USIP's Media, Conflict & Peacebuilding Roundup

 

Center of Innovation: Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding Weekly News Roundup, December 8 - 14, 2011 Media and Journalism Iraq: Images of a War and its Toll (Washington Post, 12/14/11) Stop the War: A Graphic History - in Pictures (Guardian, 12/13/11) Anti-American Syria-based TV Channel Closes (AP, 12/13/11) Russia Media Managers Fired 'Over Anti-Putin Pictures' (BBC, 12/13/11) BBC Welcomes Pakistan PM Pledge to Look into Ban (AFP, 12/12/11) On Russian TV, a Straightforward Account is Startling (New York Times, 12/10/11) One Cambodian Journalist's Search for Justice (NPR, 12/9/11) Good Morning, Afghanistan! Military Wants Kandahar Radio (Wired, 12/8/11) Internet and Social Media Syrian Regime Charges Blogger and Fires on Mourners, Activists Say (Guardian, 12/14/11) Somalia's Insurgents Embrace Twitter as a Weapon (New York Times, 12/14/11) Live Streaming as Activism (NPR, 12/9/11) Russian Web Gets Protesters' Word Out (Washington Post, 12/9/11) Malasyia's Freedom of Speech, Online and Off (NPR, 12/9/11) Clinton Warns Against 'Disastrous' Curbs On Internet Freedom (RFE/RL, 12/8/11) What's New from PeaceMedia A Bad Year for Bad Guys: How to Topple a Dictator **Click here to subscribe to USIP's Science, Technology and Peacebuilding News Roundup.** Media and Journalism Iraq: Images of a War and its Toll The American war in Iraq is over. The last U.S. soldier will be home by Christmas, and for the first time in a decade, no American service member is preparing for deployment in Mesopotamia. As America leaves the Iraq war, what has the war left America? These are the images. See the full article (Washington Post, 12/14/11) [Return to top] Stop the War: A Graphic History - in Pictures A new book from the Stop the War Coalition and Francis Boutle Publishers celebrates a decade of the Stop the War movement, from the 2003 demonstration against the Iraq war to this year's protests about Libya and Afghanistan, in photographs, posters, graphics, cartoons and art works. See the full article (Guardian, Richard Norton-Taylor, 12/13/11) [Return to top] Anti-American Syria-based TV Channel Closes A Syria-based TV station that provided an outlet to late Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi and strongly criticized U.S. forces in Iraq has gone off the air, owner [Mishan al-Jabouri] said Tuesday, because of the American withdrawal from Iraq and improved Syrian-Iraqi relations." Mishan al-Jabouri, a former Iraqi lawmaker and Damascus-based exile, said it was "no longer suitable" to have a Damascus-based channel run by Iraqi opposition figures and so he has closed Al-Rai TV. See the full article (AP, Albert Aji, 12/13/11) [Return to top] Russia Media Managers Fired 'Over Anti-Putin Pictures' The owner of Russia's top publishing house has dismissed managers over a magazine issue that alleged vote fraud and had obscene words aimed at PM Vladimir Putin. Tycoon Alisher Usmanov said he acted because of an "ethical breach" by the weekly Kommersant Vlast. But some media analysts said it was an attempt to stifle criticism of alleged vote fraud in the 4 December elections. See the full article (BBC, 12/13/11) [Return to top] BBC Welcomes Pakistan PM Pledge to Look into Ban BBC welcomed Sunday a promise by Pakistan's prime minister to investigate the blocking of the BBC World News channel in the country after it showed a documentary about the Taliban. The two-part BBC documentary "Secret Pakistan" shown last month accuses parts of Pakistan's intelligence service of complicity with Taliban militants fighting US-led forces in Afghanistan. See the full article (AFP, 12/12/11) [Return to top] On Russian TV, a Straightforward Account is Startling Regular viewers of government-controlled television were treated to a curious sight when they tuned in to the evening news on Saturday. Sweeping views of the tens of thousands of people who had crowded into a central Moscow square for a sprawling anti-Kremlin protest cut away to close-ups of groups of average citizens chanting, "New elections! New elections!" See the full article (New York Times, Michael Schwirtz, 12/10/11) *NYT sign-up may be required to view the full article [Return to top] One Cambodian Journalist's Search for Justice From 1975 to 1979 the Khmer Rouge killed approximately 1.7 million Cambodians. In the years since, motive and any kind of justice have been hard to come by. But one journalist has been slowly, patiently befriending ex-Khmer Rouge killers and coaxing confessions out of them -- on camera. See the full article (NPR, 12/9/11) [Return to top] Good Morning, Afghanistan! Military Wants Kandahar Radio It looks like the military is worried that Afghans haven't heard the good news about how the Taliban have been vanquished once and for all. It's setting up a new radio station, housed at the sprawling Kandahar Air Field, to spread the word. The command will provide the radio station with its broadcast facilities, equipment, connectivity