Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch Blog

• News source:
• 31 October 2008
• Dhivehi Observer

There is no doubt that Maldivians made history on Tuesday by ousting long serving dictator from power with a popular vote. Like everywhere else, in London, Maldivians celebrated and greeted the new era of democracy, justice and freedom with elation. The overall results in fact coincided with the results of the London ballot and as we all came out of the Embassy it began snowing heavily. Many chanted, this is ‘blessed’ snow!

• News source:
• 31 October 2008
• Reuters AlertNet
• By Michael Kleinman

There’s anexcellent IRIN article this week about the threats faced by Afghan aid workers. According to one Afghan who works for a humanitarian agency:

“If the Taliban know that I work for an international organisation, it will not take them long to either kill or kidnap me.”

The situation is particularly bad in Afghanistan, yet national staff face similar threats in conflicts worldwide, as humanitarian agencies increasingly transfer risk from international to national staff in the field. Which is in itself, perhaps, not surprising. In the humanitarian world, national staff are often second-class citizens, even though they comprise the vast majority of humanitarian workers. (For instance, the UN estimates that 95% of all aid workers in Darfur are national – i.e. Sudanese – staff.)

And nowhere is this more clear than when it comes to security. To put it bluntly, it often seems that the life of a western aid worker is worth more than his or her Afghan or Congolese or Somali or Sudanese colleague.

• News source:
• 31 October 2008
• AlertNet Blogs
• By Ashley Clements

If the past six months has shown us anything, it is that aid does work here and does reach the people who need it most.

• News source:
• 30 October 2008
• The Progressive
• By Amitabh Pal

Nonviolent resistance is not only the morally superior choice. It is also twice as effective as the violent variety. That’s the startling and reassuring discovery by Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth, who analyzed an astonishing 323 resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006. “Our findings show that major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns,” the authors note in the journal International Security.

• News source:
• 30 October 2008
• International Crisis Group
• Latin America Report N°29

The more than 155,000 victims of Colombia’s conflict registered to date with the attorney general’s Justice and Peace Unit (JPU) – mostly those who suffered from the paramilitaries – are mainly onlookers to, not actors in, a lagging transitional justice process. Over three years after passage, implementation of the Justice and Peace Law (JPL) is stymied by the relative disinterest in promoting victims’ rights of the Uribe government and much of political and civil society. The problems are exacerbated by serious operational and financial bottlenecks in the judicial process and assistance and reparations to victims, as well as the persistence of armed conflict with Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insurgents and the emergence of new illegal armed groups (NIAGs) and paramilitary successors.

To avoid failure of the process, more government commitment to rigorous JPL implementation is required, as is constructive dialogue with the political opposition and victims and human rights groups on the new victims of violence law before Congress and an integrated victims and reparations strategy. There is also need to increase protection of victims from illegal armed groups, eliminate military abuses and strengthen the rule of law across the country.

• News source:
• 29 October 2008
• Survival

Following pressure from Survival International, De Beers says it has stopped operations on the land of the Kalahari Bushmen in Botswana because those it consulted, including Bushmen living inside the reserve, did not agree with its plan to explore for diamonds near a Bushman community.

De Beers began its latest operations in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve only last month. The company says it has no intention of carrying out any further activity there, and will not do so unless and until a sustainable, long-term management plan is agreed.

This is a huge victory for the Bushmen – but diamond mining still threatens their survival. De Beers retains a number of prospecting licences in the reserve.

• News source:
• 29 October 2008
• abstract on Human Security Gateway
• By Anthony W. Gambino | Council on Foreign Relations

Nearly one-quarter the size of the United States, the DRC is home to important tropical forests, vast hydroelectric potential, and resources ranging from diamonds to zinc. It is also home to an ongoing humanitarian disaster. A war that began in 1998 caused widespread death and displacement. Though it officially ended in 2002, violence has continued, particularly in the east. The International Rescue Committee estimates that more than five million Congolese have died since 1998–including more than 500,000 per year since the official end of the war. Despite some positive developments, such as democratic elections in 2006 and an increase in foreign investment, the country continues to face severe security and development problems. In this Council Special Report, Anthony W. Gambino analyzes these problems and proposes steps the United States can take to help.

• News source:
• 29 October 2008
• Ecumenical News International
• By Francis Wong

HONG KONG – Recently elected leaders of China’s officially-sanctioned Protestant churches have said they care about house churches that sometimes operate underground and that they are willing to provide them with Bibles…

The officially-sanctioned Chinese Protestant church estimates there are at least 18 million Protestants in China, but many other Christians belong to “house” or underground churches, say some analysts. The Three-Self Patriotic Movement was conceived in 1951 and formed in 1954 as the only legitimate umbrella for Protestant activities. The China Christian Council emerged with the support of the TSPM after China’s Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, when the expression of religious life was effectively banned.

• News source:
• 29 October 2008
• Baghdad Observer
• By Leila Fadel

The U.S. and Iraq are currently negotiation a security agreement that would replace a U.N. mandate that allows their presence in Iraq. Of course there are a series of problems with Iraq wanting to prosecute U.S. soldiers and the U.S. wanting to protect Americans from Iraqi courts.

Iraq has had little power to protect its citizens from foreigners following heinous crimes inside Iraq. Following the killing of 17 civilians last year by Blackwater, security contractors that protect diplomats, the Iraqi government could do nothing. When a teenage girl was raped and her family killed, south of Baghdad, by a U.S. soldier, the Iraqi government could do nothing.

