An interesting image posted on the WarShooter flickr feed by Kloie Picot.

caption: The flood in Jakarta, mud, mud, mud was all that was left over.

The non-profit November Eleven is collecting funds for the families of Afghan driver Sayed Agha and journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi (see below). They were kidnapped along with Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo on March 5, 2007, in southern Afghanistan. While Mastrogiacomo was freed in exchange for five Taliban prisoners, Agha and Naqshbandi were subsequently beheaded, apparently when the Afghan government refused to make a similar trade for their lives. Their families could use your help so please consider donating to this worthy cause. 

Instructions from November Eleven: You can donate online or you can send a check, payable to "November Eleven" (US banks only please) to:  November Eleven 5315 N. Clark, Suite 200 Chicago, IL 60640  When submitting a check please specify that the funds are intended for the Ajmal Fund.  More information about the Ajmal Fund is available from youarenotforgotten.net -- this site will be updated with news and background information as it becomes available.   

A photo from Michael Yon's upcoming dispatch, "Desires of the Human Heart." He stumbled across this collection of photos in a Christian College (Babel College) last week in Baghdad.

Check out Zoriah's new website, Diaries of a Shooter   

Worth a Look: Baghdad's Survivors
Farah Nosh photographed and interviewed Iraqis wounded in the war.

The following photograph has been sent in by Michael Yon, the well-known conservative journalist and blogger.

This from a recent dispatch from his blog: "Often the most dangerous places in Iraq are at the front gates of bases where suicide attackers roll in. Outside the wire—and often inside the wire—is bad-guy country. A block away from a base might as well be a hundred miles away. We rolled out in humvees for what would be about a 1,225 mile trip inside Iraq, and another portion to Germany and back."

Caption: Michael Bieger holding Farah. The photograph has an interesting history. According to his profile on wikipedia: "On May 2, 2005, Yon took a picture of U.S. Army Major Mark Bieger cradling an Iraqi girl wounded by shrapnel from a car bomb. Major Bieger tried to bring the girl to an American hospital to receive treatment but she died on the helicopter ride. The photo was submitted to TIME magazine; it was subsequently selected by TIME website viewers as the top photo of 2005, receiving nearly 70% of the vote. In 2006, the image created controversy when it was used by a Hachette Filipacchi Médias’ publication, Shock magazine, in a context that was critical of the war in Iraq. Yon felt this usage of the photo both dishonored US troops and breached his copyright. He contacted his lawyers and agreed with Hachette Filipacchi that he would be paid a licensing fee, with the majority of proceeds going to a charity supporting US military families. On June 9, 2006, the agreement appears to have collapsed, with Yon alleging further misuse of the image by Hachette Filipacchi at its Shock web site."

Wanted to alert everyone to Tyler Hicks' article dealing with the controversy that erupted after a photo-editor mis-captioned one of his photographs from Lebanon in July. Due to the captioning snafu, Hicks was accused by some bloggers of staging a scene of destruction. Here's the last bit of his write-up: “We will see more of this kind of blogging activity in the future, and it should be welcomed, but it should be understood that things aren’t always as they appear on the surface. I recently heard that editors at a major news photo agency sent my photograph to their photographers as a warning to be sure to write correct and complete captions. Here’s an example of taking what’s read on a random blog with no credibility as fact instead of cross referencing that information with the photographer or organization directly involved. In this case, it was a mistake made by an editor. Had this photo agency searched beyond a Google-discovered blog, the editors there might have learned that their memo should have gone out to themselves, not the photographers.

Integrity and honesty are invaluable assets in this business. I have always made it my priority to maintain these to the highest standard, and will continue to do so.”