USIP's PeaceTech News Roundup

 

PeaceTech Roundup Weekly News Highlights, February 6 - 12, 2014   Featured Story: Streetfighting Men by Harriet Salem and Graham Stack   Media and Social Media Iraq Media Watchdog Condemns Attacks Against Newspaper (RFE/RL, 2/12/14) Journalist Kidnapped in Libyan Capital (New York Times, 2/11/14) Social Media Dispatches: Death and Destruction in Central African Republic (New York Times, 2/11/14) Thai Princess Uses Social Media To 'Declare War'(Independent, 2/11/14) Pirate Radio Gives Voice to Syrian Opposition (New York Times, 2/10/14) John Pilger on British Media and The Iraq War (Digital Journal, 2/10/14) When Social Media is Your Only Hope (The Daily Beast, 2/10/14) Photoshopped Thein Sein Prompts Media Ethics Discussion (Irrawaddy, 2/10/14) Egypt's Media War (Al Jazeera, 2/8/14) Ukrainian Protesters Must Make A Decisive Break With The Far Right (Guardian, 2/7/14) Al-Jazeera Reporter - Journalism Is Not Terrorism and I'm Not A Terrorist (Guardian, 2/7/14) Social Media Analysis Reveals The Complexities Of Syrian Conflict (MIT Technology Review, 2/6/14)   Technology and Science Modern Fears for Modern Times (NPR, 2/12/14) UK Pioneers New Technology to Combat GPS Jamming (Telegraph, 2/12/14) Western Militaries Risk Losing Access to Key Materials (USA Today, 2/12/14) A New iPhone App Catalogues and Maps U.S. Drone Killings (Atlantic, 2/11/14) The Age of Dissent (Al Jazeera, 2/11/14) NSA 'Drone Strikes Based on Mobile Phone Data' (Independent, 2/10/14) Internet Protest to 'Fight Back' Against Surveillance (PBS, 2/10/14) US Military Funds Mission Impossible 'Vanishing' Tech (BBC, 2/7/14) Media and Social Media Iraq Media Watchdog Condemns Attacks Against Newspaper An Iraqi media freedom watchdog has raised concerns over an attack against a Baghdad-based newspaper. In a statement issued on February 10, the Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq said that three bombs had exploded near the entrance to the headquarters of the "al-Sabah-al-Jadeed" (New Morning) newspaper the previous day, severely damaging the newspaper's offices. See the full article (RFE/RL, 2/12/14) [Return to top] Journalist Kidnapped in Libyan Capital Six journalists have been kidnapped in recent days in the Libyan capital, and while one has been released the whereabouts of the other five are still unknown, media representatives and one of the victims said on Tuesday. See the full article (New York Times, 2/11/14)*NYT subscription may be required to access full story [Return to top] Social Media Dispatches: Death and Destruction in Central African Republic Witnesses have been documenting the violence in the Central African Republic over the past few days, with relentless slaughter and traces of entire communities wiped out as thousands of Muslims fled their homes to escape retaliatory attacks. The emergency director of Human Rights Watch, Peter Bouckaert, has been tracking the violence on the ground, sending out a constant stream of updates on his Twitter account, @bouckap, which reads like a narrative of a dying nation. See the full article (New York Times, Christine Hauser, 2/11/14)*NYT subscription may be required to access full story Click to read about USIP's upcoming event "Twitter Evolutions: The Changing Role of Social Media in War and Protest" on February 24, 2014 at 9:00am. [Return to top] Thai Princess Uses Social Media To 'Declare War' It was a bolt from the red, white and blue. A few weeks ago the youngest daughter of Thailand's ageing king posted several photographs of herself on social media. Whether or not it was her intention to do so, the posting of the images by Princess Chulabhorn Mahidol was widely interpreted as a sign of her support for the anti-government forces. See the full article (Independent, Brian Rex, 2/11/14) [Return to top] Pirate Radio Gives Voice to Syrian Opposition The broadcast was the premiere of a music show on Radio Watan, one of more than a dozen opposition radio stations that have sprung up since the start of the revolt against the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. The stations are run by young civilian activists who played an important role early in the uprising but have since been targeted by government forces, sidelined by Islamist rebels and attacked by extremist groups who consider them infidels for airing music and women's voices. See the full article (New York Times, Ben Hubbard, 2/10/14)*NYT subscription may be required to access full story [Return to top] John Pilger on British Media and The Iraq War Well-known journalist John Pilger writes of how the BBC worried about a program featuring