While the negotiations continue and seem to be hitting a wall we’ve forgotten about the detainees.

• News source:
• Interview posted to You Tube August 2008
• original interview on Global Connections Television

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Part2

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• News source:
• October 2008
• Law Society of BC Benchers' Bulletin
• By Timothy E. McGee

Access to information about the law is a cornerstone of civil society. For most of the last century, access to legal information meant visiting a law library, whether public or private. By the end of the 1990s, an increasing volume of legislation and a significant number of court decisions had become freely available via the Internet. However, navigating among the different websites and portals was haphazard at best, and for-profit providers were increasingly acquiring the rights to distribute such information.

In February 2000, the Federation of Law Societies’ National Technology Committee proposed creating a virtual library of Canadian law…

CanLII is more than just a resource for lawyers. A recent focus group session found that members of the public looking for legal assistance frequently turn to the Internet to find information about their particular legal problems. CanLII provides a simple and efficient means for everyone to gain access to case law and legislation.

• News source:
• 28 October 2008
• Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN)
• By P. V. Thomas

NEW DELHI – India’s home minister promised the government would enact a law to check sectarian violence in the country, when he replied at the end of a day-long discussion on violence against Christians.

Patil told the Lok Sabha (people’s council), the lower house of parliament, the new law will include provisions for rehabilitation of victims of communal violence. The minister’s promise came during a discussion “on the anti-Christian violence in Orissa, Karnataka and other parts of the country.”

• News source:
• 28 October 2008
• Irish Times

Iraq’s parliament has reached a preliminary agreement on legislation to guarantee religious and ethnic minorities seats on provincial councils to be selected in elections expected soon, lawmakers said today.

• News source:
• 26 October 2008
• Hindustan Times
• By Mujibur Rehman

The Hindu-Christian conflict in Orissa has opened a new chapter in the story of India’s unending ethnic conflict. While in the West, Muslims and Christians are at loggerheads, their relationship in India has been largely conflict-free. The emerging patterns of India’s ethnic conflict show that Hindu fundamentalists are against Muslims and Christians. But the absence of Muslim-Christian conflicts in India indicate prevalence of natural solidarity between them. But this is not the case.

The murder of Graham Staines in Orissa in 1999 brought global attention on the violence against Christians. While it was mistakenly seen as an isolated incident, the violence against Christians in December in 2007 in Kandhamal and the recent violence there suggests a political design…

• News source:
• 25 October 2008
• Times of India

BHUBANESWAR – The Orissa government on Saturday changed its stance and said it will rebuild churches damaged in Kandhamal district during the communal violence that killed 37 people and rendered thousands homeless.

• News source:
• 25 October 2008
• News Blaze
• By Seema Mustafa

It took a lot of guts for the Orissa nun to come out with her testimony. I had visited the exact spot in Kandhamar district, just days after she was raped, and the burnt jeep, the desecrated statues of Jesus Christ, the broken windows bore testimony to the gruesome violence in the name of religion. Villagers looked on from a distance but when we went and spoke to them the story came pouring out. Yes a priest and nun were caught by the mobs, they were stripped and beaten, they were paraded through the village to the market place where the police stood and watched, and yes the nun was raped.

And what has happened since? Nothing. For days and weeks the Navin Patnaik government stood by and did nothing to protect the poorest of the poor as they were killed, and turned out of their houses just because they were Christians and refused to give up their faith.

• News source:
• 24 October 2008
• Catholic News Service
• By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY – Cardinal Emmanuel-Karim Delly of Baghdad, Iraq, said he hoped the tragedy of violence and threats against Christians in Mosul finally would spur world leaders to work together to bring peace to his country.

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• originally published 18 September 2008
• ars technica
• By Tim De Chant

Richard Price wandered about for three years searching for someone who would understand the problems he had… with his research. Then, one fateful day in 2007, he found that special someone—a fellow philosopher working on the same question. Like many good scientific quests, the end of Price’s search for a kindred academic spirit raised another question: “Isn’t there a better way to find fellow researchers?”

For Price, the answer was “yes,” but the long answer was still over a year away. Frustrated by the past three years, heartened after finding a new colleague, and inspired by sites like Facebook, he started building his own social networking site for academics. The result was Academia.edu...

• News source:
• October 2008
• Accord (Conciliation Resources)

The eruption of violent conflict over South Ossetia in August, and the subsequent Russian recognition of Abkhaz and South Ossetian independence have fundamentally altered the political landscape in the region and beyond. In the wake of these events, many uncertainties remain. High-level political efforts continue to try to define the framework for a future peace process and to work towards greater security and stability in the region.

Meanwhile ordinary people on all sides struggle to cope with the immediate consequences of the conflict and to come to terms with new realities.

In response, Conciliation Resources is working to support partners in their ongoing efforts…

• News source:
• October 2008
• Humanitarian Exchange Magazine
• By Reena Ghelani and Zia Choudhury

Humanitarian agencies, whose sole mandate is to save lives and ensure that those who require humanitarian assistance receive it, have been faced with tough choices during the past 17 years in Somalia. Somalia, one of the world’s longest ongoing humanitarian operations, has challenged how we operate, often forcing agencies to compromise principled action for the sake of delivering assistance at almost any cost.