Four years ago I had the honor of participating in a Journalism Program that Prague Freedom Foundation sponsored. The program brought students from Kent State University and Anglo American University together to study journalism. After winning the Excellence Award for my piece on Abortion Laws in Ohio I went on to receive a grant from PFF to report on the war in Ukraine…
Afrika, the only independent Turkish Cypriot newspaper, was attacked on the morning of January 22nd. At 9am a group of people holding Turkish flags met in front of the newspaper’s office building in Nicosia. Violence escalated as they began throwing stones, eggs and allegedly trying to storm the office.
I spoke to Oleh Michnev, the head of the Afghan war veterans. He was very busy and was holding an important meeting, but Eduard who I wrote about in a previous article got me a few minutes with him. When I asked him what role the Afghan war veterans played at Maidan he said, “Roles…
“I can’t call it Israel,” says photographer Gilles Peress while referring to flying to the location, “I call it Israelstein. It’s a combination of the two.” Peress’s photos are very clear; they show the different perspectives of one community. He remarked that in Israel and Palestine everything happens meter by meter, room to room. “You see stores disappearing one by one, I return to the same place again and again,” Peress explains his process of watching the changes. His pieces in this exhibition try to explore the reason why people don’t see the similarities between each other – “Desperate lives,” he sighs, “looking for differences.”
Today many nations are suffering and thousands of people are being killed. The major current conflicts with headlines all over the media include Gaza, Syria, Iraq and Ukraine. While some conflicts remain mostly regional, others like Israel-Palestine and Ukraine-Russia are becoming a threat to global peace. Obsessing over protecting the economy and continuing harmful trade cycles keeps preventing the success of peace talks and finding concrete solutions. Now more than ever we can see that history repeats itself. This is why we need to refer to the past when building a better future. That is the reason that DOX organized this exhibition…
Kora Smirinova posted a photo of herself on Facebook on March 12th, and it wasn’t just an ordinary photo. Many girls take selfies and post duck-face pictures showing off their cleavage, but Smirnova did something a little different. She’s a modern woman and definitely no damsel in distress…
These pictures are from February 18th, when a large number of people lost their lives. Tetiana Kagui was one of the many people who gathered to go up to Verkhovna Rada, Ukrainian parliament, to demand them to return to the 2004 Constitution. She was the one who took all these pictures. Going there everyone anticipated…
Brotherhood was a word that I heard a lot yesterday at Maidan. Everyone there came on their own free will explains Olga Azzyz, a volunteer at a hospital, “we meet and we are like family.” During my first 10 minutes in the square, I heard a woman speaking in Ukrainian on stage and she ended…
Eduard Kryhov helped out a lot at one of the medical points, and one night, they were told that Berkut was about to storm them. He was had a knee problem at the time and knew he wasn’t able to help carry injured men out to safety. Instead he grabbed a hand-grenade and walked up to where the Berkut could see him. The 64-year-old man showed them what he was holding and said, “Look at me; I have seen all there is to see, I don’t care anymore, if you come in here, we will all die together.” The Berkut did not attack the medical point; Kryhov had saved several lives with his bravery. R.I.P.
Today I was part of the Flag Parade, and it was a really amazing experience. We met and prepared our flags in Shevchenko park where I met a lot of interesting international people, some who even spoke Russian or Ukrainian. Everyone was mingling, having a great time and most importantly supporting Ukraine. Everyone in the world speaks about the “American Dream”, yet there were Americans who live in Kiev praising Ukraine and its people; saying that they were inspired by Ukrainians. There were short speeches in Ukrainian, Russian, English, German and French. Every speech ended in loud applause. The speaker who welcomed us on stage said, “we might not understand all the words, but support speaks for itself.”
