The essential survival guide for dangerous places, a collection of practical advice from journalists and operators including John Simpson, Sebastian Junger, Jon Snow and Wadah Khanfar.

Featuring a presentation by Graham Holliday, independent freelance foreign correspondent, media trainer and online journalism specialist. He started freelancing in Vietnam, where he was based for ten years. He later worked for Scoopt, the worlds’ first citizen journalism photo agency and as the Frontline Club’s Digital Media Editor. He moved to Kigali, Rwanda in August 2009 where he runs the newswire and blog Kigali Wire. He recently appeared on the BBC World Service programme From our own Correspondent.

Raised in Cairo in the 1940’s, by a generation of women who never wore the veil or headscarf, Leila Ahmed set out to discover why so many women now wear the veil, and what this shift means for women, Islam and the West.

Leila Ahmed, who is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity at the Harvard Divinity School, will be joining us at the Club in conversation with Azadeh Moaveni, Iranian-American writer, journalist and author of Lipstick Jihad, to discuss her new book A Quiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence, from the Middle East to America and her surprising discoveries about Muslim women, Islamism and democracy.

At a time when both Islamist and democratic forces are dramatically changing the Middle East, Leila Ahmed’s analysis of the resurgence of the veil from Egypt to Saudi Arabia challenges many assumptions about women’s rights and activism.

Leila Ahmed was the first professor of Women’s Studies in Religion at Harvard University and is author of Women and Gender in Islam.

The world’s oceans are in a state of crisis and decline, with the continuing affliction of climate change, overfishing and other pressures.

The Oceans have a vital role as the earth’s circulatory system. But if the current state of decline continues it will reach a point where it can no longer function effectively and our planet will be unable to sustain the ecosystems that support humankind.

The Fish Fight campaign fronted Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Sir David Attenborough’s Horizon on The Death of the Oceans? have put the spotlight on the state of our oceans. To ahead of the release of new scientific findings from IPSO the Frontline Club will kick off the first of a series of events with a panel of experts discussing what is happening to our oceans and what can be done about it.

In association with Communications Inc

Chaired by Fiona Harvey, the Guardian environment correspondent.

With:

Don Hinrichsen, award winning writer and editor and author of Our Common Seas and Coastal Waters of the World, Trends, Threats and Strategies. He is currently the senior development manager for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in London and writes frequently on environment, population and resource issues for a variety of publications in the US and Europe.

Dr Alex David Rogers, professor in Conservation Biology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford and senior research fellow at the Institute of Zoology, London. His research focuses on the diversity, ecology, conservation and evolution of marine species. A founder member of the IPSO project (International Programme on the State of the Ocean), bringing together world leaders in ocean science with the aim of winning policy change to save the health of the global ocean;

Richard Page, one of Greenpeace International’s leading oceans campaigners with primary responsibility for coordinating the organisation’s campaign for a global network of marine reserves covering 40% of the oceans. With Greenpeace for 18 years he has been heavily involved with the marine reserves campaign since its inception in 2003, both helping develop policy and implementing political and active campaign work;

Professor Charles R C Sheppard, professor at the department of Biological Sciences University of Warwick and tropical/marine environmental adviser for Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s Commissioner for UK Overseas Territories. He has been a participant on Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change since 2002, fellow of Linnean Society of London, Conservation Fellow of Zoological Society of London and advisor to several tropical country governments on marine environmental affairs.

After the tracking down and killing of Osama bin Laden by a U.S. special operations team the questions have come thick and fast. At our May First Wednesday we are hoping to throw light on some of them:

What impact will the death of Osama bin Laden have on Al Qaeda and on the people who support its cause? We will be bringing together a panel of experts to discuss what impact his death will have on extremist Islamic groups and to look at the implications for Pakistan now that it has emerged that the Al Qaeda leader was hiding in Abbotabad.

We will also be discussing what Osama bin Laden’s discovery so close to Pakistan’s capital means for Afghanistan where the ‘War on Terror’ was launched.

The operation to kill bin Laden will improve President Obama’s standing in the US and the West, but what does it mean for US foreign policy? How it will play out on the ground, particularly in Asia and the Middle East?

Chaired by Humphrey Hawksley, leading BBC foreign correspondent, author and commentator on world affairs.

With:

Lynne O’Donnell, former bureau chief in Kabul for AFP, and the author of High Tea in Mosul: The True Story of Two Englishwomen in War-torn Iraq. She is the recipient of a 2010 Human Rights Press Award for coverage of the plight of Afghan women;

Dr Farzana Shaikh, associate fellow of the Asia Programme, at Chatham House and author of Making Sense of Pakistan;

Aamer Ahmed Khan, head of BBC Urdu Service;

Rosemary Hollis, professor of Middle East policy studies and director of the Olive Tree Programme at City University;

Zaki Chehab, Arab journalist, editor-in-chief of ArabsToday.net, the largest Arabic-language news website and author of Iraq Ablaze: Inside the Insurgency and Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement.

Videos that were circulated after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak showing state TV bosses being chased out of their offices and journalist strikes appeared to herald a new era in Egypt.

In Libya, hackers have attacked the state broacaster’s website and scenes of people throwing their shoes at the screen in a mark of disrespect are reported to have taken place in Libya as they did in Egypt and other countries where the media is regarded as an instrument of government.

The state-controlled TV channels, radio, newspapers and magazines were re-casting themselves as champions of radical change, while just days before the protestors in Tahrir Square had been ignored or denounced.

But can a leopard change its spots? Already there has been criticism of Egyptian broadcasters and newspapers for stirring up xenophobia and for remaining hostile to the pro-democracy movements.

What is required in order that a genuine revolution takes place in the media – not only in Egypt but in other countries where autocrats have used it to bolster their power? What happens in countries such as Iran where control of the media remains absolute?

Join us at the Frontline Club when we will be discussing what the future holds for state media, the impact of channels such as Al Jazeera and BBC Arabic, and the ways that people are using the internet and other social media to circumvent that power.

The discussion will be chaired by author and broadcaster Tom Fenton.

With:

Faisal J. Abbas, London-based journalist, blogger and social commentator. He writes regularly for Huffington Post on Middle Eastern affairs and has worked with several leading Arab media outlets such as Asharq Al Awsat, where he established and edited the paper’s weekly ‘Media Supplement’, Al Hayat and Future Television of Lebanon;

Dina Matar, senior lecturer in Arab Media and Political Communication at SOAS;

Hugh Miles, award-winning investigative journalist specialising in the Middle East and North Africa, author of Al Jazeera: How Arab TV News Challenged the World and Playing Cards in Cairo and contributing editor of the American University in Cairo’s Centre for Television Journalism media journal;

Ayman Mohyeldin, Middle East-based correspondent for Al Jazeera English.