frequencies, even an SMS update service. All the contractor will need to provide is the content -- provided it amplifies the military's message, of course. See the full article (Wired, Spencer Ackerman, 12/8/11) [Return to top]   Internet and Social Media Syrian Regime Charges Blogger and Fires on Mourners, Activists Say Razan Ghazzawi is the latest among dozens of activists, journalists and bloggers who have been detained since the revolt against President Bashar Assad began nine months ago, triggering a brutal crackdown that the UN estimates has killed more than 5,000 people and put thousands into prison. Ghazzawi, 31, had been documenting human rights abuses in recent months, and was arrested on 4 December at the border while on her way to Jordan for a conference on press freedoms. See the full article (Guardian, 12/14/11) [Return to top] Somalia's Insurgents Embrace Twitter as a Weapon Somalia's powerful Islamist insurgents, the Shabab, best known for chopping off hands and starving their own people, just opened a Twitter account, and in the past week they have been writing up a storm, bragging about recent attacks and taunting their enemies. "Your inexperienced boys flee from confrontation & flinch in the face of death," the Shabab wrote in a post to the Kenyan Army. See the full article (New York Times, Jeffrey Gettleman, 12/14/11)*NYT sign-up may be required to view the full article [Return to top] Live Streaming as Activism Live streaming, the act of broadcasting a video to the Internet in close to real time, is quickly becoming a staple tool of twenty-first century protestors. From Occupy Wall Street to the Egypt election last week to the Russian election this week, activists use cell phones as weapons of transparency: not only documenting but broadcasting events as they happen. See the full article (NPR, 12/9/11) [Return to top] Russian Web Gets Protesters' Word Out Ilya Ponomaryov, a leftist member of the Russian parliament, said Friday that he has been visiting police lockups all over Moscow, asking people detained in this week's election protests what party or organization brought them onto the streets. None, they all told him. Via cellphone cameras and YouTube, people saw what they believed to be evidence of ballot-box rigging, and took to the streets in anger. See the full article (Washington Post, Will Englund, 12/9/11) [Return to top] Malasyia's Freedom of Speech, Online and Off There's an amazing array of media in Malaysia, in sundry languages and formats, but one thing unites nearly all of them -- they're strictly censored by the Malaysian government. But through a quirk of history there's one notable exception where real reporting can be read and it's a big one: the Internet. See the full article (NPR, 12/9/11) [Return to top] Clinton Warns Against 'Disastrous' Curbs On Internet Freedom U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned governments against efforts to restrict the Internet within their national borders, saying such measures would be "disastrous" for human freedoms and the Internet as a whole. Aides said the top U.S. diplomat was referring to proposals on governing the Internet introduced by Russia, China, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan at the United Nations General Assembly in September. See the full article (RFE/RL, 12/8/11) [Return to top]   What's New from PeaceMedia A Bad Year for Bad Guys: How to Topple a Dictator 2011 was a year of extraordinary people-powered resistance, starting with Arab Spring and spreading across the world. How did this resistance work so well? At TEDxKrakow, Srdja Popovic (who led the nonviolent movement that took down Milosevic in Serbia in 2000) lays out the plans, skills and tools each movement needs -- from nonviolent tactics to a sense of humor. 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: | Forward this to a Friend

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USIP's Media, Conflict & Peacebuilding Roundup

Center of Innovation: Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding Weekly News Roundup, November 17 - 30, 2011 Please note: This Roundup contains two weeks' worth of highlights due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Media and Journalism Air Force Tells Reporters: You're Not Welcome at Our Drone Base Anymore (Wired, 11/29/11) Pakistan Blocks BBC World News TV Channel (BBC, 11/29/11) Determined to Bring Out the Truth in Kosovo (New York Times, 11/29/11) Ethiopian Journalists Worry After Editor Flees (Reuters, 11/28/11) Egypt Orders 3 American Students Released, and Journalist Is Assaulted in Detention (New York Times, 11/24/11) Richard Mosse's Majestic, Disturbing Infrared War Photography (Huffington Post, 11/24/11) South Africa Secrecy Law Worries Media (Huffington Post, 11/22/11) Iran Daily Closed over Ahmadinejad Aide Interview (Reuters, 11/20/11) South Sudan Frees Journalists Held for Criticising President (AFP, 11/19/11) Don't Allow Journalists' Killers to Get Away with Murder (Guardian, 11/18/11) Internet and Social Media The Tweets of War: What's Past is Postable (New York Times, 11/27/11) Propagandastan (Foreign Policy, 11/22/11) Pakistan Telecoms Body Delays Ban on 'Obscene' Texts (BBC, 11/22/11) Cyberwar Explodes in Syria (CNN, 11/22/11) Critics Take Aim at Turkey's Growing Social Curbs (Washington Post, 11/22/11) Egyptian Blogger Held in Crackdown (Salon, 11/17/11) U.S. Military Goes Online to Rebut Extremists' Messages (New York Times, 11/17/11) What's New from PeaceMedia Peace Must Be Waged - George Clooney **Click here to subscribe to USIP's Science, Technology and Peacebuilding News Roundup.