From an observation post in an abandoned shopping mall, Staff Sergeant Matthew St. Pierre gazes across the Sunni heartland of West Baghdad. The sprawl beneath him shelters insurgents, including Al-Qaeda, as well as ordinary Iraqi families, traumatized, terrified and angry after more than four years of war.

It has been a tough day.

The debate in Washington over the war, mirrors one among troops on the ground.

“We’ve talked at length, my soldiers and myself,” says St. Pierre, “and the term that comes up often is that this is our generation’s Vietnam.”

It is noon. Already that day, St Pierre’s patrol of Humvee vehicles had been narrowly missed by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack. Just an hour earlier they had driven into an ambush.

A massive explosion flowered metres in front of St Pierre’s lead vehicle. A second one followed moments later to the rear. They were bombs buried in the road, so-called IEDs, the main weapon of choice for insurgents and the primary killer of US troops.

Through small arms fire, St Pierre, 24, had led his patrol back to this observation post.

Now he is in a reflective mood.

“I don’t think this can be won,” he says. “We’re caught in the middle of a civil war.”

He says morale among U.S. combat troops is still good. Some Iraqis, fearful of their neighbors’ reaction, have whispered to him that they want the Americans to stay. But, he says, that’s not most of them.

“I think the majority is going to want us to leave and when we do pull out you’re going to hear cheering in the streets.”

He feels most for the Iraqis who have supported the United States.

“They’re the ones that are going to feel the wrath. They’re going to suffer, “ he says. “The people who are against us – and I think that’s the majority – they’re going to ultimately win.”

Staff Sergeant St. Pierre, a six-year army veteran, has spent two of the last three years in Iraq. He is due to leave in early 2008. He says his great regret is that for all the lives lost the United States will leave Iraq in a worse state than it found it.

That “doesn’t make me feel good as an American.”

-- From Hugh Riminton, CNN International Anchor/Correspondent

There was a time in my life as a cameraman in the Moscow bureau when I would see Yeltsin quite often, at least a couple of times a month. He was big and burly. He was a large presence, a force to contend with, but also he liked to have fun and at times that meant he was okay with looking like a buffoon. As a cameraman that made him entertaining to shoot. I saw him most often in 1994 and early 1995- I would often get sent into the Kremlin to shoot whatever meeting or photo-op Yeltsin had going. As just a kid from Elmhurst, Illinois, It was always a thrill to walk inside the Kremlin all by myself (they often only allowed one person per TV news team) to shoot the pictures for CNN. The first time I got to see Queen Elizabeth was one of those times when she met with Yeltsin in one of its most beautiful and grandest halls.

My career in the Moscow bureau was tied to the events that Yeltsin was involved in whether he was spearheading or just trying to keep in control of events as they happened.

I arrived to fill-in at the Moscow bureau for a couple of months in early 1991. One of the very first stories I worked on during that time was the inauguration of Yeltsin as the first democratically elected Russian President. I was also there at the end of 1991 as Yeltsin forced Gorbachev’s hand to resign as the Leader of the USSR and bring about the end of the Soviet Union. Shortly thereafter the freefall of the Rouble brought these changes home to millions of Russians. I moved to the Big Potato (Moscow) in early 1992 and stayed until 1996 covering all the business stories, war zones, feature stories and terrorist stories in between. I left shortly after Yeltsin got himself re-elected in 1996 even though he was very ill with heart problems. At the time I had the feeling that the arc of the Russian story had changed and in many ways it had, after Yeltsin got re-elected he never had as much energy as he had in his first term.

Watching the pictures of Yeltsin climbing up on the tank in 1991, being played on TV today reminds me of a few of the old CNN Moscow cameramen’s favorite Yeltsin stories.

Those pictures on CNN of Yeltsin climbing the tank were shot by another CNN Moscow Cameraman Michael Johnson. As Yeltsin was leaving the Russian “White House” towards the tank, Michael was walking backwards shooting him. Michael and another cameraman tripped over each other and the viewfinder on Michael’s camera broke. Consequently, Michael shot all the pictures of Yeltsin on the tank without being able to see the pictures. He was shooting it blind. They are still amazing pictures even more amazing when you know the background. Michael left Moscow years ago and now shoots steadicam in LA for shows like “The Ghost Whisperer” and “Desperate Housewives”. But I bet he is spending this week remembering his times with Yeltsin in Moscow.

