News Roundup Archive

Thursday, February 28, 2013

USIP's Science, Technology & Peacebuilding Roundup

 

United States Institute of Peace

 

Center of Innovation: Science, Technology and Peacebuilding

Weekly News Roundup, February 21 - 27, 2013

Table of Contents

**Click here to subscribe to USIP's Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding News Roundup,
which includes a special section on Internet and social media.**


Forest Whitaker's Non-Profit Thinks Tech Will Bring Peace to Africa
PeaceEarth, a digital-first project, aims to create a network of "peace builders" by educating youth in war-torn areas across the world on the topic of conflict resolution. More specifically, it strives to teach how technology and new communication tools can be used to promote a global message of well-being. It was founded by actor and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Forest Whitaker.
See the full article (Mashable, Eric Larson, 2/27/13)
[Return to top]

Killer SMS: Incitement and the Kenyan Elections
Mass atrocities don't just occur, they have to be organized and promoted. These days they can be instigated by something as simple as a text message or tweet. In the aftermath of the 2007/8 conflagration four Kenyans were indicted by the International Criminal Court for directing the violence. Text messages about "stolen elections" and calling on one group or another to "terminate" or "exterminate" ethnic rivals were widely circulated.
See the full article (Huffington Post, Simon Adams, 2/26/13)
[Return to top]

Stuxnet Missing Link Found, Resolves Some Mysteries Around the Cyberweapon
As Iran met in Kazakhstan this week with members of the UN Security Council to discuss its nuclear program, researchers announced that a new variant of the sophisticated cyberweapon known as Stuxnet had been found, which predates other known versions of the malicious code that were reportedly unleashed by the U.S. and Israel several years ago in an attempt to sabotage Iran's nuclear program.
See the full article (Wired, Kim Zetter, 2/26/13)
[Return to top]

Fearing Election Turmoil, Kenyans Seek a Tech Solution
As Kenya prepares for a presidential election next Monday, it's trying to prevent a recurrence of the last such poll, in December 2007, when more than 1,000 people were killed in postelection violence. Last time, technology helped incite that violence. This time, the hope is that technology will help prevent a similar outburst.
See the full article (NPR, Gregory Warner, 2/25/13)
[Return to top]

Israel Says It Successfully Tests New Missile Defense
Israel carried out a successful test of its upgraded Arrow interceptor system on Monday, which is designed to destroy in space the kind of missiles held by Syria and Iran. The U.S.-backed Arrow III system deploys "kamikaze" satellites that target ballistic missiles above the earth's atmosphere, hitting them high enough to allow for any non-conventional warheads to disintegrate safely.
See the full article (Reuters, Dan Williams, 2/25/13)
[Return to top]

Foreigners To North Korea to Get Uncensored 3G
Foreign visitors going to North Korea will be able to receive uncensored 3G data starting March 1. According to the AP, services typically banned like Twitter and Skype will be available on Koryolink's network. North Koreans are blocked from the global Web, and only allowed some 3G services, such as MMS messaging and subscriptions to the state-run paper, Rodong Sinmun. Calls to foreign numbers are also blocked.
See the full article (TechCrunch, Victoria Ho, 2/24/13)
[Return to top]

Iran's First Encounter with 3G Technology Chastised by Fatwa
Four grand ayatollahs issued a fatwa that strips Iran's third mobile phone operator from its rights to use a new 3G mobile internet operator. The fatwa was issued towards Iran's mobile service provider, Rightel, which enables customers to use video calling and multi-media messaging technology. The service uses 3G technology which is Iranian's first encounter with telecommunication expansion.
See the full article (Al Arabiya, 2/22/13)
[Return to top]

New Drone Base in Niger Builds U.S. Presence in Africa
Opening a new front in the drone wars against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, President Obama announced on Friday that about 100 American troops had been sent to Niger in West Africa to help set up a new base from which unarmed Predator aircraft would conduct surveillance in the region. The new base is an indication of the priority Africa has become in American antiterrorism efforts.
See the full article (New York Times, Eric Schmitt and Scott Sayare, 2/22/13) *NYT sign-up may be required to view the full article
[Return to top]

Click here to subscribe to USIP's Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding News Roundup,
which includes a special section on Internet and social media.

Did we miss anything?

