| Center of Innovation: Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding Weekly News Roundup, April 19 - 25, 2012 Media and Journalism - US Military Criticised for Secrecy over Death of Afghan BBC Correspondent (Guardian, 4/25/12)
- Gunman Kills Brazilian Political Reporter, 4th Journalist Killed in Country This Year (AP, 4/24/12)
- Is Tunisia's Post-Revolution Media Freedom Slipping? (Huffington Post, 4/21/12)
- Kazakh Journalist Shot, Stabbed, Colleagues Cry Foul (Reuters, 4/20/12)
- Sudan Clashes Ignite Media Campaigns (BBC, 4/20/12)
- Kony 2012: What Happens Next? (Guardian, 4/20/12)
- Senior Pakistani Journalist Found Dead In Karachi (RFE/RL, 4/19/12)
- Tuning in to Afghan National Unity (Al Jazeera, 4/20/12)
- Journalists Under Fire: First Aid at the Front Line (Economist, 4/19/12)
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 US Military Criticised for Secrecy over Death of Afghan BBC Correspondent
Ahmed Omed Khpulwak, 25, an Afghan national who worked as a BBC stringer in southern Uruzgan province, was shot dead by US soldiers who mistook him for an insurgent. Both the Afghan government and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force initially said Khpulwak had been killed by the Taliban.
See the full article (Guardian, Emma Graham-Harrison, 4/25/12)
Click to read "Paying for Afghanistan's Security Forces During Transition: Issues for Chicago and Beyond," a USIP Peace Brief by William Byrd.
[Return to top] Gunman Kills Brazilian Political Reporter, 4th Journalist Killed in Country This Year
A crusading reporter who "breathed, dreamed and lived journalism 24 hours a day" was gunned down as he ate dinner, and colleagues said Tuesday they are certain he was killed because of his work. Decio Sa, a political reporter for the newspaper O Estado do Maranhao in northeastern Brazil, was at least the fourth journalist slain this year in the South American nation, one of the deadliest for reporters to work in.
See the full article (AP, 4/24/12)
[Return to top] Is Tunisia's Post-Revolution Media Freedom Slipping?
Over a year ago activist/blogger Slim Amamou created a lot of buzz as the youngest cabinet minister in the post-revolution transitional Tunisian government that promised to reform the country after decades of corrupt dictatorial rule. Today, he's worried the regime that replaced that cabinet, after the ouster of president Zine El Abdine Ben Ali, is heading down a dangerous path of stricter controls on the media, and score settling with rivals to maintain control.
See the full article (Huffington Post, Magda Abu-Fadil, 4/21/12)
Click to read about USIP's upcoming event "Trauma Resilience as a Keystone to Building the Rule of Law in Conflict-Affected Societies" on May 18 at 9:00am.
[Return to top] Kazakh Journalist Shot, Stabbed, Colleagues Cry Foul
Unknown assailants shot and stabbed a newspaper journalist in Kazakhstan late on Thursday in an attack his employers and international rights groups said could have been linked to his reports critical of the Central Asian nation's government. Authorities in Kazakhstan show little tolerance for critical media.
See the full article (Reuters, Robin Paxton and Maria Gordeyeva, 4/20/12)
[Return to top] Sudan Clashes Ignite Media Campaigns
With clashes between South Sudan and Sudan threatening to spiral into all-out conflict, state TV networks in both countries are pulling out the stops to rally support for their respective causes. Martial music accompanies footage of soldiers, and statements by military commanders reinforce the military mobilization under way on both sides of the border. Meanwhile, online activists within Sudan are using social media to question the official line.
See the full article (BBC, 4/20/12)
[Return to top] Kony 2012: What Happens Next?
The Kony 2012 campaign film devised by the American charity Invisible Children has left communication experts and other NGOs awe-struck. But the film has also been the target of a furious backlash with claims that they misrepresented the war and it is becoming increasingly clear that that backlash has put a dampener on the campaign's reputation and the turnout for tonight's Cover the Night protest, the charities first big offline event since the video came out.
See the full article (Guardian, Polly Curtis and Tom McCarthy, 4/20/12)
[Return to top] Senior Pakistani Journalist Found Dead In Karachi
The Pakistani newspaper "Dawn" says one of its editors has been murdered in the southern city of Karachi. The paper said on April 19 that the body of Murtaza Rizvi had been found earlier that day in an apartment in an upscale area of the city. Rizvi was the editor of magazines at the Dawn newspaper group. It was not clear if the killing was related to his work. Pakistan has one of the world's most dangerous media environments, with a number of journalists being killed every year.
See the full article (RFE/RL, 4/19/12)
Click to read "New Media and Old: Using Social Media and Radio to Build Peace in Pakistan and Afghanistan," a USIP On the Issues by Theo Dolan and Michael Dwyer.
[Return to top] Tuning in to Afghan National Unity
Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) has reportedly identified at least half a dozen small newspapers and TV stations that are funded by either Pakistan or Iran. This hardly came as a revelation to most urbane Afghans whose diet of news and information during the past ten years has often been peppered with what has been described as foreign political and cultural propaganda.
