Bomborra Media
Notes, Background Files & Works in Progress
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Stiletto by Max Kolbe — July, 2010

Published on Aug 1, 2010 by Luke Hunt

Fifty-nine journalists were killed because of their job in the first six months of 2010, the Switzerland-based Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) says, up from 53 for the same period in 2009. According to the Geneva-based organization, journalists are more in harm’s way in Mexico where they are hunted by organized crime while The Philippines, Pakistan, Honduras and Nigeria were not far behind. PEC Secretary General Blaise Lempen noted that journalists were exposed in countries which were witnessing internal problems. That goes for the likes of 75-year-old radio commentator, Jose Daguio. The Filipino was shot dead in his home in Tabuk City becoming the first journalist murdered during the Aquino administration. Police said a lone gunman attacked Daguio, a semi-retired reporter....

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Burmese election has locals packing

Published on Jul 11, 2010 by Luke Hunt

There are strong fears among ethnic groups in particular that the junta’s exercise in participatory democracy is nothing but a sham, Luke Hunt reports for Spectrum in Bangkok. Hardest hit is the country’s Muslim population, and Temme Lee, refugee co-ordinator at the Malaysian human rights organisation Suaram, said Kachin, Karen and Chin had also joined the cross-border march. “There have also been reports of people heading across the border and into China,” she told Spectrum. “There is a lot of pressure on the communities.” Among those who fled Burma is Hamid bin Hatin, a 17-year-old Burmese Muslim. Bin Hatin was being press-ganged into the Burmese military, where he would be forced to perform menial labour and spend years away from....

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Stiletto by Max Kolbe — May, 2010

Published on May 21, 2010 by Luke Hunt

Protests in Thailand and the bloody violence that most of us saw coming, claimed the lives of two foreign correspondents and injured a few more with the Thai government claiming victory over civilian protestors. The dead were Japanese journalist Hiroyaki Muramoto, a TV cameraman with Thomson Reuters killed on April 10 and Italian freelance photographer Fabio Polenghi who died on May 19 from gunshot wounds. Dutch radio and television journalist Michel Maas was injured while reporting on the violence in the Thai capital, as was Briton Andrew Buncombe and two Canadian journalists, Nelson Rand shot three times, and Chandler Vandergrift who suffered shrapnel wounds to the head. Three Thai photographers and one reporter were also wounded. The deaths were the....

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Vietnam, China’s ‘Little Sister’

Published on May 11, 2010 by Luke Hunt

Vietnamese hate the moniker, reports Luke Hunt for The Diplomat. But their feelings about their big neighbor are a lot more complicated. The rooftop balcony of the Majestic Hotel commands sweeping views across the Saigon River where tinysampans mix with giant cargo ships and ply their trade. Loaded with history and nostalgia, its bar is also a venue for the Old Hacks Reunion—a once-in-five-year affair when Vietnam War era combat reporters get together and trade tales from the past and down a few of their favourite ales. Great survivors, like Peter Arnett, Jim Pringle and photographers Tim Page and Al Rockoff, were there this year. But their ranks, like their hairlines, are gray and thinning. .

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