guests who reveal UK actions involving kidnap and torture and participation in the Iraq war. See the full article (Digital Journal, Ken Hanly, 2/10/14) [Return to top] When Social Media is Your Only Hope With a reach of 3.6 million people and counting, DigitalMaidan will continue to raise awareness of the human rights crisis in Ukraine until democracy is restored. To quote one of the thousands of Tweets posted by Ukrainians: What would you do if this were happening in your country? See the full article (The Daily Beast, Andrea Chalupa, 2/10/14) Click to read "Pakistani USIP Grantee Launches Internet Crowdfunding Campaign" an Olive Branch Post by Viola Gienger. [Return to top] Photoshopped Thein Sein Prompts Media Ethics Discussion A front-page mash-up of Burma President Thein Sein portrayed in traditional Burmese dancing garb and published in a local newspaper has drawn the ire of officials and some local media, who feel the image oversteps ethical boundaries. See the full article (Irrawaddy, Simon Roughneen, 2/10/14) [Return to top] Egypt's Media War Egyptians - and their media - are either with the military or they are considered to be with the 'terrorists'. As a consequence, news organisations have come under huge pressure and the jailing of Al Jazeera journalists has sent a chill through the foreign media contingent in Cairo. On the domestic side, Egyptian journalists who have not aligned themselves with the Sisi government have had to be very careful about what they report. See the full article (Al Jazeera, 2/8/14) [Return to top] Ukrainian Protesters Must Make A Decisive Break With The Far Right A number of academics have expressed their concern about the international media's misrepresentation of the protests in Ukraine. They say that the media have over-emphasised the significance of the far right in what is a broad and diverse protest movement; and such exaggerations may serve Russia's imperialist interests in Ukraine. See the full article (Guardian, Volodymyr Ishchenko, 2/7/14) [Return to top] Al-Jazeera Reporter - Journalism Is Not Terrorism and I'm Not A Terrorist Sue Turton, is a presenter and senior correspondent with Al-Jazeera English. She has been indicted in her absence by the Egyptian authorities on a charge of aiding terrorists. She and a colleague, Dominic Kane, were among 20 people accused of spreading false news, bringing Egypt into disrepute, and conspiring with terrorists. See the full article (Guardian, Roy Greenslade, 2/7/14) [Return to top] Social Media Analysis Reveals The Complexities Of Syrian Conflict An interesting question is to what extent does social media activity reflect the situation on the ground [in Syria]. That's exactly the problem addressed today by Derek O'Callaghan at University College Dublin and a few pals. Their conclusion is that "social media activity in Syria is considerably more convoluted than reported in many other studies of online political activism that find a straightforward polarization effect." See the full article (MIT Technology Review, 2/6/14) [Return to top] Featured Story from Foreign Policy's Peace Channel Streetfighting Men by Harriet Salem and Graham Stack In a snowy, half-filled car park in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine's fourth-largest city, a group of masked men armed with clubs surge toward a crowd of anti-government protesters, weapons raised. The scene, captured in a video available on YouTube, isn't an isolated incident. In Ukraine's ongoing and increasingly bloody political standoff, a group of predominantly young men known as "titushki" are roaming the streets. See the full article [Return to top] Technology and Science Modern Fears for Modern Times What should we be worried about? Real Scenarios that keep scientists up at night. Martin Rees, astronomer royal of Great Britain agrees, painting a cataclysmic scenario based on the social and economic chaos that global warming will unleash, as millions migrate from coastal zones and the financial system collapses. For good measure, Rees adds bioterrorism, cyberterrorism and nanoterrorism as other threats for the future. See the full article (NPR, Marcelo Gleiser, 2/12/14) [Return to top] UK Pioneers New Technology to Combat GPS Jamming GPS is the most widely-used positioning technology in the world today, with a vast array of military, civil and commercial applications, but for some time the industry has been forced to admit that the technology is vulnerable to attack. However, GPS signals are extremely faint, and it does not take much to dazzle a GPS receiver with a more powerful radio signal. This makes it relatively easy