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The Raving Reporter

Thoughts and reports by Tony Cross

  • I ‘m a journalist, formerly based in Paris, now living in eastern France. I’ve covered France, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and many other countries. The views expressed on this blog were my own at the time of writing and do not, so far as I know, reflect those of my employers.
  • Read all about me! Find links to some of my journalistic work here

Tony Cross

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@tcross4751aol-com

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Opinion, analysis

  • Moderate, extremist and other words that skew the news
  • Austerity – the new normal
  • The white working class – does it exist and should you despise it?
  • Charlie and me – Islamophobia, racism, freedom of expression and equality in France
  • Death of a circumflex – France’s spelling-change panic and why we’re so conservative
  • Corbyn’s election sends British right wing back to the 1980s, can his supporters resist?
  • Corbynmania and the Sanders surge are a rejection of consumer politics
  • The Greek debacle and the education of Yanis Varoufakis
  • Beware Greeks bearing ballot boxes
  • Why the US will start a war with China (perhaps)
  • War, what is it good for?
  • Spam and a can of worms

French politics & current affairs

  • Charlie and me – Islamophobia, racism, freedom of expression and equality in France
  • Death of a circumflex – France’s spelling-change panic and why we’re so conservative
  • Record French tax haul shows how much corporate tax dodgers cost us all
  • Why is support for France’s Front National rising?
  • Why did IS attack Paris?
  • Pursuing tax-dodgers , even half-heartedly, nets France 20bn euros for France

RSS Some of my work for RFI

Reports from Turkey

  • Turkey’s divisions run deep as referendum result shows
  • A bomb, a baby, a hunger strike – the Kurds and Turkey’s referendum
  • Turkey referendum – Not a fair fight for No campaign
  • Turkey turns to Russia amid allegations of US coup complicity
  • How far will Turkey’s post-coup purge go?
  • Turkey’s post-coup purge brings fear of media witch-hunt
  • Two rallies and a purge – Istanbul after Turkey’s failed coup
  • Who was behind Turkey’s military coup?
  • War with PKK, assaults on media freedom and clampdown on dissent to continue after Erdogan’s win in Turkey’s election
  • At the martyrs’ cemetery – death and destruction in a Turkish military security zone in Kurd country
  • Before the Paris attacks – IS’s dangerous liaisons in Turkey
  • Liberated areas, military repression and Kurdish politics in Diyarbakir before Turkey’s 2015 election
  • Peace and authoritarian Erdogan – issues in Istanbul in Turkey’s 2015 autumn election
  • Turkey presidential election 2014 – Erdogan’s victory showed signs of troubles to come

Afghanistan, Pakistan, India

  • Eyewitness: Afghanistan 2001 after the fall of the Taliban
  • Ethnic powerbroking, warlords and corruption in Afghanistan’s ‘fairly democratic’ 2004 presidential election
  • Women, warlords, drug-runners and NGOs … eyewitness to Afghanistan’s 2005 legislative election in Kabul and Herat
  • Pakistani atheist infiltrates jihadi training camps
  • Pakistan votes to end military rule under shadow of violence
  • In rural Pakistan politics is still a violent, feudal, family business
  • Crime, poverty, Baloch nationalism and politics in Karachi
  • Between Islamists and the military – two voices of the Pakistani left
  • Family business – Pakistani powerbrokers the Gujrat Chaudhrys plan to stay in the post-Musharraf game
  • Lions, tigers and tight security as Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) builds on Punjab base
  • Peoples Party trades on Benazir martyrdom to harvest votes from poor in Pakistan’s 2008 election
  • Kidnapped, tortured, sold to the Americans … Pakistan’s missing persons, casualties of the war on terror
  • Pakistan’s Islamist parties – a legacy of military dictators and Afghanistan’s wars
  • Hamid Gul, the spy who went into the cold
  • India 2004: Gangsters, politics, poverty, caste and communal violence in Modi’s Gujarat and Bombay

Iraq & Middle East

  • Israel’s 2009 offensive on Gaza – a turning point in the Israel-Palestine conflict
  • Iraq 2003: Families search for Saddam’s victims
  • Looting, firefights, occupation … Eyewitness in Baghdad 2003 after Saddam
  • War, what is it good for?

Indonesia

  • Aceh 1999 – Indonesia’s dirty war against separatists in the Gateway to Mecca
  • Street-kids, poverty, pollution … Jakarta after the 1997 financial crisis

Recent Comments

  • Tony Cross on Coronavirus diary day 55 – Storms over Paris and sex in a time of Covid-19
  • Grace McConnell on Coronavirus diary day 55 – Storms over Paris and sex in a time of Covid-19
  • Tony on Coronavirus diary day 39 – Don’t cheer healthworkers if you don’t want to pay tax
  • Vivien Walsh on Coronavirus diary day 39 – Don’t cheer healthworkers if you don’t want to pay tax
  • Ian Noble on Coronavirus diary day 30 – Macron’s plan to help Africa and a delicate matter concerning China

Recent Posts

  • You can eat all of the pig … but you might want to find out how it was farmed
  • Why you should eat escargots + other snail fun facts
  • Frogs’ legs, hazelnuts and globalisation
  • Back to blogging – Funny French food and other rural delights
  • People of Afghanistan – Mazar-e-Sharif

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Categories

  • Aceh
  • Afghanistan
  • Ahmed Shah Masood
  • AKP
  • Analysis
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  • Urban development
  • Vladimir Putin
  • War
  • Warlords
  • Women
  • Yanis Varoufakis
  • YDG-H
  • Zionism

Recent Posts

  • You can eat all of the pig … but you might want to find out how it was farmed
  • Why you should eat escargots + other snail fun facts
  • Frogs’ legs, hazelnuts and globalisation
  • Back to blogging – Funny French food and other rural delights
  • People of Afghanistan – Mazar-e-Sharif

Recent Comments

  • Tony Cross on Coronavirus diary day 55 – Storms over Paris and sex in a time of Covid-19
  • Grace McConnell on Coronavirus diary day 55 – Storms over Paris and sex in a time of Covid-19
  • Tony on Coronavirus diary day 39 – Don’t cheer healthworkers if you don’t want to pay tax
  • Vivien Walsh on Coronavirus diary day 39 – Don’t cheer healthworkers if you don’t want to pay tax
  • Ian Noble on Coronavirus diary day 30 – Macron’s plan to help Africa and a delicate matter concerning China

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