400 days in jail

On the 400th day of his jail sentence, Peter Greste, journalist for Al Jazeera, was released.

However, his colleagues, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, remain in prison.

They are accused of being league with the Muslim Brotherhood, now considered a terrorist organisation operating in Egypt since they were ousted from government in a military coup.

Egypt used a clause on its law books to deport Greste back to Australia. He is currently in Cyprus. Fahmy, a Canadian citizen, is expected to apply for deportation. Mohamed is Egyptian and has no recourse to deportation.

The authoritarian media model that is Egypt is among the worst violators of press freedom in the world. According to Journalists Without Borders, Egypt is 159th out of 180 nations on its press freedom index.

That is hardly a glowing endorsement for a country that claims to have embraced democracy in post-Mubarak Egypt. How can it be?

After their first democratic election since ousting Mubarak in the Arab Spring in 2011, the country’s citizens elected the Muslim Brotherhood. Obviously, many of the powers of the country did not agree with this and ousted the Muslim Brotherhood almost two years ago, labeling them a terrorist organisation and targeting anyone who interacts with them in anyway, including journalists.

While Al Jazeera and the National Union of Journalists in England welcomed the news of Greste’s release from an Egyptian prison, they continue to push for pressure to release Mohamed and Fahmy.

With an election looming in Canada, the Conservative government is under fire for not moving quickly enough to secure the release of Fahmy, a naturalised Canadian. External Affairs Minister John Baird has been in contact with his Egyptian counterpart to secure Fahmy’s release.

However, many see Fahmy now as a pawn in the political chess game in Canada.

But what is even more sickening is the number of people who believe Fahmy should remain in jail because he isn’t “a real Canadian”. Because he plies his trade outside of the country does not make him less of a Canadian than those who live inside the country.

Journalists who cover political hot zones do so out of the Kantian belief in the duty of reporting atrocities committed by the power. The same people who read these and condemn the actions of dictators are the same people who would prefer their government do nothing to secure the release of their fellow citizens when captured by those same corrupt nations.

Mohamed is the odd one out in this deal. He is Egyptian only and has no claim to apply for a deportation order to leave the country. No one should forget Baher Mohamed. He is as innocent as his fellow Al Jazeera journalists. Simply not being eligible for a deportation order does not mean he should be left behind.

This reminds me of the story of The Killing Fields. Dith Pran risked his life to help the New York Times break atrocity after atrocity being committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. He was left behind, but walked his way to freedom. Hopefully, Baher Mohamed won’t have to walk his way to earn his freedom.

Broadchurch should have gone out on a high note

Athletes are notorious for not knowing when to end their careers. Sports figures who were such a joy to watch become a shadow of their former selves when they stick around because their ego outweighs common sense.

Cricketer Sachin Tendulkar had the perfect stage to retire on in 2011 when India won the ICC ODI World Cup. It was won in India, in his hometown. Yet, he stayed around for another two years. The NFL’s John Elway learned the lesson. After years of toiling as a quarterback with the Denver Broncos, the star won back-to-back Super Bowl titles and called in quits after that second title.

The same is true in TV shows. One of the greatest shows was ITV’s first season of Broadchurch. It was an eight-part show about the murder of a boy in a small British coastal town. The series riveted audiences as people guessed and second guessed who the killer was. It wasn’t until the actual reveal scene that most people realised who the killer was.

High on the heels of that success, Broadchurch began its second season in January and has gone into decline. The killer from Season 1 has pleaded not guilty and the series has become a drawn out courtroom drama. But the writers should have asked themselves how could they top what they did in the first season and realise they couldn’t.

The courtroom drama insults the viewers’ intelligence. How do you go from the final scenes in Series 1 where the killer admits murdering Danny Latimer to suddenly pleading not guilty a few months later?

Instead of an intriguing series, viewers are left scratching their heads wondering where the season is going. If anything, what has been successful is turning sympathetic characters from the first season into unsympathetic whiners.

Season 2 of Broadchurch should have been a one-off film that depicted how the town the recovered from the murder of a child and not a long, drawn out courtroom drama.

UK’s homphobic law has to change

Benedict Cumberbatch, the actor who played Alan Turing in the Oscar-nominated The Imitation Game, has added his name to the list of people urging the Royal Family to reverse a law that charged homosexual men with gross indecency.

Cumberbatch played Turing, a gay man who was chemically castrated after he was found guilty of being gay. Turing, the man who broke the German’s Enigma code in the Second World War, killed himself in 1954. He was not pardoned until 2013 for his “crime”.

Historians know Turing’s code breaking potentially saved millions of lives and shortened the war by about two years. Yet, this hero was subjected to inhumane punishment because he was gay.

There were a lot of inhumane laws in our history, but many have changed and people have been pardoned for so-called crimes. So why is it that the crime of homosexuality has not been changed? Why have people who were charged not been pardoned?

Boom Boom at Northamptonshire

Shahid Afridi will aim for the stands for the Northamptonshire Circket Club this summer.

