Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch Blog

• News source:
• originally published 19 June 2009
• New York Times
• By DANIEL J. WAKIN

Wisps of mournful tunes from a cane flute mingled with the plucking, jangling arabesques of the zitherlike qanun, the oud and gentle drums. The sounds arose from a quartet of Arab musicians who call themselves the Oriental Music Ensemble as they shared a precious moment of togetherness in the Miller Theater at Columbia University in March.

Despite the cohesion implied by the word “ensemble,” these four men are rarely in the same city, much less the same room. The politics of the Middle East confine them to four separate spheres and have turned them into a living metaphor for inescapable division.

“It’s our story,” said Suhail Khoury, who plays the traditional flute, or ney, and clarinet in the group. “It’s like summing up Palestine.”

The men are a cross section of the Palestinian experience in miniature: two Muslims, a Christian and a Druse. They live in Israel, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and abroad.

• News source:
• 30 June 2009
• IRIN
• By ICRC

TEL AVIV – A new report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) paints a grim picture of life in the Gaza Strip: insufficient housing, damaged infrastructure, limited access to clean water and the discharge of raw sewage into the sea.

The report [pdf] identifies restrictions on the movement of people and goods over the past two years as one of the main causes of the crisis in Gaza.

• News source:
• 30 June 2009
• ReliefWeb
• CIIAN Press Release
• By Canadian InternationalEvan Hoffman, Executive Director, Institute of Applied Negotiation (CIIAN)

OTTAWA – The international community’s response to the need for providing election support to Guinea-Bissau was impressive. However, the success of the first round of Presidential elections does not mean that the international community can now become complacent.

• News source:

In Shakespeare’s King Henry VI, a band of plotters eager to over throw the regime notes, “The first thing we must do is kill all the lawyers.”

However, these days, newly-minted lawyers are all but killing themselves in the struggle to find jobs after graduation…

So what’s an aspiring attorney to do? Dr. Ian Pilarczyk, Associate Director of the LLM Program at The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, notes wryly that bankruptcy law would be a good area to specialize in, as would eldercare and environmental law. He added that graduates should consider non-traditional uses of law, such as mediation rather than litigation.

• News source:
• originally published 19 June 2009
• CommonDreams
• By Stephen Zunes

The growing nonviolent insurrection in Iran against the efforts by the ruling clerics to return the ultra-conservative and increasingly autocratic incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinjead to power is growing. Whatever the outcome, it represents an exciting and massive outpouring of Iranian civil society for a more open and pluralistic society.

Ironically, defenders of Ahmadinejad’s repression are trying to blame everyone from the U.S. government to nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp to various small NGOs engaged in educational efforts on strategic nonviolent action as somehow being responsible for the popular uprising in Iran. It appears to be based upon the rather bizarre assumption that millions of Iranians would somehow be willing to pour out onto the streets in the face of violent repression by state security forces only because they have been directed to do so by people from an imperialist power which overthrew their last democratic government and subsequently propped up the tyrannical regime they installed in its place for the next quarter century.

Even putting aside the bizarre spectacle of self-proclaimed “leftists” coming to the defense of a right-wing fundamentalist autocratic like Ahmadinejad, this claim ignores several key factors…

• News source:
• 30 June 2009
• Asia Times Online
• ... highly criticized by US-based ethnic Hmong groups
• By Brian McCartan

BANGKOK – The removal of Cambodia and Laos from a United States blacklist that limits government support for US companies doing business with the two countries represents the latest strategic move by Washington to counterbalance China’s rising influence in mainland Southeast Asia. The new designation will open the way for more American investment in two of Southeast Asia’s poorest nations, both US adversaries during the Cold War era.

President Barack Obama has determined that Cambodia and Laos have both shown commitment to open markets, including through more liberal investment laws and fewer market controls, and should no longer be considered “Marxist-Leninist” countries as defined by the 1945 Export-Import Bank Act, the White House announced on June 12…

Obama’s decision was highly criticized by US-based ethnic Hmong groups, comprised of people who fled Laos after the 1975 communist takeover and claim their relatives continue to be persecuted by the authoritarian regime. Several thousand Hmong remain in a refugee camp in northern Thailand with another 158 Hmong recognized by the United Nations as refugees with real concerns for their safety if repatriated to Laos held in an immigration detention center in northeastern Thailand.

• News source:
• 29 June 2009
• marcgopin.com
• ... presidents have enormous psychological power to make people change, but only if they can trust or feel that the president is telling them absolute and simple truths
• By Marc Gopin

I continue to be haunted, almost fixated on President Obama’s simple words about the joke around the White House. It is in my opinion, a stunning formula for presidentially-led social change.

• News source:
• 29 June 2009
• Ekklesia
• By Ecumenical News International

The world is in the grip of a “virulent” new strain of anti-Semitism, says the Chief Rabbi of Orthodox Jews in Britain. Britain itself is facing an increasing number of anti-Semitic attacks, he added.

Trevor Grundy writes: Sir Jonathan Sacks made these stark statements in a recently published book Future Tense, a work that warns of the possibility of new waves of attacks on Jews because of their often perceived support for Zionism and the military activities of Israel.

Jewish leaders say the number of attacks on their 280,000-strong community in Britain, including arson attacks on synagogues and assault on Jews in the street, have reached the highest level since records started in the 1890s.

• News source:
• 29 June 2009
• Naharnet (Lebanon)

The Christian-Christian reconciliation is proceeding at a slow pace. Despite the efforts of religious and non-religious leaders to bring Christian parties together and find common grounds, the reconciliation is still at a preliminary stage.

