Journalists at The National have won two international awards for the quality of the videos on the paper’s website.
The results of a new monthly media contest by the National Press Photographers Association were announced on Wednesday.
The National won first and third places in the video category.
Deepthi Unnikrishnan, Razan Alzayani and Paul Driscoll's three-part video on financial debt problems suffered by Indian expatriates in the UAE, The Debt Cycle, won first place.
Driscoll's video on the fight to curb shark finning in the Arabian Gulf was third.
“Of the four awards I’ve received while working at The National, the one I’m most pleased about is this shark-conservation story,” said Driscoll.
“This is because this is real journalism and an important issue in this region, especially considering that the UAE is one of the top exporters of shark fins to South East Asia.
“Regulation is lacking and so more awareness about the dwindling numbers and unsustainable fishing methods is a good thing.”
The runner-up was photojournalist Jay Dunn for his video on a day in the life of an artist.
The contest is open to photojournalists who make multimedia content and are members of the association.
Based in the United States, the association was founded in 1946 and has more than 6,500 members.
Journalists at The National have won six multimedia awards from the association so far. They have twice won first place, taken second place twice and secured third place once in the multimedia contest category. They also took third place in the multimedia project category.
The categories are audio slideshow, a series of photos accompanied by music or natural sounds; video made expressly for the web; and multimedia project, which can include several videos, audio slideshows or both, as well as Flash interactive projects.
Winners are chosen based on votes from the association’s members.
The National's Sound and Vision section is available at www.thenational.ae/multimedia.
newsdesk@thenational.ae
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