for anyone with a 'GPS jammer' to swamp the circuitry in the receiver so that it cannot detect the GPS signal. See the full article (Telegraph, Sophie Curtis, 2/12/14) [Return to top] Western Militaries Risk Losing Access to Key Materials Western militaries may lose access to critical materials needed for weapons and other systems, because of the growing demand for new technologies, questionable supply lines and production in unfriendly or dangerous countries, NATO documents show. Most troubling, the NATO report says, is that "many of these materials and products are not produced within NATO countries." Instead, they come from rival nations, such as China and Russia, or those mired in internal conflicts and civil war, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. See the full article (USA Today, Ray Locker, 2/12/14) [Return to top] A New iPhone App Catalogues and Maps U.S. Drone Killings On Monday, the new publication First Look reported that electronically obtained metadata controls who, how, and when U.S. drones kill abroad. Journalists Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill write that that kind of information doesn't only determine who is killed: Metadata on phone SIM cards determines how victims of the strikes are found. See the full article (Atlantic, Robinson Meyer, 2/11/14) [Return to top] The Age of Dissent Why are people going out on the street to address their woes? It's an act of courage and determination that can land you in jail, one far more difficult than simply casting a vote in the ballot box. What has changed? The Internet is certainly everyone's favourite cause. We are better informed, more aware of inequalities due to globalisation, as well as the shady complicity of our leaders. Smart phones and computers have also accelerated and improved organisational capacity, and middle classes have risen in many countries, along with their related demands. See the full article (Al Jazeera, John Bell, 2/11/14) [Return to top] NSA 'Drone Strikes Based on Mobile Phone Data' The US National Security Agency (NSA) uses electronic surveillance rather than human intelligence in lethal drone strikes, it has been reported. The new publication headed by Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the news of US government surveillance in The Guardian, claims the revelations were made by a former US drone operator. See the full article (Independent, Kashmira Gander, 2/10/14) [Return to top] Internet Protest to 'Fight Back' Against Surveillance Activist groups, companies, and websites will encourage internet users to take a stand against government surveillance on Tuesday in a protest called "The Day We Fight Back." On Feb. 11, 5,700-plus websites plan to post a banner on their pages encouraging users to use their social media accounts to protest surveillance by the National Security Administration and to phone or email their representatives in Congress about reforming internet surveillance. See the full article (PBS, Bridget Bowman, 2/10/14) Click to read about USIP's upcoming event "Symposium on Language, Peace, and Security" on February, 21, 2014 at 1:00pm. [Return to top] US Military Funds Mission Impossible 'Vanishing' Tech The US military is funding a project to develop electronics that can self-destruct like the secret messages in the Mission Impossible TV show. DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has awarded computing giant IBM a $3.5m (£2.1m) contract to work on its Vanishing Programmable Resources (VAPR) project. See the full article (BBC, 2/7/14) Click to read about USIP's upcoming event "Peace Prospects in the Great Lakes" on February, 20, 2014 at 1:00pm. 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PeaceTech News Roundup

 

PeaceTech Roundup Weekly News Highlights, January 30 - February 5, 2014   Featured Story: Mercury Rising by Harriet Salem   Media and Social Media Women, Violence and Twitter in India (Al Jazeera, 2/5/14) The Taliban's War on Journalists (RFE/RL, 2/5/14) A Black Hole for Media in Balochistan (Al Jazeera, 2/5/14) The Syrian Opposition Is Disappearing From Facebook (Atlantic, 2/4/14) Are Libyan Politicians Curtailing Freedom of the Press? (Foreign Policy, 2/4/14) Egypt's Attack on The Media Gives Little Cause for Hope (Guardian, 2/4/14) In the Scripted World of Diplomacy, a Burst of Tweets (New York Times, 2/4/14) The War Around Us Shows Human Side of Gaza Conflict (Huffington Post, 2/3/14) War Reporting and The 2003 Invasion of Iraq: Teaching Resource from The GNM Archive February 2014 (Guardian, 2/3/14) Preventing War by Promoting 'Peace Journalism' in Uganda (Colombia Journalism Review, 