Category: Trainers and panelists

Also in 2013 following another of Meirion’s investigations Jim McCormick was jailed for 10 years for selling $85 million worth of bogus bomb detectors to Baghdad – and probably causing the deaths of 1,000 Iraqis. Meirion’s Newsnight reports on oil trader Trafigura’s illegal dumping of toxic waste in Africa won the Daniel Pearl International Award for Investigative Journalism in 2010. A series of films on Vulture Funds led to these extortionate law suits being banned in Britain. Meirion has investigated everything from the fixing of the 2000 US election, to how Britain helped Israel get the atom bomb, from corrupt politicians to fake cures for AIDS. He has also made films in Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro. He currently works for BBC Panorama. 

He has worked for a number of organisations, including the IREX Kosovo media programme, the public relations office of the ministry of communities, and helped to launch the TV station Kohavision.

He is the current director of Internews Kosova, which is a member of Internews International.

Ispahiu is also one of the founders and a manager of the International theatre festival Kosova InFest – the main theatre event in Kosovo.

Ispahiu is TV director and executive producer of the BIRN-organised debates Life in Kosovo.

He was also a finalist for the Pulitzer in public service in 1992. He has published one book, Tankers Full of Trouble, which won the Investigative Reporters and Editors book award for 1994. He has taught interviewing and investigative reporting workshops in five countries, each year adding new techniques learned from journalists, cops, FBI agents, lawyers, social workers and other practitioners. Retired in January and working on another book, he was a journalist for 42 years, last serving as national investigative reporter for the Hearst Newspapers chain (Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, etc). Always based in the Seattle area, his stories have exposed corruption in politics, the legal profession, government agencies, financial institutions, police departments, businesses and sports. He has also examined the dereliction and loopholes that led to massive oil spills, pipeline explosions and oil well disasters. He previously worked for the Seattle Times, Seattle Post Intelligencer and San Jose Mercury News. His jobs usually included investigative team leadership.  He lived during his youth in Norway, France, Lebanon and Afghanistan.

In 2000, after being transferred to central directorate for criminal police in Rome, he was appointed chief of the transnational crime Organisation section of the central operational service of the Italian National Police. In 2004, he was appointed chief of the narcotics section of the central service.

In September 2004, he was appointed liaison officer for the Italian National Police in Washington D.C. in the United States.

In February 2008, he was assigned to the Squadra Mobile (criminal investigative squad) of the Questura of Milan as deputy chief and chief of the narcotics section.

In October 2011, he was promoted and assigned to the Questura of Bari as chief of the Squadra Mobile.

Dyfvermark has been working in radio, TV and film since 1996, first as a news reporter and later as investigative reporter and host on “Kalla Fakta” TV4, before working for Swedish Television.

In March 2011, Ahmeti was elected President of the Board of Association of Professional Journalists of Kosovo, APJK, which is the largest media and journalist organization in Kosovo.  Recently, APJK led a journalist and media protest against Kosovo’s new penal codes that were approved by Kosovo’s parliament.  According to the controversial articles 37 and 38, journalists can be held criminally liable and obliged to reveal their sources.

Following threats received after he wrote articles on organised crime in 2008 he was placed under 24 hr police protection. Although his life was in danger, Hrvoje Appelt was fired by his employer. Today, he is an independent investigative journalist.

http://www.appeltreport.com/

His bestselling book, Adrift in Caledonia: Boat-hitching for the Unenlightened, is the story of his 2500-mile journey around Scotland on other people’s boats. It was published by Little Brown and serialised on BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week programme in March 2006.

Eight Men and a Duck, his critically-acclaimed first book, recounts his voyage to Easter Island by reed boat and was published by Abacus in 2003. He is currently working on a new book called Relax or Die: Adventures in the Lost Art of Letting Go, due for publication in 2011.

Born in 1970, Nick grew up near London but moved to Scotland more than 15 years ago. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and young son. His obsessions include Six Feet Under, the meaning of existence and things that float.

http://www.nickthorpe.co.uk

2001-2004: Advisor for the Balkan Südosteuropäischer Dialog, magazine, Vienna and Kulturzentrum, Vienna

2000- 2001: Director of Balkan Südosteuropäischer Dialog, magazine, and Kulturzentrum, Vienna

2000: Vujovic founded Balkan Point – Independent SEE Research and News Service  on www.balkanpoint.org

1998-1999: Product manager in Henkel CEE in the Vienna headquarter and responsible for marketing in the new founded company Henkel Yugoslavia (as Director)

1994-1997: Querleser Wien Correspondent for South East Europe

1991- 2000: Correspondent of the Austrian daily Die Presse in Belgrade The Belgrade Federal Minister of Information decided to recall his accreditation, and Oliver Vujovic reported between 1994 – 1997 from Skopje ( Macedonia) and Szeged (Hungary), also using the pseudonym David Fatschel

1991 – Independent Consultant, Event Manager and  Business Researcher. Also independent advisor for Public Relations and Business Developments. Cooperation with companies in Austria, Germany,  Switzerland and in South East Europe

1989 – 1991: Radio B92, Belgrade

1988 – 1989: Radio Index, Belgrade

1988 – 2000: Freelancer in South East Europe for media in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavian countries and UK. He published also articles in several print media in South East Europe.

Vujovic had in this period as journalist / correspondent over 400 interviews with leading persons in South East Europe, and he published in total over 3500 different articles in print media.

He graduated economics (public relations). Today he works on his PhD.

Editor, co-editor,  author or co-author in  books, publications, research articles and magazines. He is  editor of the SEEMO Media Handbook (annual publication) and publisher of the De Scripto magazine. Some of publications were he was the editor are: Guide for Investigative Reporters, Investigative Reporting in SEE etc. 

Contact: public-department@balkanpoint.org

Link to www.seemo.org