See the full article (Al Jazeera, Helena Malikyar and Tanya Goudsouzian, 4/20/12)
[Return to top] Journalists Under Fire: First Aid at the Front Line
Tim Hetherington, a British documentary film-maker [was] killed by a mortar fire in the Libyan city of Misrata. So to coincide with the first anniversary of Hetherington's death, [American journalist Sebastian] Junger has been delivering a course called "Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues." The three-day course sees instructors from Wilderness Medical Associates teach participants standard medical procedures for trauma, penetration wounds and respiratory issues.
See the full article (Economist, 4/19/12)
[Return to top] Internet and Social Media Former Terrorists and Neo-Nazis Get Their Own Social Network
Against Violent Extremism is an online platform (sure to be dubbed a "Facebook for terrorists") where former extremists and survivors of attacks can share their experiences, with the view to help other individuals leave or avoid falling into violent extremist groups. It will include profiles of former violent extremists from a variety of backgrounds. The network will also include other people with an interest in countering violent extremism, including activists, policy-makers, and entrepreneurs.
See the full article(Wired, Olivia Solon, 4/25/12)
[Return to top] | [Return to section] U.S. Diplomat Peter Van Buren Speaks About American Public Diplomacy
Actions really do speak louder than words. So as long as deaths in wedding parties from misplaced drone attacks, atrocities by soldiers and videos of Abu Ghraib exist, you are not going to fool anyone regardless of how many tweets you send out. Look at the outcome of the Haditha massacre in Iraq: 24 unarmed Iraqis were slaughtered by an out-of-control group of Marines in 2005. You can Tweet and Facebook until the end of time, but that story will resonate for even longer within the Arab world.
See the full article (Huffington Post, John Brown, 4/24/12)
[Return to top] | [Return to section] Report: Iran Unplugs Oil Facilities from Internet
The Iranian oil ministry's computer network came under attack from hackers and a computer virus, prompting the Islamic Republic to disconnect the country's main oil export terminal from the Internet as a preventative measure, a semiofficial news agency reported on Monday. The Islamic Republic says that it is involved in a long-running technological war with the United States and Israel.
See the full article (AP, Nasser Karimi, 4/23/12)
[Return to top] | [Return to section] People Power 2.0
After weeks of skirmishes in the Nafusa Mountains southwest of Tripoli, Sifaw Twawa and his brigade of freedom fighters are at a standstill. Lightly armed and hidden only by trees, they are a stone's throw from one of four Grad 122-millimeter multiple-rocket launchers laying down a barrage on Yefren, their besieged hometown. Twawa's men successfully attack because two civilians briefed their leader, over Skype, in a battlefield a continent away.
See the full article (Technology Review, John Pollock, 4/21/12)
[Return to top] | [Return to section] Middle East Memes: A Guide
The rapid changes sweeping the Arab world have all too often been attributed to the internet, with pundits crediting the uprisings to various social networks. With an ever-growing critical mass of social media users across the region, such tools present a unique opportunity for fomenting social and political change. Internet memes - concepts that spread rapidly from person to person online - have become de rigueur in the region, whether intended to inspire, provoke, or simply get a few laughs.
See the full article (Guardian, Jillian C. York, 4/20/12)
Click to read about USIP's upcoming event "USIP Annual Conference on Security Sector Transformation in North Africa and the Middle East" on May 10 at 8:30am.
[Return to top] | [Return to section] Iran Asks for Help to 'Purify' Internet
Iran's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology is apparently seeking domestic partners to help with its Internet-filtering efforts. According to a Request For Information (RFI), the ministry-affiliated Research Institute for Information and Communication Technology has called on Iranian companies to offer ideas and pilot projects for "purifying" the Internet. The document says the Internet has been polluted with "immoral sites" that can lead to "major cultural and societal problems."
See the full article (RFE/RL, Golnaz Esfandiari, 4/19/12)
[Return to top] | [Return to section] NATO and Facebook Join Forces in the Global Digital Age
NATO's mission is peace and security. Facebook's mission is to make the world more open and connected. But we both strongly believe that today's policy issues are increasingly global. In pursuing our efforts to contribute to this global conservation, we -- two individuals at Facebook and NATO -- have started to collaborate. Because we believe that instruments of diplomacy, no matter how hard or how soft -- or how smart, for that matter -- bring people together.
See the full article (Huffington Post, Stefanie Babst and Elizabeth Linder, 4/19/12)
[Return to top] | [Return to section] The Social Media Peace Corps
After a 16 year hiatus, the US Peace Corps is reopening operations in Tunisia. During the recent Social Media Week in DC, State Department officials shared their updated tactics. The tone was not that different from six years ago. For example, several explained how tweeting from embassy missions aided Foreign Services Officers in sharing the message of the US when they were limited in face to face interactions with foreign publics, due to restricted physical security measures.
See the full article (Al Jazeera, Mehrunnisa Qayyum and Ramah Kudaimi, 4/19/12)
[Return to top] | [Return to section] What's New from PeaceMedia "Parole Camp" - Al Jazeera
Each year in South Africa's Cape Flats region, more than 1,000 youths are released from prison on parole. Many of these parolees will return to jail within a few weeks - unable to re-integrate into their communities or to avoid being caught up in the vicious circle of gangs, drugs and crime that is life for many in the townships. Solomon Madikane is a former prison warden who was so frustrated by the endless cycle of law-breaking and incarceration that he left his job and set up the reintegration programme in 2004.
See the full video
[Return to top] Click here to subscribe to USIP's Science, Technology and Peacebuilding News Roundup. Did we miss anything? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment