Nick became Channel 4 News’s Asia correspondent in September 2008 after two years as foreign correspondent. He is based in Bangkok, but his beat can take him right across the Middle East and Asia-Pacific region. Read and comment on his World News Blog posts below, or see his latest video reports here.
Author: |Posted: 2:03 pm on 19/11/09
Category: World News Blog
Kabul was the emptiest of cities this morning.
The only way to move around – given the universal ban on private vehicles that has successfully staved off the predictable attack by the Taliban – was on foot. The traffic that usually blocks the city vanished.
We found ourselves learning that routes between places we normally travel actually take 20 minutes on foot, rather than an hour by car in the gridlocked streets.
The emptiness just added to the surreality of the occasion. Behind high walls, with foreign dignitaries, an almost virtual president of a virtual government was taking office for another five years. read more
Author: |Posted: 6:20 pm on 16/11/09
Category: World News Blog
It seemed unlikely that it could be happening again. But it was.
After Iraq, where months of pressure from the media and serving soldiers meant that translators working for the British army – and facing regular threats from the Iraqi insurgency – were eventually offered the chance of asylum in the UK, it seemed impossible a similar situation could be recurring here in Afghanistan.
Author: |Posted: 10:38 am on 12/11/09
Category: World News Blog
It is all about perceptions.
Today’s leaking of a memo from the US Ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, to Washington about his concerns over sending more than 10 to 15,000 reinforcements here, is not the first leak this week.
There’s been a flurry of backhanded information coming out of Washington in the past few months.
Author: |Posted: 8:49 am on 05/11/09
Category: World News Blog
Yesterday the sudden shocking deaths of five British troops in Helmand got everyone thinking whether the strategy to train Afghan forces to eventually take over would work. If Afghan police can shoot their mentors dead, how can they trust each other to work together?
And today there’s another large question mark over this eight year occupation. The United Nations have said quite openly they are pulling out all but their 400 essential staff. read more
Author: |Posted: 11:32 am on 04/11/09
Category: World News Blog
Five dead is the biggest single loss of British life in one incident in Afghanistan since 2006 when 14 died in the Nimrod aircraft crash. And it comes at a time when British public opinion is increasingly sceptical of the war.
But the way in which it happened is even more damaging. The five British men and three Afghans were shot dead by an Afghan policeman. The Afghan National Police (ANP), together with the Afghan National Army (ANA), are the exit strategy. The way out. The people NATO hand security over to. read more
Author: |Posted: 11:33 am on 02/11/09
Category: World News Blog
The West first bends President Karzai’s arm to concede to a second round of voting. Few people see how the fraud or insurgent-led violence of the first round won’t worsen this time.
Then the challenger drops out. Why would he stay in? He won’t win, and prefers a principled withdrawal to an unruly defeat.
So now the West tries to bend Karzai’s arm into cancelling the election… read more
Author: |Posted: 11:17 am on 01/10/09
Category: World News Blog
It can sometimes feel like quite a sinister experience, this celebration. I’m not sure if it was the teenage soldier grabbing my arm as I tried to enter the compound where our offices are based, or the armoured personnel carrier outside the Nike shop that did it, but Beijing’s not been feeling that relaxed of late.
It’s 60 years today since Mao founded the People’s Republic of China, defeating the nationalist government after world war two. 60 is an important number for the Chinese – it’s five cycles of 12 (the number in which an equivalent of decades are counted in China). So this is one big deal of a party.
Author: |Posted: 1:26 pm on 18/09/09
Category: World News Blog
There is really very little to actually report when you cover Sri Lanka. That sounds ridiculous, but let me qualify myself: there is no real, first hand information or experience that you can lay your hands on. It’s all potentially tainted somehow.
You spend your time explaining that the other side disagrees with the other side’s claim, and that you can’t tell who’s telling the truth as you’re mostly stuck in a hotel in the capital unable to independently witness the events they are making entirely disparate claims about.
After 26 years of conflict, both sides in the Sri Lankan war – broadly Sinhalese government or Tamil insurgent – have their information war honed. read more
Author: |Posted: 5:22 pm on 07/09/09
Category: World News Blog
These are the big question at the end of the longest of wars. What will happen to the displaced Tamils, herded from the former conflict zone into huge sprawling internment camps?
Based around the town of Vavuniya, they are known as Manik Farms. Channel 4 News has been given video by the activist group War Without Witness which, they say, shows the deteriorating conditions inside these camps. read more
Author: |Posted: 2:24 pm on 21/08/09
Category: World News Blog
It was a simple and unoriginal idea.
Stick your finger in the indelible ink, then see how easily it washes off.
Across Afghanistan, the plan was to prevent repeat voting by putting this ink on the right index finger of each person brave enough to vote.
There were drawbacks; the Taliban had threatened to hang, behead, or remove the finger of anyone caught with such a stain.
But there was another more complicated problem.