 

 


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USIP's Media, Conflict & Peacebuilding Roundup

 

United States Institute of Peace

 

Center of Innovation: Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding

Weekly News Roundup, February 21 - 27, 2013

Media and Journalism

Internet and Social Media

What's New from PeaceMedia

**Click here to subscribe to USIP's Science, Technology and Peacebuilding News Roundup.**


Media and Journalism

Zimbabwe Authorities Seize Radios, Mobile Receivers
Journalists and human rights lawyers in Zimbabwe said they are worried by authorities' seizure of radios and mobile equipment that receive stations other than the state-controlled broadcaster. The development comes as the African country prepares for a constitutional referendum in March and elections later in the year.
See the full article (Voice of America, Sebastian Mhofu, 2/26/13)
[Return to top]

Increasing Cyberattacks Threaten Free Press in Burma
Cyberattacks on news websites and apparent government hacking into journalists' email accounts have raised new questions about the integrity of media reforms in Burma. The New York Times reported earlier this month that several journalists who regularly cover Burma-related news recently received warning messages from Google that their email accounts may have been hacked by "state-sponsored attackers."
See the full article (PBS, Shawn Crispin, 2/25/13)
[Return to top]

Bangladeshi Journalists Attacked
At least 18 journalists were injured in Bangladesh on Friday when Islamist activists attacked them in separate incidents in three cities. In Dhaka, the capital, 10 journalists were taken to hospital after being assaulted in a series of clashes outside a mosque. Anti-Islamist blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider been covering the street demonstrations held to demand that Islamist leaders guilty of war crimes during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence against Pakistan should be tried.
See the full article (Guardian, Roy Greenslade, 2/25/13)
[Return to top]

Photoactivist Seeking End to Kenya's Tribal Tensions
As a photographer for one of Kenya's national daily newspapers, Boniface Mwangi captured extraordinary images of the violence Kenyans unleashed on each other, following the disputed presidential elections in 2007. Traumatized by witnessing the daily atrocities and depressed by the state of Kenyan politics he turned his talents to activism, setting up a creative space for activists called Pawa 254.
See the full article (BBC, Chris Parkinson, 2/25/13)
[Return to top]

Syria Citizen Journalists Wonder if Guns Trump Cameras
Citizen journalists in Syria do much to give the world a picture of the death and destruction in their country. "We are the eyes of the world," says Kinda, the only woman among 10 people working round the clock in a media centre in the eastern oil hub of Deir Ezzor, laid waste by months of intense combat between rebels and troops of President Bashar al-Assad. "Without us, the world would not know what is happening... because no Western news media has dared come here," she said.
See the full article (AFP, Jose Rodriguez, 2/24/13)
[Return to top]

It's Tough to be a Reporter in a War Zone, for Both Men and Women
War has always been serious and deadly. It has always involved refined and developed machinery that becomes more precise as battles wage on. Anyone with a sense of nuance knows the only place war is a battlefield with infantrymen is on a board with a toy set. It's a mistake to portray female correspondents as more inexperienced or prone to being attacked.
See the full article (Atlantic, Jamie Tarabay, 2/23/13)
[Return to top]

Iran Targets BBC Persian Service by Jamming Signals and Harassing Staff
Staff at the BBC's Persian service face satellite jamming, smear campaigns and intimidation, says Peter Horrocks, director of the BBC World Service. In an article for Index on Censorship, he reveals that Iran's interference with the BBC's signals started in 2009 at the time of Iran's presidential election. Jamming began on election day and continued in the aftermath of the election during the street protests.
See the full article (Guardian, Roy Greenslade, 2/22/13)
[Return to top]

The Missing Journalists of Syria's War: The Struggle to Save Those Who Bear Witness
At least a few hundred journalists crossed into Syria last year to cover what has now become a wrenching civil war that has left tens of thousands of Syrians dead, forced hundreds of thousands more into neighboring countries and displaced millions within their own borders. Today, a press freedom initiative called "A Day Without News?" launched with the goals of highlighting the extreme risks taken by journalists who choose to cover armed conflict around the world.
See the full article (TIME, 2/22/13)
[Return to top]

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Plays Out in Oscar Docs
"5 Broken Cameras" details the struggles of Burnat, a Palestinian father of four, and his neighbors in the village of Bil'in who, when they aren't farming the land, are practicing nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. Burnat, 41, films the bulldozers, then the wall, the settlers moving in, the Israeli soldiers, a friend being killed by those soldiers, olive trees set afire at night in retaliation for the protests.
See the full article (ABC News, Nancy Ramsey, 2/21/13)
[Return to top]

 