2/3/14) 'Return To Homs,' New Syria Documentary, Gives Gut-Wrenching Glimpse Into Besieged City (Huffington Post, 2/3/14) Greater Media Freedom Brings Mixed Results (Mizzima, 1/31/14) From Brooklyn to Kiev, How #DigitalMaidan Went Viral (Foreign Policy, Hanna Kozlowska, 1/31/14) Journalists Fear Violence in Election Run-Up (VOA, 1/29/14) Technology and Science The Future of War Essays: It's Back to The Beginning, or, 'The Nearness of You' (Foreign Policy, 2/5/14) U.S. Said to Curtail Drone Strikes in Pakistan as Officials There Seek Peace Talks With Taliban (Washington Post, 2/4/14) With Ushahidi's Global Innovation Engine, Africa has Joined the Tech Revolution (Tech Republic, 2/3/14) 5th BarCamp Attracts Thousands of Technology Lovers (Irrawaddy, 2/3/14) Time To Write the Rules for Cyber and Drone Challenges (Time, 2/3/14) Iran and North Korea: The Nuclear 'Axis of Resistance' (Daily Beast, 1/31/14) Drone Strikes and the Lessons of Nonlinear Science (Forbes, 1/30/14) Media and Social Media Women, Violence and Twitter in India India has an estimated 25 million active Twitter users, three-fourths of them male. (That is against 82 million Facebook users and 198 million Internet users in the country.) While women are a vocal minority on Twitter in India, the abuse they face on it borders on the violent. See the full article (Al Jazeera, Prasanto K Roy, 2/5/14) Click to read "Afghan Women Can Wield Powerful Force at Ballot Box" an Olive Branch Post by Scott Smith Gienger. [Return to top] The Taliban's War on Journalists For several years, Pakistan has been one of the deadliest countries in the world for the media, but targeted murders of journalists working in the country's northwestern province in the first few weeks of the year and a fatwa against them last October have prompted them to demand that the government respond. See the full article (RFE/RL, 2/5/14) Click to read "Pakistan's Tumultuous Media May Play Surprising Role" an Olive Branch Post by Viola Gienger. [Return to top] A Black Hole for Media in Balochistan "The Balochistan story is one of the most difficult to cover in Pakistan," [an] Irish journalist told Al Jazeera from his temporary home in London. "The authorities don't like foreign journalists entering the province unaccompanied and rarely give permission. They say this is for security reasons. But they also don't want reporters snooping around in an area where so much militant activity is taking place - Taliban, sectarian and nationalist - and where the security agencies either lack control, or have historical ties with some of these groups." See the full article (Al Jazeera, Karlos Zurutuza, 2/5/14) [Return to top] The Syrian Opposition Is Disappearing From Facebook Like many towns in Syria, Kafranbel has a Local Coordination Committee (LCC) and media center page on Facebook, both of which are used to spread news of the revolution, document the dead, and distribute safety information to residents. In a country where foreign and independent Syrian journalists are barred, and the regime's expansive network of citizen-spies makes public discussion of the revolution dangerous to this day, Facebook was one of the first refuges for Syria's dissidents-and now it has become one of their last. See the full article (Atlantic, Michael Pizzi, 2/4/14) [Return to top] Are Libyan Politicians Curtailing Freedom of the Press? The General National Congress, [Libya's] interim legislature, has just passed a new decree that bans satellite television stations critical of the government and the 2011 uprising against Qaddafi. Human Rights Watch was quick to condemn the decree, which, it says, violates free speech and Libya's Provisional Constitutional Declaration. "The decree violates freedom of expression because it censors a wide range of speech, including peaceful political dissent, and its broad and vague wording is open to arbitrary implementation," the HRW statement warned. See the full article (Foreign Policy, Mohamed Eljarh, 2/4/14) [Return to top] Egypt's Attack on The Media Gives Little Cause for Hope A major front in this war on terror has been opened against the media. On 29 January it became clear that 20 journalists, including four foreigners, were facing charges of joining or aiding a terrorist group and spreading false news. Two of these foreigners, Egyptian-Canadian producer Mohamed Fahmy and Australian journalist Peter Greste, were arrested at the end of December while working for al-Jazeera English. See the full article (Guardian, Sarah Carr, 2/4/14) [Return to top] In the Scripted World of Diplomacy, a Burst of Tweets On his first anniversary as secretary of