One of the other Moscow cameramen was a huge guy named Hugh Williams. Yeltsin was big and burly… but Hugh was even bigger. One time when Yeltsin was at the opening of the second McDonald’s in Moscow, Hugh and I were there to cover it. Yeltsin’s bodyguards started pushing us back as Yeltsin shook hands with some of the crowd, but when Yeltsin saw Hugh with a camera towering over him- he gave him a look. A bemused look that Hugh and I took to mean that he was not use to seeing people who had a bigger presence than him. Hugh is now living In Australia- but I know that he too is thinking about his days in Moscow.

My closest Yeltsin encounter- was after Yeltsin had suffered his second Heart attack and had heart surgery in late 1996. I was back in Moscow covering his illness. Yeltsin hadn’t been seen in quite a long while as he recuperated at a sanatorium outside Moscow. I seem to remember nearly two months went by when he wasn’t seen. The call came in… we were to do pool camera shooting Yeltsin with a cameraman from a Russian TV station. I got to go. It was just me and a Russian cameraman. Nobody knew what he looked like. Thoughts of propaganda of Chernenko sick in Hospital being filmed voting so that it looked like he wasn’t ill and in hospital flashed through my mind. We were ushered into a room and there was Yeltsin, who smiled and talked to us briefly for a few minutes. Just he, a doctor, an advisor, a Russian cameraman, and I, the only American, were in the room and Yeltsin was focused on us the two cameramen. He looked thinner but healthier than we had seen him be in a while. When we were told we were done, and we were walking out, I saw Naina, his wife in a side room. She looked very apprehensive and very nervous as to how it had gone and how her husband had faired. To me, that struck home. While the world was looking to see how Yeltsin was doing for the news value and his effectiveness in running the country, she was living with how he was doing for herself. When I got back to the bureau- everyone wanted to know-‘How did he look?’ ‘What did he say?’ We put the pictures out as quickly as we could knowing the world wanted to see them.

From the West’s view, Gorbachev was always the soft, cuddly, intellectual leader of the Soviet Union and Yeltsin always seemed more a man of the people, brash, bold… a Russian Bear. It is still up to the history books to see how they will be remembered and perhaps they are exactly what they needed at the time when they served, but in meeting them both I can tell you that how they came across on TV is exactly how they came across in person as well.

Russia lost a big figure in its history - a Russian Bear - one who makes me miss my days in Moscow when everything was changing so very quickly than it seems today.

-- From Todd Baxter, CNN Chief Photographer/Video Producer, London

It is now six weeks since the BBC’s Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston was kidnapped. Six weeks. And still, after all that time, we know almost nothing about who kidnapped Alan, why he was kidnapped, or what their demands are.

Last week a previously unknown group, the Brigades of Tawheed (Monotheism) and Jihad, claimed it had killed Alan. Since then we’ve heard Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas say his security officials have information indicating the claim was false. My sources in Gaza say the same. I hope they're right.

In the meantime, the Saudi-backed London Arabic daily, Asharq Al-Awsat, has published a report that Alan’s kidnappers want $5 million for his release.

The fact is, after six weeks we hardly know more about Alan’s abduction than we did the day he disappeared on March 12.

What is clear is that all the old rules of Gaza kidnappings have been broken. Before Alan, the longest kidnapping there was two weeks, when a correspondent and cameraman working for the US satellite network, Fox, were abducted.

Gaza has now become a no-go zone for foreign reporters, according to the Jerusalem-based Foreign Press Association (FPA). This Wednesday, the FPA will organise a rally at the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza to call for Alan’s release. Two weeks ago, the BBC enlisted its rivals in international news broadcasting, CNN, Sky, ITN and Jazeera English, to take part in a joint programme for the same purpose.

But the kidnappers, whoever they may be, aren’t watching.

Not that people in Gaza are indifferent to Alan’s plight. Quite to the contrary. A group of his friends in Gaza have set up a web page (www.free-alan.com) where messages of support for Alan are posted. Alan’s Palestinian friends and colleagues in Gaza recently gathered at the Palestinian Legislative Council to protest the Palestinian Authority’s failure to win his freedom. Scuffles broke out with the police and several of the journalists were beaten. Palestinian journalists in Gaza, and ordinary Gazans, realise as long as Alan is held captive, coverage of Gaza by international news organisations will be drastically cut back.

Many people there I speak with have a list of suspects they believe may have a hand in Alan’s abduction. The list includes prominent clans and prominent politicians, some well known to me. I won’t name them simply because there is no hard evidence indicating where guilt truly lies.

But I do fear Gaza is gradually becoming the latest addition to a list of territories and countries where westerners are no longer safe, like Somalia, like Iraq (outside the so-called Green Zone and the Kurdish north), like much of Afghanistan, etc.

