ShelterBox aid for Haiti leaves Newquay

700 ShelterBoxes being loaded onto a plane bound for the disaster victims of Haiti. Enough emergency shelter for more than 8,500 people. Photo: Glyn Curtis

The aid from the Cornish-based charity was loaded onto a chartered Airbus A300 at Newquay airport in Cornwall, UK. Photo: Glyn Curtis

Officials say the death toll from the earthquake is between 100,000 and 200,000. Photo: Glyn Curtis

Volunteers all helped load the cargo plane at Newquay, including local firemen. Photo: Glyn Curtis

Thousands of people in Haiti left homeless by the devastating earthquake will receive disaster relief tents and other emergency supplies essential for survival. Photo: Glyn Curtis

Public donations are vital to ShelterBox's continuing aid work around the world. Photo: Glyn Curtis

ShelterBox Response Team member Jane Nash being interviewed by BBC Spotlight. Jane will be following the boxes to Haiti and is also GP, her knowledge will be invaluable. Photo: Glyn Curtis

ShelterBox Founder and CEO, Tom Henderson. Photo: Glyn Curtis

Hamster killer faces jail

I found this article in the Daily Mail. I can't quite comprehend what led this boy to do such a cruel thing.

The beautiful game?

Football hooliganism has never gone away. Media reports highlight the fact that it’s still firmly ingrained within a minority of so-called supporters.

Headlines such as ‘Football Hooligans Run Riot at Man U Clash‘ and ‘Mass Violence Mars London Derby‘ are just two examples which made the headlines in 2009.

Almost 40 million people attended football games up and down England and Wales for the 2008-2009 season, with 3,752 people being arrested. As from 2001 police have been using banning orders preventing people attending matches. According to the Home Office banning orders work – since 2000, 92% of individuals whose orders have expired were no longer seen by police to pose a risk of football related disorder.

As of this year 3,180 people have had a banning order imposed on them. League One outfit Leeds United have the most banning orders with 162, followed by Cardiff City with 124, and Millwall with 110.

Police officer being attacked by hooligans in Manchester after Uefa Cup final. Photograph: Greater Manchester Police/PA

Hooliganism or football fan violence dominated in the 1970′s and persisted  frequently up until the late 1990′s – these were football hooliganism hey-days – often perpetrated by young, white working-class males, tanked-up on alcohol and inebriated on drugs.

Books, films and to an extent documentaries have glorified the hooligan scene that attaches itself to football.

As the 3pm kick-off approaches and the 4.45pm final whistle blows, police forces throughout Britain are constantly making arrests for Public Order Offences.

Attempts have been made to make football a friendlier and a more family orientated affair, in a bid to root out the hooligan fraternity. As highlighted by the Football Association’s Respect campaign and the Football League’s, Football League Family Club of the Year awards.

So why is there still violence in and around football games – is it our culture, our relaxed alcohol laws? Mobile phones and the internet may have something to do with it. A lot of the violence and fighting perpetrated is pre-arranged and often hard to locate. This makes it difficult for the police, unless they have the right intelligence beforehand. A lot more intelligence is gathered by the police in the way of filming, photographing and observing known troublemakers and trouble spots.

Alcohol may also play a significant factor in a lot of the violence. The way alcohol is advertised can be highly enticing for young people, who may be a particularly easy target for the advertisers. The British Medical Association is appealing for a total ban on advertising, especially at sporting events, including football matches.

Adverts such as this Heineken one clearly don’t help in shifting stereotypes.

Attitudes certainly must change, so that the headlines can talk more about the football being played and less about the violence being carried out.

Front-line reporting

A fine example from Al Jazeera’s Hamish MacDonald on how to report from the front-line of a demonstration.

February 12, 2010

Just under 100 days from now the Winter Olympics will get underway in Vancouver, Canada.

These will be the 21st Winter Olympic Games, with the first games being held in Chamonix, France, back in 1924. The games have been an annual event every four years since then, apart from a twelve year absence from 1936 to 1948, due to World War II.

The last Winter Olympics were held in 2006, in Turin, Italy. Germany took the coveted top spot on the medals table with 11 Gold’s, followed closely by the USA with 9. The games were somewhat marred though by doping allegations against the Austrian cross-country skiers, and low ratings.

The games in 2010 will be broadcast by the Olympic Broadcasting Services, who are ‘responsible for producing and transmitting the unbiased live radio and television coverage of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games’.