Northamptonshire Cricket Club added some firepower ahead of the 2015 T20 Blast season.

Pakistan star Shahid Afridi will play for at least the first six games for the northeastern England cricket club’s T20 season.

Afridi is one of the games most controversial and explosive players.

Coming up as a 16-year-old in 1996, Afridi has been around the game for almost 20 years.

For years, he held the record for the fastest ODI century.

He is known for his all-or-nothing style and has evolved into a capable spin bowler.

The former Pakistan captain is no stranger to controversy, having been suspended on many occasions for pitch and ball tampering and threatening fans.

Could Mohammad Aamir terrorise England batsmen this year?

Mohammed Aamir has been cleared to play cricket in Pakistan following a five-year ban for spot fixing.

Convicted spot-fixing cricketer Mohammad Aamir has been cleared to play cricket once again.

The 22-year-old bowler was banned in 2010, along with Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt, after being found guilty of spot fixing charges stemming from Pakistan’s 2010 tour of England in which the three were caught out on fixing charges.

The young Aamir returns to the game more than eight months before he was to have been eligible thanks to an International Cricket Council rule change

After the three cricketers were convicted, Aamir was the only one to show remorse while admitting guilty. Teammates Asif and Butt spent long hours fighting through appeals before being banned for seven years (two suspended) and 10 years (five suspended) respectively.

It isn’t known which team Aamir will play for, but there is hope the young bowler could be in line for a call up when England tours the United Arab Emirates to play Pakistan later this year.

Before his suspension, Aamir was one of the great young bowlers. Appearing on the national team at 17, he became the youngest bowler to 50 test wickets.

A draw is as good as a win

Last Friday’s 0-0 draw between Manchester United and Cambridge United was one for the history books for Cambridge.

The League 2 team kept on pace with one of the world’s largest football clubs. You would have thought Cambridge United had won the Champions League by the way the fans and their team celebrated the draw. And, in many ways, it was.

Cambridge isn’t going to set the world on fire. They aren’t going to make the big run to a top 4 Premier League spot and work their way into the Champions League final. Drawing with Manchester United was as good as beating the Red Devils.

Manchester United is in a rebuilding phase. A disastrous 2013-14 season has led to a resurgence this season. The team, after struggling in the opening games of the season, has one loss in its last 12 games and sits in fourth place in the Premier League, but a distant pace behind front-runners Chelsea.

Under the tutelage of Louis Van Gaal, Manchester  is on pace to return to Champions League football next season, which is a good first step for a team with a culture of winning. This year is one of being in the wilderness. An embarrassing 4-0 loss to the Milton Keynes Dons at the beginning of the season in the Capital One Cup left many fans wondering if the new chief was the same as the old one.

However, significant victories over Arsenal, West Ham and Southampton has fans feeling a little more optimistic about the team’s fate.

The draw with Cambridge means a replay of the tie at Old Trafford in Manchester. For the visitors, it is the trip of a lifetime. It will be the highlight for many of the players’ careers. To play on a field that has hosted the best in the world will be one to tell the grandchildren about.

But is Manchester United back to the old glory? Not by a long shot. When you look at the pace being set by Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, Manchester has a long way to go to get back to the elites of Europe.

But fortune may be on their side. A shocking FA Cup round on Saturday saw the top three Premier League sides — Chelsea, Manchester City and Southampton — all crash out of the FA Cup. That clears the way for Manchester to dream of an FA Cup in a season where no one gave them a chance of winning any silverware.

There are some good teams left in the way. Today, Arsenal knocked off Brighton 3-2. Liverpool, thanks to 0-0 draw against Bolton yesterday, have a replay in their future. West Ham’s 1-0 win over Bristol City means they are still alive. But Manchester will be salivating knowing that the top three are no longer an obstacle.

But who among the upset winners — Bradford, Middlesborough and Leicester — has a Cinderella run left in their tank? Bradford were runners-up in the 2013 Capital One Cup so they know how to be successful in single-elimination tournaments such as these. Leicester is at the bottom of the Premier League but so was Wigan when they knocked out Manchester City in the 2013 FA Cup final and then proceeded to be relegated to League 1.

So there are unheralded teams with championship experience waiting in the wings. It will certainly be an interesting and entertaining run up to the final at Wembley in May.

Time flies when you’re having fun

And so the past three months have passed in a blur. I am now halfway through the taught portion of my MA in International Journalism at Sheffield Hallam University.

I have completed courses in Radio Journalism, Media Law, Magazine Journalism and Writing for the Media. Up next are Media Law 2, International Journalism, TV Journalism and Online Journalism.

It has been fun so far. One of my concerns was, as lecturer Julie Gillin said, “teaching grandma to suck lemons”.  Not sure of its origins. It must be Yorkshire. But contrary to the belief that I would be bored, it has been very interesting so far.

My wonder is if the next three or four months will be a blur. After that, is the great summer project. For me, a dissertation that will be roughly 15,000, which I hope leads into something more interesting in the near future. But more about that later.