** Media and Journalism Air Force Tells Reporters: You're Not Welcome at Our Drone Base Anymore Drones are the signature weapon in America's wars, from Afghanistan to Yemen to Pakistan. Their employment has become one of the world's most sensitive political issues. But, thanks to the near-blackout of the media, the public knows less and less about the drones - and the people who operate them. See the full article (Wired, Dawn Lim and Noah Shachtman, 11/29/11) [Return to top] Pakistan Blocks BBC World News TV Channel Pakistani cable television operators have begun blocking the BBC's international news TV channel, BBC World News. The operators say that the move is in response to a documentary broadcast by the channel, entitled Secret Pakistan. The two-part BBC documentary questioned the country's commitment to tackling Taliban militancy. See the full article (BBC, 11/29/11) [Return to top] Determined to Bring Out the Truth in Kosovo She cut her journalistic teeth with the BBC as a 22-year-old fixer, helping television crews film in and around Kosovo during the 1999 NATO bombing war against Serbia. Now 33, Jeta Xharra finds there is scant protection for her kind of journalism, as she rakes over the mix of corruption, organized crime and weak governance that is her nascent country today. See the full article (New York Times, Matthew Brunwasser, 11/29/11) *NYT sign-up may be required to view the full article [Return to top] Ethiopian Journalists Worry After Editor Flees The managing editor of one of Ethiopia's few remaining independent Amharic-language newspapers publishing critical analysis of local politics said he left the country last week for fear of arrest. More than 10 journalists have been charged under [a 2009 anti-terrorism] law in the past few months. See the full article (Reuters, 11/28/11) [Return to top] Egypt Orders 3 American Students Released, and Journalist Is Assaulted in Detention Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy, who was detained on Wednesday [in Cairo's Tahrir Square], was freed on Thursday. She said that during her 12 hours of detention, she was sexually assaulted and beaten so badly that her left arm and right hand were broken. See the full article (New York Times, Anthony Shadid, 11/24/11) *NYT sign-up may be required to view the full article Click to read about USIP' upcoming event "Getting Rights... Right..." on December 8 at 9:00am. [Return to top] Richard Mosse's Majestic, Disturbing Infrared War Photography For centuries, the Congo has compelled and defied the Western imagination. Richard Mosse brings to this subject the use of a discontinued military surveillance technology, a type of color infrared film called Kodak Aerochrome. On his journeys in eastern Congo, Mosse photographed rebel groups of constantly switching allegiances, fighting nomadically in a jungle war zone plagued by frequent ambushes, massacres, and systematic sexual violence. See the full article (Huffington Post, 11/24/11) [Return to top] South Africa Secrecy Law Worries Media The governing African National Congress pushed a bill through South Africa's parliament Tuesday to protect state secrets. Opponents, who include church and business leaders and Nobel laureates, say the measure will keep government corruption under wraps, stifle whistle-blowing and undermine the hard-won democracy created with apartheid's end 17 years ago. See the full article (Huffington Post, Donna Bryson, 11/22/11) [Return to top] Iran Daily Closed over Ahmadinejad Aide Interview Iranian authorities shut down a reformist newspaper on Sunday after it published a scathing attack by an aide to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the president's rival conservatives, the latest sign of a split in the highest echelons of the Islamic Republic. The aide, media adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr, was also sentenced to a year in jail and banned from journalism over a separate publication which was deemed to have offended public decency. See the full article (Reuters, Robin Romeroy, 11/20/11) [Return to top] South Sudan Frees Journalists Held for Criticising President South Sudan has released two journalists without charge who were detained for weeks for criticising President Salva Kiir's family. Ngor Garang, editor-in-chief of Destiny newspaper, and reporter Dengdit Ayok were arrested in Juba at the beginning of November after Ayok