STILETTO
(stí-létó ) pl. sti.let.tos or ". sti.let.toes A small dagger with a slender, tapering blade. Something shaped like such as a dagger. A small, sharp-pointed instrument used
Morrilnr don't let
for making eyelet holes in needlework. fltalian, diminutive of stì-1o, dagger, from Latin s t i Iu s, stylus]
¡ lt's bon voyage to Karl Wilson who is ofÏ to Manila as Agence France-Presse Bureau Chief after a first-class stint as managing editor of The Standard. Karl looks set to join another refugee from the FCC. Peter Cordingley, the WHO's chief pontificator on pandemics, is safely ensconced in Forbes Park, the gated community where AFP also maintains a residence. . Given all the carry-on about weapons of mass destruction
o We are mourning the death in Papua New Guinea of journalist and documentary maker Mark Worth who has worked tirelessly for years chronicling the repression by the
in Iraq one would hope the Department of
Defense in
Insoraki. According to long time colleague Trevor
pr.rchase the latest ofiering, Agent
Chappell, Mark, who was borrr in PNG, was among the most focused professionals ever to cover the area around the
Washington
will be the first to
Orange, by renowned photojournalist
Philip Jones Griffiths.
Pitched in a simila¡ style to Vietnam Inc, the pictorial and text publication documents the obscene legacy left by the U.S. miìitary during the Viehram W'ar where defoliants became a euphemism for chemical destruction on a massive scale. It's a must buy and coincides with a re-release of the documentary Hearts and Minds, the Oscar winrring film from the 1970s that delves unflinchingly into the American social conscience. Hearts and Minds has been digitally re-mastered and was recently given a screening along with a few words from veteran wax correspondent
.
Jim Pringfe
at the FCC
in Bangkok.
More on WMD. Though the year is young and April I is still some time away, a front-runner for Story of the Year goes to The Times of Iondon for an article, penned by Anthony Browne, about the latest weapon of mass destruction: the skatebo ar d. "The skateboard," Browne reported, "has been propelled into the front line of the War on Terror." The European Commission has ordered them banned from aircraft cabins because they could be used in a hijack attempt. They will have to join lacrosse sticks, goH clubs, pool cues and fishing rods - but not tennis racquets or juggling clubs in the hold. "They have wheels that you could unscrew and use, and
you could use
it to break a window," the paper
quoted a
commission spokeswoman as saying. . While the 29th anniversary marking the end of the Vietnam War is approaching, life under the communist
dictatorship has not improved that much as dissident and joumalist Nguyen Vu Binh has found out. His trìal for espionage has landed him seven years in jail plus a firther three under house arrest. Why? Because he wrote stufffor the Intemet.
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Indonesian military. According to Pacific Media Watch (PMY/) Mark died from unknown causes in a hotel room in Sentani, W'est Papua. He is survived by his Papuan wife Helen and baby daughter
troubled country. PMW said "his death must be treated as suspicious." . Wedding bells have sounded in Bangkok where Philip Blenkinsop has tied the knot with Ägres Dherbeys. One person, who obviously has to remain nameless, quipped recentþ at the FCC Thailand: "She can handle him. I've seen her get angry and toss him across the bar. Phil resembled a surface-to-air missile darting for the target of her choice. Hiya! " o In Melbourne, Lindsay Murdoch, The Age's elder statesman of East Asian coverage, has become a father. His
wife Feni recentþ gave birth to Emily Tiara. Lindsay has reportedly gone a little goo goo, gah gah.
.
Spare a thought for Phnom Penh-based Martin Flitrnan. The Brit is well regarded as among the best portrait photographers in the region, a civilised gent and an accomplished herbalist. But sometimes lady luck doesn't smile and Flitman lost almost a decade's work when his negatives went up in a house fire. o And finally, some sound advice for those illustrious editorial managers always eager to save some cash from whingeing over-paid and never-satisfied journalists. You'll be thrilled to hear The Goat Farmer, the largest circulating goat magazine in the world, published out of New Zealand, has adopted a fresh approach which I'm sure many accountants in East Asia will find revolulionary. The magazine, which is seeking a correspondent in Bangladesh, is generously offering "a hee subscription and advertising." Perhaps the concept ofbeing paid could become a thing of the past. Contact Max: maxkolbefcc@yahoo.co.uk THE CORRESPONDENT FEBRUARY/MARCH
2OO4
newsflen
My three of a kind should have won the hand - and would have if Al had not been so observant. "Tony," he said, "your
me, a hazardous drive home to Repulse Bay. Club bills were high and morale was low for many of us who
straight takes the pot, man." The pocket-sized ABC News cameraman, Tony Hirashiki, raked the pot of about HK$600 over to the messy collection of
had spent years experiencing the adrenaline rush of covering the Indochina wars. Nobody in New York wanted to hear from, or about, Asia and they certainly did not want to spend another dollar covering the region. Udo Nesh, Al Chambers, Tony Hirashiki, Mr Choi, Barry Kalb, T.H. Lee, Jack Worth, Steve Bell, Jean Claud Maillet, Larry Lau and others won and lost fortunes at the poker table. But rarely did cash change hands. Each loser would write an IOU and the small pieces of paper became legal tender, even for those who did not play poker. As the months oozed by, the initial depression matured into
chips he had in front of him. Our host, NBC producer AÌ Chambers, shook his head in disgust. A couple of hundred
of Saigon, every network staffers. s would arrive at their respective bureaus in Ne* Mercury House (now Telecom House) punctually at nine in the moming. Each producer would telex regional story suggestions to his headquarters in New York. Each story suggestion would be rejected by I 1 o'clock at which point everyone would race to the NBC bureau to get one of the seven places at the conference table for the daily poker 8ame.
We would play until about I pm, repair to the FCC for a three-hour lunch, retum to the poker game until 5:30 pm, then it was back to the FCC for drinks, dinner, more drinks and, for THE CORRESPONDENT FEBRUARY/MARCH
2OO4
a morbid, listless paralysis.
I
had spent most of the years
between 1964 and 1975 either in Indochina, as a cameraman, or producing stories about the conflict from Hong Kong and Bangkok. The war was more than a major story. Mike Her:r, in his great book Dispatches, said: "Vietnam was what we had instead ofhappy childhoods." And now that was gone, too. Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast wrote of the feeling of emptiness that followed when he quit his horse-racing addiction. "By then I knew that everything good and bad left
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