ITV

Tag: Iraq

  • CNN special to look at the mayhem in Iraq

    MUMBAI: CNN will air the special On Assignment : Month of Mayhem on 12 May at 11:30 am, 7:30 pm.

    It has been 50 months since the war in Iraq was started. The special is a personal
    account of what it’s like to report in Iraq during one of its bloodiest months since the war began. This dramatic hour-long report goes beyond what is presented in a typical newscast by letting viewers see daily life in Iraq through the eyes of a reporter.

    CNN International anchor and reporter Michael Holmes has been to Iraq seven times since 2003, but it is just as unnerving on the eighth tour to Baghdad as it was on the first. Little did he know that within 10 minutes of arriving at CNN’s bureau on January 9, he would be on the air reporting on a battle at nearby Haifa Street, thus beginning the month of mayhem.

    “The previous seven ‘tours’ had allowed me to witness a steady deterioration in the level of security and services – despite my hopes, it was always, always worse. And I knew this trip would likely be no different,” Holmes said.

    It really becomes a matter of how bad it’s going to be. Before leaving the airport – before leaving home, for that matter – I know there will be bodies, and there will be bombs – it was only a question of who and how many.”

    Throughout his assignment, Holmes films behind the scenes inside the CNN bureau where he lives and works, on embedded trips with the military to neighborhood sweeps and wherever else a story takes him. With the conditions in Iraq worsening, embedding with the military has become, in some cases, the only way for reporters to safely meet with residents to get their first-hand accounts, putting a human face on the war.

    Holmes arrives in Iraq in early January, just as President George Bush announces his new “surge” plan to send thousands of additional U.S. troops to pacify Baghdad. What follows is one of the deadliest months of the war. Hundreds of people are killed in bombings at universities, markets and other places where civilians gather. Several American servicemen die in a string of insurgent attacks on U.S. military helicopters. Sectarian fighting rages and bodies showing signs of gross torture are dumped in neighbourhoods on almost a daily basis. The CNN bureau, where the team grapples with how to tell the stories behind the death counts, even takes a stray bullet from a fight in a nearby neighbourhood. In one sequence, Holmes shows viewers the whiteboard on which they record the date, location and circumstance surrounding each violent episode.

    “This a depressing board, the daily running total of casualties…but they are people, not involved in the violence itself,” Holmes says. “Every now and then you stop and you gotta remember that these are people – they are not numbers on a board.”

    Despite the tragic stories, Holmes is also able to show the dignity of the Iraqi civilians, living and trying to work in very difficult circumstances. On one embedded sweep with the U.S. military, he shows how a family was so generous and hospitable even though 12 soldiers had just searched their house for weapons.

    But for Holmes it is the Iraqi children, who follow him around when walking the streets with the military, which bring a smile to his face. One of the few opportunities for joy during this month of mayhem in Baghdad. The children are smiling, laughing and asking for his name. For a brief moment, Holmes feels like the ‘Pied Piper’.

  • CNN PRESENTS shows real-life drama inside Combat hospital in Iraq

    CNN PRESENTS shows real-life drama inside Combat hospital in Iraq

    MUMBAI: Over two weeks, CNN PRESENTS: Combat hospital looks at the life and death struggles that the medical team face every day in the Iraqi capital’s military emergency rooms at the 10 Combat Support hospital in Baghdad.

     

    With exclusive and unprecedented access to the five doctors, 14 nurses and 22 medics who treat casualties from U.S. and coalition forces, the civilian population and even insurgents, in a building that Saddam Hussein once used for his own personal medical care, CNN PRESENTS: Combat hospital reveals the horror and humanity of present day Iraq.

    Presented without narration, the programme is a compelling and gritty close-up look at the American military’s frontline hospital starkly depicted with the daily challenges that face the 10 Combat Support hospital in Baghdad. Graphic video and natural sound reflect the reality of the chaos and heroism in a wartime emergency room: gunshot wounds, burns, amputations and other devastating damage caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

    Filmed during 16 days of exclusive access to the Mountain Medic Combat Support hospital by CNN Baghdad bureau chief Cal Perry, CNN senior photojournalist Dominic Swann, and CNN’s Ryan Chilcote, viewers see why the maturity and professionalism required in a Combat emergency setting are hard-earned.

    A young nurse, Lt. Riane Nelson, R.N., talks ruefully about how she was “picked” to come to Iraq after being called to replace another nurse who became pregnant shortly before her tour of duty.

    Nelson’s supervisor, head nurse Lt. Col. John Groves, describes the back story of Nelson’s early inability to keep up with the requirements of their busy unit. Then, Nelson worked with other personnel to resuscitate a critical patient with CPR, saving her life. After that, says Groves, “her confidence skyrocketed.” By the time viewers meet Nelson, she is a self-assured and proficient team member, saving more lives during the programme.

    Outside of the emergency room, the unit tries to maintain some normality by playing football and baseball in the alley behind the hospital and even celebrating a co-workers 21 birthday.

     

    In one of the most compelling sequences in the documentary, the film crew captures the arrival of 12 casualties during a few moments of relative quiet for the medical team. Four are already dead. Seven U.S. soldiers and CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier are critically injured and fighting for their lives. The team goes back to work; their trauma rooms are full again.

     

    CNN PRESENTS is the most honoured documentary program in cable news. So far in 2006, CNN PRESENTS has been honoured by an Emmy, six New York Festivals Awards, two National Headliner Awards and a National Press Club Robert L. Kozik Award for environmental reporting.

  • CNN Worldwide appoints Seth Doane as New Delhi correspondent

    CNN Worldwide appoints Seth Doane as New Delhi correspondent

    MUMBAI: CNN Worldwide has appointed award-winning journalist Seth Doane to be the news organization’s New Delhi-based video correspondent. This was announced by senior VP- International newsgathering, Tony Maddox.

    Doane joins CNN from Channel One News where he won a 2004 George Foster Peabody Award for his reports from Darfur and the on-going humanitarian crisis, informs an official release.

    “Seth has shown the kind of commitment and endeavour we look for in our correspondents,” said Maddox. “In the past five years, he has reported around the world from challenging locations and he will be a real addition to the reporting ranks of CNN. He will be working in a great bureau in a country which is making news on many levels.”

    Doane is the sixth video correspondent appointed by CNN; he joins DNG-equipped correspondents strategically based in South Africa, Colombia, UK, Iraq and Russia.

    “CNN is known around the world for its international news coverage and its use of leading-edge technology that allows correspondents to offer context to news events immediately. It’s a privilege to join a network with such a strong journalistic reputation,” said Doane.