wrote an opinion article accusing the president of "staining his patriotism" by allowing his daughter to marry an Ethiopian man. See the full article (AFP, 11/19/11) [Return to top] Don't Allow Journalists' Killers to Get Away with Murder Next Wednesday has been declared as the "international day to end impunity" - an initiative designed to highlight the way in which authorities across the world fail to investigate the murders of journalists and others who advocate freedom of expression. It is also something of a call to action to demand justice for victims - including reporters, artists, musicians and politicians - whose killings have been ignored by the authorities. See the full article (Guardian, Roy Greenslade, 11/18/11) Click to read about USIP's upcoming event "Book Launch: Customary Justice and Rule of Law in War-Torn Societies" on December 2 at 10:00am. [Return to top]   Internet and Social Media The Tweets of War: What's Past is Postable The twitter feed RealTimeWWII, a real-time project to tweet the second World War, has met a suprising popularity. The feed has over 140,000 followers, and volunteers have started translating the RealTimeWWII feed into Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Chinese and Turkish. See the full article (New York Times, Jennifer Schuessler, 11/27/11) *NYT sign-up may be required to view the full article [Return to top] Propagandastan Over the past three years, a subdivision of Virginia-based General Dynamics has set up and run a network of eight "influence websites" funded by the Defense Department. Sometimes the website downplays abuses even contrary to concerns expressed by the U.S. government. All this raises the question: Is U.S. taxpayer money being given to a for-profit military contractor to shill for a Central Asian dictator, just because he's a useful ally in the war on terror? See the full article (Foreign Policy, David Trilling, 11/22/11) [Return to top] Pakistan Telecoms Body Delays Ban on 'Obscene' Texts The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) has delayed the implementation of a ban on text messages containing "obscene" words. A PTA spokesman told the AFP news agency that it would carry out more consultations before producing a much shorter list of banned words. The spokesman gave no time frame for when any ban may be enforced. See the full article (BBC, 11/22/11) [Return to top] Cyberwar Explodes in Syria Since media are strictly controlled by the Syrian government, and foreign journalists are by and large prohibited from entering the country, the Internet has played a vital role for Syrian opposition activists smuggling out images of atrocities carried out by security forces. Some observers argue the Internet has become a battleground in an all-out Syrian cyberwar. See the full article (CNN, Ivan Watson, 11/22/11) Click to read "Syrian Uprising: Looking In, Looking Out," a USIP Peace Brief by Amr al-Azm. [Return to top] Critics Take Aim at Turkey's Growing Social Curbs A series of moves by the Turkish government has sparked concern that the state is exerting ever greater sway over other parts of society, from academia to business [and] on Tuesday, Ankara introduced new filters on the Internet. Soli Ozel, a professor at Bilgi University in Istanbul, accused the government of "thoroughly monopolizing power in all aspects of life." See the full article (Washington Post, Daniel Dombey, 11/22/11) [Return to top] Egyptian Blogger Held in Crackdown Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a blogger turned political activist, has been detained because he has refused to cooperate with military prosecutors. He and his wife once blogged on social and cultural matters, but turned to political criticism in 2005, after Mubarak police and plainclothes henchmen beat women pro-democracy demonstrators. See the full article (Salon, Daniel Williams, 11/17/11) [Return to top] U.S. Military Goes Online to Rebut Extremists' Messages For the State Department's Digital Outreach Team, Arabic- and Urdu-speaking analysts engage extremists in online conversations, identifying themselves as representing the United States government. [The team was] established in 2008 by the military's Central Command to "counter extremist ideology, promote cultural awareness and explain U.S. interests." See the full article (New York Times, Thom Shanker and Eric schmitt, 11/17/11) *NYT sign-up may be required to view the full article Click to read about USIP's upcoming event "Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East" on December 7 at 3:00pm. [Return to top]   What's New from PeaceMedia Peace Must Be Waged - George Clooney George Clooney tells us why UN peacekeeping is essential to global peace and stability around the world, in places like Sudan, Bosnia, Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Clooney believes in a strong UN peacekeeping force. 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: | Forward this to a Friend

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