Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch BlogPeacemakers Trust posts news, reports or announcements of interest to people studying or working in the field of dispute resolution, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Inclusion of an item on the media watch blog does not imply endorsement or agreement of Peacemakers Trust with views expressed by authors of posted items.
Friday, 20 March 2009 to Monday, 23 March 2009
The Peace Alliance and the Student Peace Alliance empower civic activism and advocate for legislation to establish a cabinet-level Department of Peace to address and treat the root causes of violence, domestically and internationally.
Conference: March 20-23, 2009 Registration
I wanted to see what Peacemakers Trust looked like in Wordle. Wordle generates “word clouds†that give more prominence to words appearing more frequently in the source text. So… what themes stand out on www.peacemakers.ca? I put the Peacemakers Trust sitemap into a wordle generator to find out. Here’s the result:
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(...more)Here [are] today’s mobile mediation and negotiation tips. What do I mean by ‘mobile’? I am thinking of this and typing it while on the train so enjoy!
1- It puts the pressure on the other party (meaning it’s not on you). By feeling the need to say something in order to break the silence will possibly get them to move away from their position, and give you insight on their interests.
(...more)Gershon Baskin’s provocative title is absolutely right, it does not appear to matter anymore which coalition will rule Israel next.
(...more)BETHLEHEM – Every Friday, the West Bank village of Ni’lin is home to some of the most violent clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian, Israeli and international demonstrators.
Each week, activists from the village’s Land Defence Committee stage demonstrations at the Separation Barrier which cuts off as much as half the village’s farmland and water from its inhabitants.
As a reporter for a Palestinian news agency in Bethlehem, I too travelled to Ni’lin, but last weekend beheld a spectacle perhaps more remarkable than these weekly Barrier protests: Villagers had set up an exhibition to coincide with the United Nations-declared International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January, an exhibition organised by Ni’lin’s Popular Committee Against the Wall.
(...more)Peace-Making and Peace-Building: Securing the Contributions of Women and Civil Society
07 Sep – 12 Sep, 2008, Salzberg Global Seminar (Session 455)
Barbara Kay’s February 18 argument that the field of peace studies endorses terrorism is nonsense. Dedicated peace theorists and researchers are distinguished by their commitment to reduce the use of violence whether committed by enemy nations, friendly governments, or warlords of any stripe. (read more…)
With worldwide attention once again focused on Kashmir, all major stakeholders in the region – Pakistan, India, Kashmiri separatists, religious extremists and peacebuilders alike – are hoping that the renewed international spotlight can facilitate an end to the decades-long conflict that has resulted in over 80,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of people displaced.
(...more)LONDON – In recent weeks, the UK – and the rest of the world – witnessed both widespread optimism and heartfelt grief… Barack Obama’s inauguration and … the tragedy of violent conflict in Gaza…
In the wake of tragedy and hope, British Muslim and Jewish leaders have come together for interfaith initiatives that are not only important for achieving communal harmony in the UK, but were designed to inspire Middle Eastern political leaders to work for lasting peace between Israel and Palestine.
(...more)JAKARTA – When the media covers a conflict, accusations of bias can land on its doorstep. The debate following the three-week Israeli offensive into Gaza is a case in point. The BBC received more than 11,000 complaints when it decided not to broadcast an appeal by aid agencies for victims of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Yet BBC Director-General Mark Thompson denied he had been subject to the lobbying of pro-Israel interests and maintained that the corporation had a duty to cover Gaza in a “balanced, objective wayâ€.
(...more)ESFAHAN, Iran: At Palestine Square, opposite a mosque called Al-Aqsa, is a synagogue where Jews of this ancient city gather at dawn. Over the entrance is a banner saying: “Congratulations on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution from the Jewish community of Esfahan.”
(...more)Ontario-based mediator Colm Brannigan has passed along a valuable article on the mediation of Information Technology disputes from a June ‘07 Ontario Bar Journal publication. The article, Resolving I.T. Disputes through ADR — Part I Mediation was written by Colm with his co-author Michael Erdle…
(...more)Throw the words “peace” and “environment” together in a sentence and chances are it will result in dismissive eye-rolls; after all, such terms often come from the mouths of ideological-yet-naive, do-gooding-but-unrealistic hippies.
(...more)Even good people sometimes act unethically without their own awareness. This paper explores psychological processes as they affect the ethical perception of others’ behavior, and concludes with implications for organizations. First, there is a tendency for people to overlook unethical behavior in others when recognizing such behavior would harm them. Second, people might readily ignore unethical behavior when others have an agent do their dirty work for them. Third, gradual moral decay leads people to grow comfortable with behavior to which they would otherwise object. Fourth, the tendency to value outcomes over processes can lead us to accept unethical processes for far too long.
(...more)In India, hundreds of thousands of children spend long days weaving beautiful rugs for homes in America and Europe. They have no choice: they are modern-day slaves.
A photo exhibit of these children is currently making its way around the U.S. The exhibit is sponsored by Rugmark, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending child labor in the carpet industry…. Audio.
(...more)Amnesty International today called for a UN arms embargo on Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups as it published a new report on the misuse of foreign-supplied weaponry during the recent Gaza conflict.
Both Israel and Hamas used weapons supplied from abroad to carry out attacks on civilians – thus committing war crimes – declared Amnesty’s 38-page report, ‘Fuelling conflict: foreign arms supplies to Israel/Gaza’.
(...more)I read about this about a week ago and it stuck in my mind. So, when I saw it again on the homepage of Yahoo! News, I decided to write about it. An additional factor driving me to write about this is that as mediators and negotiators, we are always promoting ‘expanding the pie’. there are plenty of times I blog on ‘typical’ ADR and mediation news stories so why not expand the realm and mention this? Reading this story, there is a heap of built up anger, frustration, resentment and other emotions dating back over a century- yes a century, not years!
(...more)Its past marked by a number of wars, among them a civil war that lasted for 27 years, Angola is now going through a period of growing political stability, attracting immigration from African neighbors. The portuguese speaking nation, rich in Petroleum, has recently embarked on a “Campaign for the Disarmament of the Civilian Populationâ€, as its gun collection drive is entitled, launched April last year, and effective until 2010.
Four members of the technical team of Angola’s Disarmament Commission (Commission for the Disarmament of the Civil Population, in full) visited Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in January, with the goal of beginning a collaboration in the field of firearms control.
(...more)In late 2008, the Hugo Chavez administration celebrated 10 years in government. Since his first electoral triumph on Dec. 6, 1998, a new period began characterized by the emergence of progressive and leftist governments in South America…
In the following years, another seven presidents have come to power creating a new paradigm within the institutional political scenario in eight out of 10 governments in the region… These governments were made possible, to greater and lesser degrees, by the resistance of social movements to the neoliberal model…
In the first stage after the “progressive” governments took power, the subordination of social movements to their respective governments predominated, resulting in demobilization, divisions, and the fragmentation of initiatives…. the majority collaborated with the state in return for subsidies and other material benefits, including positions in state agencies and institutions. Another large part of the original collectives simply dissolved.
In contrast, the social movements of Chile, Peru, and Colombia have taken important steps forward. In these three countries, it is the indigenous peoples that have taken the initiative.
(...more)80 percent of the world’s major armed conflicts between 1950 and 2000 occurred in biodiversity hotspots, reports a study published in the journal Conservation Biology…
“This astounding conclusion – that the richest storehouses of life on Earth are also the regions of the most human conflict – tells us that these areas are essential for both biodiversity conservation and human well-being,” said Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International (CI) and an author of the study.
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