It’s pretty thrilling to discover someone you know doing amazing work. I went to elementary school with Bryan Denton, a photojournalist working for the New York Times. He has some great photos accompanying this front page article about attacks on U.S. soldiers by their Afghani trainees.

He was also featured last year on the NYTimes Lens blog:

Q: You returned to Misurata after Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington were killed there. Why?
A: It was hard. I had this knot of dread in my stomach the entire time we were on the boat on our way back to Misurata. I had a lot of confidence in the way Chris [Chivers] and I were working and moving around the city, but more than any other moment on this assignment, I seriously considered the prospect of getting hurt or killed.

Link

This story from Financial Times in November seems to have swapped in a new photo, so it’s fortunate that I saved a copy of this one to my hard drive. I was reminded of it after hearing this morning that the Dutch coalition government has collapsed over its Afghanistan withdrawal.

The Dutch have gone to considerable lengths to gain the confidence of locals with carefully calibrated patrolling of the province. “We recently started doing patrols on bicycles in Tarin Kowt,” said a senior Dutch official. “The population was surprised but they reacted positively. It is much easier to come into contact with people on a bicycle than sitting on a Bushmaster [protected mobility vehicle].”

Link