state on Tuesday, John Kerry celebrated by reactivating his Twitter handle. "It only took a year but @StateDept finally let me have my own @Twitter account," Mr. Kerry tweeted with the hashtag #JKTweetsAgain, as if to suggest he had been held hostage for the last year without a BlackBerry. See the full article (New York Times, Mark Landler, 2/4/14)*NYT subscription may be required to access full story. Click to read about USIP's upcoming event "Getting Beyond 2014 in Afghanistan" on February, 28, 2014 at 12:00pm. [Return to top] The War Around Us Shows Human Side of Gaza Conflict As the film's powerful trailer reveals, "The War Around Us" is the raw story of Gaza and how two journalists reached the rest of the world from inside one of the most deeply divided and silenced places on the globe. The documentary contains heart-wrenching scenes of human suffering in the war, images that were never allowed to be shown in the American media, but were broadcast to the rest of the world. See the full article (Huffington Post, Kamran Pasha, 2/3/14) [Return to top] War Reporting and The 2003 Invasion of Iraq: Teaching resource from the GNM Archive February 2014 Reporting from the front line of war holds obvious dangers, and a number of journalists and photographers have lost their lives reporting from war zones. To prepare staff as much as possible in advance of the Iraq War, the Guardian provided training courses for all of its war correspondents run by former members of the armed forces. See the full article (Guardian, Elisabeth Thurlow, 2/3/14) [Return to top] Preventing War by Promoting 'Peace Journalism' in Uganda At the Uganda Media Development Foundation (UMDF), the local pioneers of the Project Consolidating Peace Journalism, a small team believes that reporters and editors constantly make decisions that help their societies evaluate and value peaceful alternatives to conflicts. With that, they are working to instill in journalists across the country the technical and editorial know-how for peace reporting, with an emphasis on areas near borders with war-torn nations. See the full article (Colombia Journalism Review, Vivian Salama, 2/3/14) [Return to top] 'Return To Homs,' New Syria Documentary, Gives Gut-Wrenching Glimpse Into Besieged City After so many months with barely any news emerging from the town, a new, harrowing documentary by Syrian filmmaker Talal Derki once again gives the world a gut-wrenching glimpse into life in the isolated city. With footage shot by Derki and Syrian media activists, "Return to Homs" follows a group of young friends from August 2011 to August 2013 as they fight to stay alive amid the brutal crackdown by the army of Syrian President Bashar Assad. See the full article (Huffington Post, Eline Gordts, 2/3/14) [Return to top] Greater Media Freedom Brings Mixed Results The lifting of media restrictions in Myanmar has produced mixed results, according to the United States Institute for Peace, which says increased access to information has led to a greater risk of conflict. The Washington-based institute outlines the positive and negative consequences of greater media freedom in a 40-page report, 'Media and conflict in Myanmar', released earlier this month. See the full article (Mizzima, Geoffrey Goddard, 1/31/14) [Return to top] From Brooklyn to Kiev, How #DigitalMaidan Went Viral From Kiev to Istanbul, Brasilia to Cairo, it's become a natural corollary of any modern protest movement: The battle isn't just won on the streets, but also in cyberspace. In the case of the anti-government protests that have roiled Ukraine, the Twitter hashtag "#EuroMaidan" -- a portmanteau of the protesters' object of affection, Europe, and the square in which they have set up camp, Maidan -- has become a ubiquitous feature of the online conversation about the movement. See the full article (Foreign Policy, Hanna Kozlowska, 1/31/14) [Return to top] Journalists Fear Violence in Election Run-Up As Nigeria gets ready for national elections in 2015, the Nigerian Union of Journalists is warning that politicians may try to intimidate reporters. Nigerian journalists say they already face regular hostilities, including beatings by both officials and the public. The Nigerian Union of Journalists says the problem is particularly common in Nigeria around election time when politicians go out of their way to manipulate the news. See the full article (VOA, Heather Murdock, 1/29/14) [Return to top] Featured Story from Foreign Policy's Peace Channel Mercury Rising by Harriet Salem Can opposition leaders contain protest violence in Ukraine-or is the country headed for "prolonged guerrilla