Greetings LS Community,

W I R Pictures has been updated and will be offering monthly updates to our site(s) with contributors providing content from Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Lebanon, Iran, Brazil, Hong Kong, France, Amsterdam, USA, Mexico, Jordan and Syria.

We are in the process of streamlining our content into three different sites which will be separated into text, media [ video | audio ] and pictures.

Our goal is to become a simplified media assembly point for news outlets of all media types, where all of W I R’s content can be accessed and assembled into news spots, articles and broadcasts.

We hope to have these two new sister sites running by August 2007.

Documentary submissions are welcome for review.

For further questions and requirements please contact:

info@wirpictures.org

JUNE’S FEATURES FOR W I R PICTURES INCLUDE:

UN & GUNS FOR GOLD 2005 -2006: MONGBWALU, DRC.

http://www.wirpictures.org/drc1.htm

It has been proven that Pakistani UN peacekeeping troops traded gold for weapons with rebel factions they were supposed to disarm in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

WIR correspondent Stephen Digges was in Mongbwalu, DRC in 2005 – 2006, in the mines and town that the crime is alleged to have happened. The images he took document the conditions of child miners, who are at the bottom of the chain of exchanges in this unfolding scandal.

PROFOUND UNREST: LEBANON.

http://www.wirpictures.org/lebanon1.htm

Amid the constant thud of explosions, machine gun fire, cordite fumes and plumes of billowing smoke, from many of the Nahr al Bared refugee camp’s bombed-out buildings, Lebanese troops assault positions of Fatah al Islam militants.

WIR correspondents Franklin Lamb and Hugh Chatfield in Lebanon have been documenting the build up to the crisis and are witnessing some of the heaviest fighting since the end of the civil war in 1990.
Army sources confirmed that some soldiers engaging the militants had been armed with new weapons donated by the US and various Arab countries since the hostilities in Northern Lebanon began two weeks ago.

With fears that the army will stage a large-scale offensive on the camp, more than 25,000 of Nahr al-Bared’s 40,000 Palestinians have fled to the smaller Beddawi camp nearby, where aid agencies are helping cope with the influx with humanitarian assistance.

ACHOLI IDPS: UGANDA.

http://www.wirpictures.org/gulu1.htm

W I R correspondents Stephen Digges and Wangari Mungai travelled to Gulu, Northern Uganda to investigate the effect of the Cessation of Hostilities Peace Agreement signed between the Uganda Government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, on the internally displaced persons [IDP] living in appalling conditions in camps.

In the feature article Acholi IDPs, the correspondents document the life of the IDPs’ in the camps, their lost dreams, their aspirations and hopes, and more so, their mixed feelings about returning home.

MEMORIES OF WAR: UGANDA. [ *W I R PICTURES FEATURE ]

http://www.wirpictures.org/gulu2.htm

In the two – decade long conflict in Northern Uganda, thousands of children were recruited as child soldiers by both the LRA rebels and the UPDF, Uganda People’s Defense Force.

Children who managed to escape or were set free by the rebels continue to carry the burden and psychological trauma which they suffered, to say nothing of the physical scars they still have to show.

World Press Photo Winner Erin Trieb visited the Chairity for Peace Home in Gulu at the height of the Night Commuting Phenomenon.

The children who were running from rebels were commonly referred to as night commuters. Charity for Peace remains a shelter for children running from the LRA rebels or too afraid to go back to their villages.

REFUGEE CRISIS PART ONE & TWO.

http://www.wirpictures.org/dadaab1.htm

http://www.wirpictures.org/dadaab2.htm

When fighting broke out in Mogadishu late last year, people fled the
Somali capital at an estimated rate of 12,000 per week. With a relative
lull in violence, about a quarter of nearly 400,000 refugees have returned to Mogadishu, according to a report by the United Nations refugee agency.

They have returned to hardships, with shortages of electricity and water, uncollected garbage clogging the streets, and many businesses and schools shut. In the IDP camps inside Somalia or at the refugee camps inside Kenya, from which they are returning. With stranded refugees, cholera outbreaks and horrible living conditions, it has been years of disaster after disaster for the Somalis.

W I R correspondents Hes Mundt and Stephen Digges were at the Kenya – Somali border during the crisis. Their pictures give an insight into the conditions the refugees endured.

UPCOMING COLUMNS:

Peter Manson Ouko from Death Row, Kamiti Prison, Kenya.

Charged with the murder of his wife in 1998, Peter Manson Ouko was sentenced to death by a Nairobi court and has since been on death row at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, one of Kenya’s largest prisons. He has appealed once against the ruling but lost the case. He now lives one day at a time, waiting for the noose.

Between meeting his lawyers or the few loyal friends who still visit him at Kamiti, Peter continues to feed his intellect by reading any book, and keeping abreast with news and information from around the world, which he can obtain.

He also teaches languages, English and Kiswahili, to other inmates.

In a monthly column for W I R Text, Peter Ouko will be sharing his experiences, thoughts, views and reflections behind bars and relating it with the political climate in East Africa through written commentary.

Hope you all have a look.

Cheers,

—
Sales Dept.
W I R Pictures
sales@wirpictures.org
www.wirpictures.org