Internet and Social Media

The New Westphalian Web
Information has always been power, and governments have long sought to control it. So for countries where power is a tightly controlled narrative, parsed by state television and radio stations, the Internet has been catastrophic. Its global, decentralized networks of information-sharing have routed around censorship. It gives people an outlet to publish what the media cannot, organize where organizing is forbidden, and revolt where protest is unknown.
See the full article (Foreign Policy, Katherine Maher, 2/25/13) *Foreign Policy sign-up may be required to view the full article
[Return to top] | [Return to section]

The Readers' Editor On... Interpreting Social Media Reports from Egypt
As violence returned to [Egypt's] Tahrir square last autumn, social media were once again the forum for every side to rally support and lay out their version of events. Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are the weapons of choice in the war to win hearts and minds. But it can be a bewildering tide of data for even the most perceptive and experienced observers.
See the full article (Guardian, Chris Elliott, 2/24/13)
Click to read "http://www.usip.org/publications/egypt-s-2012-constitution" a USIP Peace Brief by Holger Albrecht.
[Return to top] | [Return to section]

War Correspondents' in Mexico Address Mainstream Media Shortcomings, Use Twitter to Spread Information
In Mexico's drug-war-torn cities, a small number of Twitter users affected by narco violence are acting as war correspondents to the masses, providing a public-safety alert system of sorts, according to a recent research paper from Microsoft, called "The New War Correspondents: The Rise of Civic Media Curation in Urban Warfare." These "curators" "produce an inordinately high number of tweets compared to other users, informing people about recent violence, clashes and other news.
See the full article (TechCrunch, Sarah Ines Calderon, 2/22/13)
[Return to top] | [Return to section]

 

What's New from PeaceMedia

"Change" - EME
To the sound of EME's new youth anthem "Change," Banky W, WizKid and other top Nigerian artists and civil society leaders urge Naija youth to get up, get out and participate in the democratic process.
See the full video
[Return to top]

Click here to subscribe to USIP's Science, Technology and Peacebuilding News Roundup.

Did we miss anything?

 

 


Share this: FacebookDeliciousDiggMySpaceStumbleUponGoogleMicrosoftYahoo! BookmarksLinkedIn| Forward this to a Friend

 

 

USIP's Media, Conflict & Peacebuilding Roundup

United States Institute of Peace

 

Center of Innovation: Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding

Weekly News Roundup, February 21 - 27, 2013

Media and Journalism

Internet and Social Media

What's New from PeaceMedia

**Click here to subscribe to USIP's Science, Technology and Peacebuilding News Roundup.**


Media and Journalism

Zimbabwe Authorities Seize Radios, Mobile Receivers
Journalists and human rights lawyers in Zimbabwe said they are worried by authorities' seizure of radios and mobile equipment that receive stations other than the state-controlled broadcaster. The development comes as the African country prepares for a constitutional referendum in March and elections later in the year.
See the full article (Voice of America, Sebastian Mhofu, 2/26/13)
[Return to top]

Increasing Cyberattacks Threaten Free Press in Burma
Cyberattacks on news websites and apparent government hacking into journalists' email accounts have raised new questions about the integrity of media reforms in Burma. The New York Times reported earlier this month that several journalists who regularly cover Burma-related news recently received warning messages from Google that their email accounts may have been hacked by "state-sponsored attackers."
See the full article (PBS, Shawn Crispin, 2/25/13)
[Return to top]

Bangladeshi Journalists Attacked
At least 18 journalists were injured in Bangladesh on Friday when Islamist activists attacked them in separate incidents in three cities. In Dhaka, the capital, 10 journalists were taken to hospital after being assaulted in a series of clashes outside a mosque. Anti-Islamist blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider been covering the street demonstrations held to demand that Islamist leaders guilty of war crimes during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence against Pakistan should be tried.
See the full article (Guardian, Roy Greenslade, 2/25/13)
[Return to top]

Photoactivist Seeking End to Kenya's Tribal Tensions
As a photographer for one of Kenya's national daily newspapers, Boniface Mwangi captured extraordinary images of the violence Kenyans unleashed on each other, following the disputed presidential elections in 2007. Traumatized by witnessing the daily atrocities and depressed by the state of Kenyan politics he turned his talents to activism, setting up a creative space for activists called Pawa 254.
See the full article (BBC, Chris Parkinson, 2/25/13)
[Return to top]