Journalism in the UK is very different from what I experienced in Canada. There are more rules. There is more tradition. But there is also more unethical characters trolling the profession. The 2011 Leveson Inquiry was proof of that.

So here goes with the second term of this program.

World Cup in sight for South Africa?

Call them the Buffalo Bills of cricket. South Africa always looks strong on paper but then find a way to disappoint in big tournaments. And with the ICC ODI World Cup in Australia and New Zealand set to start on 14 February, all eyes will be on South Africa.

They certainly have the bowling and batting to win the championship in dominant form. Led from the front by Hashim Amla and A.B. de Villiers, that is a dream pair. Just last weekend, de Villiers showed why he is arguably the best in the world after setting a new world record of a century from 31 balls. He ended up with 149 from 44 balls.

They probably have the deepest bowling attack with Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander and Imran Tahir.

But their track record suggests different. They have reached the ODI World Cup semi-finals twice. In 1992 they lost to England and to Australia in 1999.

With India trying to learn to life in a post-MS Dhoni world, the defending champions from the Indian Subcontinent could be dethroned. Australia poses a threat again and you can’t really count out their co-hosts from New Zealand.

But it would appear South Africa is the cream of the crop right now. Time will tell though.

We teach life

This is a very powerful poem

Today, my body was a TV’d massacre.

Today, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits.

Today, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits filled enough with statistics to counter measured response.

And I perfected my English and I learned my UN resolutions.

But still, he asked me, Ms. Ziadah, don’t you think that everything would be resolved if you would just stop teaching so much hatred to your children?

Pause.

I look inside of me for strength to be patient but patience is not at the tip of my tongue as the bombs drop over Gaza.

Patience has just escaped me.

Pause. Smile.

We teach life, sir.

Rafeef, remember to smile.

Pause.

We teach life, sir.

We Palestinians teach life after they have occupied the last sky.

We teach life after they have built their settlements and apartheid walls, after the last skies.

We teach life, sir.

But today, my body was a TV’d massacre made to fit into sound-bites and word limits.

And just give us a story, a human story.

You see, this is not political.

We just want to tell people about you and your people so give us a human story.

Don’t mention that word “apartheid” and “occupation”.

This is not political.

You have to help me as a journalist to help you tell your story which is not a political story.

Today, my body was a TV’d massacre.

How about you give us a story of a woman in Gaza who needs medication?

How about you?

Do you have enough bone-broken limbs to cover the sun?

Hand me over your dead and give me the list of their names in one thousand two hundred word limits.

Today, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits and move those that are desensitized to terrorist blood.

But they felt sorry.

They felt sorry for the cattle over Gaza.

So, I give them UN resolutions and statistics and we condemn and we deplore and we reject.

And these are not two equal sides: occupier and occupied.

And a hundred dead, two hundred dead, and a thousand dead.

And between that, war crime and massacre, I vent out words and smile “not exotic”, “not terrorist”.

And I recount, I recount a hundred dead, a thousand dead.

Is anyone out there?

Will anyone listen?

I wish I could wail over their bodies.

I wish I could just run barefoot in every refugee camp and hold every child, cover their ears so they wouldn’t have to hear the sound of bombing for the rest of their life the way I do.

Today, my body was a TV’d massacre

And let me just tell you, there’s nothing your UN resolutions have ever done about this.

And no sound-bite, no sound-bite I come up with, no matter how good my English gets, no sound-bite, no sound-bite, no sound-bite, no sound-bite will bring them back to life.

No sound-bite will fix this.

We teach life, sir.

We teach life, sir.

We Palestinians wake up every morning to teach the rest of the world life, sir.

 

What a weekend for football

Count them. No less than three major derby matches are on slate this weekend, kicking off with the epic Barcelona-Real Madrid el Classico in Madrid Saturday. Sunday, the struggling Manchester United face in-form Chelsea while Olympiacos battles Panathanaikos in the Athens derby.

The most high profile of them all will be Saturday’s match at the Bernabeu. This game features, arguably, the five best players on the planet — Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and a returning Luis Suarez for Barca and Cristiano Ronaldo and James Rodriguez for Madrid. Unfortunately, Gareth Bale’s injury forces him out of the Madrid lineup.

el Classico has been the marquee matchup on the football calendar for years now. And this one should be just as good as any in the past. Game time is 5 p.m. BST

Louis Van Gaal’s men from Manchester battle Jose Mourinho’s undefeated Chelsea team Sunday afternoon. Chelsea is coming off a football clinic in which it destroyed Maribor in Tuesday’s Champions League group match 6-0 while United struggled Monday to earn a draw against West Brom Albion in the Premier League. It has been a Jeckyl and Hyde season for United. When they are on their game they are unbeatable, but when their defence lets them down, it is downright painful. This is the team that crashed out of the Capital One Cup with a 4-0 loss to MK Dons in the first round. That scoreline should have been 4-0 in their favour.

The other Sunday game pits perennial Greek Champions League qualifier Olympiacos against crosstown rivals Panathanaikos. With emotions always at a boiling point at Greek matches this is sure to please.