Many in Gaza will tell you they feel the world has turned its back on them. It began with the collapse of the Middle East peace process in September 2000 and was finalised when Palestinians voted Hamas into office in January 2006. The Bush administration and the European Union cut off financial assistance to the now-Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority, and boycotted it diplomatically. In the meantime, they’ve thrown their lot behind the politically weakened president, Mahmoud Abbas, who is widely seen as an American puppet.

If the world has turned its back on Gaza, those holding Alan, it seems, have decided to turn their backs on the world.

-- From Ben Wedeman, CNN International Correspondent

CNN is following the work of three French bloggers on the night of the presidential elections. You can read their blogs here:

Loic Le Meur

Gilles Klein

Hugues Serraf

Sarkozy on horseback.

"It’s like a reality show, whoever gets the highest rating wins," says a young man delivering tables and chairs to CNN’s French election headquarters.

"Do you think your candidate will win?" I ask him.

"Frankly, whether my candidate wins or not, it’s all the same. It’s up to us to change things, not the politicians."

He likened this election to a popular TV program in France called "Star Academy," in which aspiring singers share a house, are filmed day and night and eliminated until a final winner emerges.

Skepticism I’ve heard often in France from those who vote with little conviction that a new generation of leaders will mark a break with the past; and the cynics add that personality has become more important than policies and reform proposals in what been called the "People-ization" of politics.

France often prides itself on being different to America in the way it selects its leaders. French people say they don’t care about their politicians’ private lives and that their political programs are more important than the clothes they wear.

But this election has changed all that: Socialist candidate Segolene Royal’s wardrobe has been dissected throughout the campaign; conservative Nicolas Sarkozy set up a "photo op" on horseback on the last day of the official campaign; centrist Francois Bayrou wants voters to know he is a man close to farmers and agricultural France. Image, this time around it seems, is as important as campaign promises. This year, it pays to be telegenic.

Candidates are hoping to cash in on the highest number of newly registered voters in a quarter century. Young people, brought up on a steady diet of fast food and reality television could tilt the balance one way or the other in a very close and suspenseful race. Who will they vote for? Not necessarily to the left, according to some polls.

But in the last few minutes we’ve learned turnout is stronger in the first four hours
of the vote than in any of the last four presidential races. Analysts say that normally favors the left.

In the era of "Star Academy," a surprise can be a vote away.

From Hala Gorani, CNN International Anchor/Correspondent

Posted by In The Field Online Producers: 11:10 AM

0 Comments Add a comment

Surrounded by wires: J.J. Eynon (left) and Rodney Herbert.

I always marvel at the hundreds of wires involved in putting a live broadcast on the air. The cables come in many sizes and all colors. Some are plugged into machines whose exact function is a mystery to me. Some come out of cameras and television monitors. Others are secured to the floor with thick yellow tape. Anchors and guests tripping on cables on the way to the live shot position is something we all want to avoid.

At CNN’s French campaign headquarters, a Paris terrace with beautiful views of the Eiffel Tower, what you see on the air and what you would see if the camera turned a just a few degrees one way or the other – or tilted down to the floor - is an entirely different picture.

We share small tables, we eat chips and sandwiches at our laptop computers, we tape guest lists to the walls, phones ring and producers shout across the workspace. Then there are the dozens of boxes for the mountains of TV equipment we need to put any field show on the air.

I ask CNN engineer J.J. Eynon to describe two big black boxes hooked up to dozens of cables. I see him sitting in front of those boxes almost all day so I assume they’re important.

"What is that? That thing you’re sitting in front of?" I ask.

"What thing?"

"Those two big black boxes. Those things."

He enunciates clearly and separates each syllable.

"That is the flyaway," he replies. "The FLY-A-WAAAY."

Our satellite dish.

With the flyaway, we’re able to transmit video and sound via a satellite dish. Oops, I knew that.

J.J. adds that the dish is "one-point-nine meters and that’s quite big." I believe him.

We’ve left nothing to chance: We have two live cameras and a studio designed to accommodate an anchor position and two guests.

We will be live at 1800GMT for the results and all evening with important decision-makers and political analysts. Our Jim Bittermann and Robin Oakley will be live at campaign headquarters.

After the results, we will be going down to street level and broadcast live reaction to the vote.

The multi-colored wires and cables will be put to good use.

From Hala Gorani, CNN International Anchor/Correspondent

Posted by In The Field Online Producers: 5:20 AM

0 Comments Add a comment