Syria Citizen Journalists Wonder if Guns Trump Cameras
Citizen journalists in Syria do much to give the world a picture of the death and destruction in their country. "We are the eyes of the world," says Kinda, the only woman among 10 people working round the clock in a media centre in the eastern oil hub of Deir Ezzor, laid waste by months of intense combat between rebels and troops of President Bashar al-Assad. "Without us, the world would not know what is happening... because no Western news media has dared come here," she said.
See the full article (AFP, Jose Rodriguez, 2/24/13)
[Return to top]

It's Tough to be a Reporter in a War Zone, for Both Men and Women
War has always been serious and deadly. It has always involved refined and developed machinery that becomes more precise as battles wage on. Anyone with a sense of nuance knows the only place war is a battlefield with infantrymen is on a board with a toy set. It's a mistake to portray female correspondents as more inexperienced or prone to being attacked.
See the full article (Atlantic, Jamie Tarabay, 2/23/13)
[Return to top]

Iran Targets BBC Persian Service by Jamming Signals and Harassing Staff
Staff at the BBC's Persian service face satellite jamming, smear campaigns and intimidation, says Peter Horrocks, director of the BBC World Service. In an article for Index on Censorship, he reveals that Iran's interference with the BBC's signals started in 2009 at the time of Iran's presidential election. Jamming began on election day and continued in the aftermath of the election during the street protests.
See the full article (Guardian, Roy Greenslade, 2/22/13)
[Return to top]

The Missing Journalists of Syria's War: The Struggle to Save Those Who Bear Witness
At least a few hundred journalists crossed into Syria last year to cover what has now become a wrenching civil war that has left tens of thousands of Syrians dead, forced hundreds of thousands more into neighboring countries and displaced millions within their own borders. Today, a press freedom initiative called "A Day Without News?" launched with the goals of highlighting the extreme risks taken by journalists who choose to cover armed conflict around the world.
See the full article (TIME, 2/22/13)
[Return to top]

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Plays Out in Oscar Docs
"5 Broken Cameras" details the struggles of Burnat, a Palestinian father of four, and his neighbors in the village of Bil'in who, when they aren't farming the land, are practicing nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. Burnat, 41, films the bulldozers, then the wall, the settlers moving in, the Israeli soldiers, a friend being killed by those soldiers, olive trees set afire at night in retaliation for the protests.
See the full article (ABC News, Nancy Ramsey, 2/21/13)
[Return to top]

 

Internet and Social Media

The New Westphalian Web
Information has always been power, and governments have long sought to control it. So for countries where power is a tightly controlled narrative, parsed by state television and radio stations, the Internet has been catastrophic. Its global, decentralized networks of information-sharing have routed around censorship. It gives people an outlet to publish what the media cannot, organize where organizing is forbidden, and revolt where protest is unknown.
See the full article (Foreign Policy, Katherine Maher, 2/25/13) *Foreign Policy sign-up may be required to view the full article
[Return to top] | [Return to section]

The Readers' Editor On... Interpreting Social Media Reports from Egypt
As violence returned to [Egypt's] Tahrir square last autumn, social media were once again the forum for every side to rally support and lay out their version of events. Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are the weapons of choice in the war to win hearts and minds. But it can be a bewildering tide of data for even the most perceptive and experienced observers.
See the full article (Guardian, Chris Elliott, 2/24/13)
Click to read "http://www.usip.org/publications/egypt-s-2012-constitution" a USIP Peace Brief by Holger Albrecht.
[Return to top] | [Return to section]

War Correspondents' in Mexico Address Mainstream Media Shortcomings, Use Twitter to Spread Information
In Mexico's drug-war-torn cities, a small number of Twitter users affected by narco violence are acting as war correspondents to the masses, providing a public-safety alert system of sorts, according to a recent research paper from Microsoft, called "The New War Correspondents: The Rise of Civic Media Curation in Urban Warfare." These "curators" "produce an inordinately high number of tweets compared to other users, informing people about recent violence, clashes and other news.
See the full article (TechCrunch, Sarah Ines Calderon, 2/22/13)
[Return to top] | [Return to section]

 

What's New from PeaceMedia

"Change" - EME
To the sound of EME's new youth anthem "Change," Banky W, WizKid and other top Nigerian artists and civil society leaders urge Naija youth to get up, get out and participate in the democratic process.
See the full video
[Return to top]

Click here to subscribe to USIP's Science, Technology and Peacebuilding News Roundup.

Did we miss anything?

 

 


Share this: FacebookDeliciousDiggMySpaceStumbleUponGoogleMicrosoftYahoo! BookmarksLinkedIn| Forward this to a Friend