According to Sky Bet, Germany are evens to win most medals at the games, with hosts Canada at 8/1 to take the most medals.

Overall in the history of the Winter Olympics, Norway lead with a total of 98 Gold medals.

The Olympic Flame started its 106-day journey across Canada on October 30th, this year. It will travel to over 1,000 communities across the country until it reaches the opening ceremony on February 12th held at the 55,000 seated BC Place Stadium in downtown Vancouver. The torch’s journey can be followed here.

The next Winter Olympics are due to be held in Russia in 2014, at Sochi.

Commercial radio figures continue to rise

It seems that with a recession there is a lot of bad news and this seems to be accentuated in the media. From collapsing banks, failing businesses – just about everybody is effected in some shape or form.

What good can come out of a recession? Well, apart from getting out of one for starters, not a lot.

That is unless you are working in commercial radio. Commercial radio continues to resist the tight grip of a recession. Listening figures show that people are continually tuning in – over 30 million people tune in to commercial radio each week, this is an increase on last years figures, compiled by RAJAR.

“Commercial radio continues to play a role in the busy lives of consumers with over 31 million listeners tuning into a commercial service each week.”

“It is encouraging for radio’s future to see DAB set ownership now in one-third of all homes and listening via mobile phones also remains strong. As radio prepares to play a full role in consumers lives in a digital Britain, our presence in these devices is great news,” said Andrew Harrison, CE, RadioCentre.

Hostile Environment Training

I recently embarked on a hostile environment training course on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, run through Crossfire Media.

The course was led by a host of industry experts, including ex-military personnel, a former Reuters’ Bureau Chief and a professional photographer – all with a wealth of experience working abroad in hazardous countries.

The four day course involved everything from ballistic and mines awareness, basic survival, first aid, cultural understanding, hostage mitigation and survival, to communications and scenario based exercises.

Survival can be a small price to pay when you are reporting from a dangerous environment, such as in Afghanistan or Somalia. These places can be unforgiving and people who venture within the boundaries of these hostile places risk losing friends, colleagues, limbs and even life.

People are often oblivious to the risk that journalists go through to bring you that story, often under extreme circumstances.

From the TV report on the news to the article in the newspaper, it should be appreciated the lengths that these professionals go through to report on issues that many of us might otherwise be totally uninformed of.

Being taken hostage, kidnapped, or becoming a victim of a suicide bomb – these risks are inherently prevalent in hostile environments.  It is by reducing these risks that you become more astute to your surroundings and less likely to fall victim.

One way of reducing the inherent dangers that face journalists and cameramen is to make them more aware of the situations they might place themselves in, to understand the risks involved and the best possible way to avoid dangerous situations and to cope with them capably.

This is where the hostile environment course comes into its own.

“I want to try and give the students the kind of tools that they will need to actually survive in a hostile environment, without coming to much harm,” said Wayne Huxtable, who teaches on the course.

“Nine times out of ten it’s basically research that we need to get across to the students so that they don’t come across the scenarios that we put them through.”

“The actual teaching of the course is very rewarding. If it helps to keep some budding international foreign correspondent healthy then I’ve done my job.”

Communication experts briefed us on the latest satellite communications equipment which many leading broadcasters use, including the BBC – sending live footage from natural disaster areas, to conflict zones straight back to the newsroom instantly via satellite.

We were also informed that most broadcasters will be using High-Definition (or HD) by 2010. We were also taught about correct radio communications and had the latest in mines awareness training from the United Kingdom Mines and Information & Training Centre.

“What I like about this course is that it’s a mixture of journalism and security, hopefully it’s going to give the students an idea of what they might face and give them a better idea of whether they actually want to go through with it or not,” said Terry Friel, former Reuters correspondent.

“It will at least give them the basic preparation which when I started we didn’t have.”

Crossfire Media was started in 2007 as a student project – it enabled students in the developing countries and students in the UK studying media courses to speak to each other, to learn from their experiences and to engage in live brief work experience projects, both in the UK and the developing world.

Crossfire also provides advanced training, such as the hostile environment course, which fits uniquely between academia and the real work place environment.

“Awareness is the key to being able to both report and develop skills in developing and transitional countries. Having the basic skills given to you out of your comfort zone in an environment like this is very important and tantamount to actually being able to work abroad,” said Chris Green, Crossfire Media.

All images © Glyn Curtis