warfare"? See the full article [Return to top] Technology and Science The Future of War Essays: It's Back to The Beginning, or, 'The Nearness of You' Technology is quickly reversing a psychological trend that has existed since cavemen first threw rocks at each other many tens of thousands of years ago. Today, while many of America's drone operators sit physically safe in trailers in Nevada, their human targets on the other side of the planet appear no further away than if these operators were watching them through the sights of an M16 rifle. Although the physical distance between warrior and target has reached its physical limit (on this planet anyway), the subjective distance between the two is rapidly closing. See the full article (Foreign Policy, Thomas E. Ricks, 2/5/14) Click to read "Compounding Uncertainty in Afghanistan" a Peace Brief by William A. Byrd, Casey Garret Johnson, Sanaullah Tasal. [Return to top] U.S. Said to Curtail Drone Strikes in Pakistan as Officials There Seek Peace Talks With Taliban The Obama administration has sharply curtailed drone strikes in Pakistan after a request from the government there for restraint as it pursues peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban, according to U.S. officials. "That's what they asked for, and we didn't tell them no," one U.S. official said. The administration indicated that it will still carry out strikes against senior al-Qaeda targets, if they become available, and move to thwart any direct, imminent threat to U.S. persons. See the full article (Washington Post, Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller, 2/4/14) [Return to top] With Ushahidi's Global Innovation Engine, Africa has Joined the Tech Revolution It started in Kenya. Kobia and a few of his blogger and techie friends built a website to map violence and peace reports after a fallout following the 2008 Kenyan elections. People could submit the information through mobile devices or the web and use it to find violent areas of the country to avoid, places of refuge, and locations of resources such as medical equipment and water. They created it over a weekend, assuming it would be useful but that they would return to their day jobs. See the full article (Tech Republic, Lyndsey Gilpin, 2/3/14) [Return to top] 5th BarCamp Attracts Thousands of Technology Lovers The fifth BarCamp Yangon, a forum about technology and the Internet that encourages participant involvement, was held this weekend at Myanmar ICT Park on the campus of Hlaing University and attracted about 5,000 participants, the event's organizer said. See the full article (Irrawaddy, San Yamin Aung, 2/3/14) [Return to top] Time To Write the Rules for Cyber and Drone Challenges The magnitude of the threat posed by the weapons of choice from the 20th century and 21st century are striking. Whether it is an armed, unmanned drone that could even carry tactical nuclear arms or be turned into a dirty bomb, or offensive cyber capabilities, consider how increasingly easy these potential weapons are to utilize, how a growing number of countries want their own capabilities in these fields, and how difficult they can be to monitor and regulate. See the full article (Time, Des Browne and Michael Shank, 2/3/14) [Return to top] Iran and North Korea: The Nuclear 'Axis of Resistance' Iran has halted its enrichment of uranium to the 20 percent level as part of the interim agreement it signed with the world's major powers last November. That temporary deal doesn't address Iran's illicit trade with countries like North Korea, which has been building a massive complex of uranium-enriching centrifuges. Given North Korea's penchant for selling Iran illicit technology, the risk of Pyongyang exporting nuclear technology is real, according to the U.S. intelligence community. See the full article (Daily Beast, Josh Rogin and Eli Lake, 1/31/14) [Return to top] Drone Strikes and the Lessons of Nonlinear Science "Why...do we think that targeting what we consider key terrorists with drone strikes will bring down their network as a whole?" I address this question in my recently published book, Nonlinear Science and Warfare: Chaos, Complexity, and the U.S. Military in the Information Age. In it, I demonstrate that notions of collapsing networks by targeting key nodes is one of a number of lessons that the United States defense community has learned from its enlistment of language and concepts borrowed from nonlinear sciences such as chaos theory and complexity theory. See the full article (Forbes, Sean Lawson, 1/30/14) [Return to top] Did we miss anything?     Share this: | Forward this to a Friend