Behind the image
It’s not easy to be a news photographer in Iran. Just walking down the road with a camera around one’s neck automatically invites all sorts of unwanted attention. AFP’s Behrouz Mehri thought of a novel way to spontaneously capture daily life in Tehran.
(AFP PHOTO / BEHROUZ MEHRI)
Above the fold
Found in translation: A guardian angel in Syria's war
Wednesday 5 June 2013 - Eye witness
"I am on my knees, hands behind my head, on a border-crossing between Turkey and Syria. A Turkish border guard stoops over me menacingly, the nozzle of his Kalashnikov pressing against my upper thigh as he barks something in an unfamiliar language," writes AFP correspondent Anuj Chopra, who recently spent two weeks in Syria, where he learned the importance of having a good translator.
Tasting the Big Apple's core, one story at a time
Monday 3 June 2013 - Debriefing
From stuffed mice to naked cowboys, AFP's outgoing New York correspondent Sebastian Smith looks back on his five years covering the Big Apple. (AFP Photo/Getty Images/Spencer Platt)
From soccer writer to war reporter as Baghdad is bombed
Friday 31 May 2013 - Eye witness
AFP's Baghdad deputy bureau chief Mohamad Ali Harissi was covering an international football friendly between Liberia and Iraq at the al-Shaab stadium in Baghdad on May 27. In what has been an especially violent month in Iraq, several bombs blew up that day, killing 58. Two blasts went off near the stadium.
Fast & Furious in Hong Kong
Friday 24 May 2013 - Eye witness
It took a lot of networking and a bit of luck, but AFP correspondent Preeti Jha angled a passenger-seat view of real-life ‘Fast & Furious’-style street racing in Hong Kong. Buckle up, and join her for the ride.
A new life for baby Roona
Thursday 16 May 2013 - Eye witness
In April, AFP distributed heart-rending photographs of 15-month-old Roona Begum, her head so swollen due to an untreated condition that she couldn’t even sit up. Offers of help poured in, and within days a fund had been created and a top surgeon in New Delhi offered to take her on as a patient without charge. AFP followed Roona into surgery on Wednesday, and the results are very promising (AFP Photo/R. Schmidt).
Short stuff
1981: Francois Hollande strides towards his future
Friday 8 June 2012 - Short Stuff
A picture taken on May 26, 1981 shows French President-elect François Hollande, then a public servant at the "Cour des Comptes", a quasi-judicial body of the French government charged with conducting financial and legislative audits of public institutions. On May 6 Hollande was elected France's first Socialist president in nearly two decades, promising change in Europe after dealing a defeat to incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. In the photo, Holland is seen crossing the street in front of the headquarters of Agence France Presse. (AFP Photo/Michel Clement)
US reporter who broke WWII embargo gets apology
Friday 4 May 2012 - Short Stuff
A US war correspondent fired from his job for breaking a military embargo and scooping the world on the German surrender in World War II finally got an apology Friday, 67 years after the fact. The Associated Press offered the mea culpa to reporter Edward Kennedy, who defied military censors and filed a dispatch May 7, 1945 on the surrender ending the war in Europe.
WWII codes, on Twitter, thwart French election law
Monday 23 April 2012 - Short Stuff
To get around a tough French law banning the broadcast on any public media of election results before the closing of voting urns, people on Twitter resorted to coded language -- such as used during broadcasts from London during World War II on “Radio Londres” – to transmit exit poll figures from the first round of presidential elections on Sunday. AFP's Charles Onians explains. (AFP PHOTO/BBC)