Dispatches
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Brian Carroll is a journalist who has reported on economic and political issues from several locations in Europe and Africa. He founded Concept 21 Commissions and has experience reporting for Irish newspapers. The document provides snippets of Carroll's reporting from Iceland on its economic crisis; Kenya on famine conditions in the Dadaab refugee camp; New York on Occupy Wall Street protests; Spain on austerity measures; Berlin on German views of Ireland's bailout; and Helsinki on the rise of a far-right party opposed to European bailouts. Contact information is provided for Carroll and links to read more of his dispatches.
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Dispatches
- 1. ! ! ! ! contact: +353-86-83825981 ! DISPATCHES Iceland Brian Carroll reported from Iceland on the economic crash and the parallels with Ireland; visiting the country four times between 2009 and 2011. To read samples of all Iceland dispatches click above the mouse! http:// tinyurl.com/ ojdtgyw
- 2. contact: +353-86-83825982 ! Brian Carroll is the founder of Concept 21 Commissions. He is a former investigative feature writer with the Irish Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, and a former deputy editor, news editor and security correspondent of the Irish Examiner. A UCD Law graduate, he holds a Masters in International Journalism from City University London and has 20 years experience as a journalist
- 3. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! contact: +353-86-83825983 ! AT 3am in the jazz bar off Laugavegur, Iceland's Grafton Street, Finnur Steinnsson is trying to convert me to Jesus. Finnur, 30, used to be a mason in the building trade. Now he has joined the Mission, doing volunteer work, and spreading the word of God in a country of lapsed Lutherans. During Iceland's boom years from 2005 to 2007, Finnur would drink sometimes until 7am, partying hard as the construction money flowed. He has an eight-year-old son who lives with him, and he still knows how to party, but something has changed in the heart of Finnur, and the heart of Iceland too.
- 4. ! ! contact: +353-86-83825984 ! Dadaab, Kenya Brian Carroll reported from the world's biggest refugee camp under armed protection from Al Shabab militants. His letter to Osman, a seven month- old boy whom he helped to bury in the camp, prompted a joint newspaper and radio fundraising campaign, after which €12m was raised by four Irish charities working in Dadaab. To read samples of all Dadaab dispatches click above the mouse ! http://tinyurl.com/ p3u9ojo Dear Osman I helped to bury you last Saturday. You were seven months old. You starved to death. We buried you in Bula Bakti, the Carcass Dump. A twig on a mound of earth marks your place among the scores of other children buried beside you. When we finished, some children played a game of chase through the graves. Life goes on.
- 5. contact: +353-86-83825985 ! New York Brian Carroll reported from the Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park, sleeping out with ragtag trustafarians and the genuinely disaffected, as well as with Irish emigrants in the caged rooms of a homeless centre in Chinatown. I take the R train uptown to Chinatown to my lodgings in the Sun Bright Hotel. The hotel is neither sunny, nor bright, and two of the six floors are occupied by homeless people. Floors five and six are filled by tourists sleeping in 6ft-by-4ft cubicles, with a wire mesh overhead, and above that, a communal roof. Three bathrooms are shared between 40 people. I meet Mike from Listowel. He's 37 and he's been staying here two weeks, looking for work as a labourer. To read Manhattan reports click above the mouse! http://tinyurl.com/ py3p44o
- 6. contact: +353-86-83825986 ! Spain Brian Carroll reported from Madrid on the impact of austerity, interviewing a lawyer reduced to eating date- stamped food discarded by supermarkets. As the plaza fills, the crowds spill up Calle de La Montera, a pedestrianised boulevard of café bars, restaurants, legalised prostitution and strip clubs, before turning right on to Gran Via, Madrid's main thoroughfare, and down the long-winding road to Plaza de Cibeles, now the traditional destination point for victorious Spanish teams. Cibeles is the Goddess of Bounty, and, in sport, Spain's many cups runneth over. To read Madrid reports click above the mouse! http://tinyurl.com/ mv7rwgf! http://tinyurl.com/ mv7rwgf
- 7. ! ! ! contact: +353-86-83825987 ! Berln Brian Carroll reported from Berlin on German attitudes to Ireland's bailout and enforced austerity. To read Berlin reports click above the mouse! THE 15m tall mural opposite the Bellini Lounge on Oranienburger Strasse asks 'How long is now?' Below the mural, a man with a crucifix around his neck fends off the prostitutes, who assail him every few minutes. Pointing to his cross, he tells them gently that he is a man of God and Jesus loves them. A flash-mob of tourists and young Berliners winds its way through the drug dealers, the street vendors and artists, into and out of subterranean bars, some of which stay open until 6am. Those who make it to AM-PM, the 24-hour bar at the end of Oranienburger Strasse arrive on a continuum of drunkenness. With no concept of time or now, they straggle from the bar at dawn, each appearing more strange and inebriated than the last, like watching a Darwinian progression in reverse. Here in Berlin's bohemian district, an island of bacchanalia in a country of regulation, time is both of no importance and of the essence. How long is now? For the German taxpayer, now is now. The moment of reckoning is here.
- 8. contact: +353-86-83825988 ! Helsinki To read Helsinki reports click above the mouse! http://tinyurl.com/ qzaql7a ! Brian Carroll reported from Helsinki on the rise of True Finns, a Far Right party opposed to Ireland's bailout. As word gets out that a journalist is asking about the True Finns, we are descended upon. An ageing rocker appears, wearing a studded leather jacket and sporting a rather enthusiastic mullet, in the style of Bono circa 1980. Then a reporter for YLE, Finland's equivalent of RTÉ, appears wearing a morning hat and cravat.