Informed sources told An Nahar daily that discussions have failed to set up a clear reconciliation agenda and were instead concentrating on national subjects and post elections phase.

Sources close to Marada movement said secret meetings held between the different Christian parties before the June parliamentary elections were to ensure the elections took place peacefully and calmly. “These meeting have succeeded in maintaining calm among Marada and Lebanese Forces supporters who live in common villages in north Lebanon,” they added.

• News source:
• 26 June 2009
• Asia Times Online
• By Sam Campbell

PHNOM PENH – Science fiction author Philip K Dick once explained reality as “that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”. As sensible as this may sound, it is a definition unlikely to take hold in Cambodia, where recent events have shown the government’s tendency to obstinately dismiss anything but the most convenient information.

The denials have come from the highest ranks of government to the lowest rungs of social entertainment and conscripted the judicial system to fend off criticism.

• News source:
• 28 June 2009
• Huffington Post
• By Stephen Schlesinger

Days after Sri Lanka’s government defeated its long-time foe, the Tamil Tigers, in May, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew into the country’s capital, Colombo, for a 24-hour visit to urge its president to open up its refugee camps to international aid groups. This was another urgent trip by Ban to a war-torn capital, as part of his regular duties as the UN’s chief representative, seeking to uphold peace and restore global comity.

But who really knew much about this latest foray into a troubled region by the UN chief? Not many. Ban, who has just marked the half-way point in his five-year term in office, has so far been unable to attract a large worldwide audience for his activities. This is due, in part, to a stylistic reasons, but also to the vagaries of UN diplomacy.

Still in his quiet way, Ban is spending more than a third of his time on the road, and has accomplished much over the past 30 months.

• News source:
• 28 June 2009
• New York Times
• "... the biggest embrace yet of a collaborative new style of news gathering — one that combines the contributions of ordinary citizens with the reports and analysis of journalists."
• By BRIAN STELTER

“Check the source” may be the first rule of journalism. But in the coverage of the protests in Iran this month, some news organizations have adopted a different stance: publish first, ask questions later. If you still don’t know the answer, ask your readers.

CNN showed scores of videos submitted by Iranians, most of them presumably from protesters who took to the streets to oppose Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election on June 12. The Web sites of The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Guardian newspaper in London and others published minute-by-minute blogs with a mix of unverified videos, anonymous Twitter messages and traditional accounts from Tehran.

• News source:
• 26 June 2009
• Democratic Voice of Burma
• By Khin Hnin Htet

June 26, 2009 –A witness disqualified from testifying in the defense of Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi said yesterday following his appeal that it was not “ordinary lawyers” making key decisions in the trial but government cronies.

Suu Kyi’s defense team yesterday appealed to Burma’s supreme court to admit two witnesses who were disqualified last month by judges from testifying.

One of Suu Kyi’s lawyers said that the decision was not in accordance with Burmese law. One of the witnesses, U Tin Oo, is currently under house arrest, while U Win Tin has been criticized by the junta for giving interviews about the trial to foreign media.

Both are senior members of the opposition National League for Democracy party, which Suu Kyi leads.

• News source:
• 26 June 2009
• International Business Times
• By Mark Weisbrot

Since the Iranian presidential election of June 12, allegations that the announced winner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory was stolen have played an important role in the demonstrations, political conflict, and media reporting on events there. Some say that it does not matter whether the elections were stolen or not, since the government has responded to peaceful protests with violence and arrests. These actions are indeed abhorrent and inexcusable, and the world’s outrage is justified. So, too, is the widespread concern for the civil liberties of Iranians who have chosen to exercise their rights to peacefully protest.

At the same time, the issue of whether the election was stolen will remain relevant, both to our understanding of the situation and to U.S.-Iranian relations, for reasons explained below. It is therefore worth looking at whether this allegation is plausible.

• News source:
• originally published 10 June 2009
• CBC News

More than a year after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for residential schools was established, Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl has introduced the second panel of leaders for the group.

Judge Murray Sinclair, a judge in Manitoba who became the province’s first aboriginal associate chief justice in 1988, will chair a panel that is being revived after months of internal wrangling among its former members, who all resigned last year.

The other members of the commission are Marie Wilson, a senior executive with the N.W.T. workers compensation commission, and Wilton Littlechild, Alberta regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations.

• News source:
• 26 June 2009
• The Progressive
• By Amitabh Pal

Regardless of how things ultimately pan out in Iran, the protests against the election results in that country provide us yet another example of the use of nonviolent civil disobedience in the Islamic world.

Indeed, defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has invoked the name of the ultimate icon of modern pacifism—Mahatma Gandhi—in urging his followers to fight on. He has asked his supporters to “adopt the tactics of Gandhi, the tactics of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience,” says his spokesperson Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the acclaimed film director.

• News source:
• June 2009
• Chatham House
• ... a number of aspects of the reported turnout figures are problematic: the massive increases from 2005; the collapse of regional variations; and the absence of any clear link between increases in turnout and increased support for any one candidate

Working from the province by province breakdowns of the 2009 and 2005 results, released by the Iranian Ministry of Interior, and from the 2006 census as published by the official Statistical Centre of Iran, this paper offers some observations about the official data and the debates surrounding the 2009 Iranian Presidential Election.

• News source:
• originally published 19 June 2009
• Radio Australia
• By Sen Lam interviewing Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, reseacher for Nonviolence International Southeast Asia

The group Nonviolence International Southeast Asia warns of more bloodshed in southern Thailand, unless the government changes its tactics in quelling violence between Islamic and Buddhist groups. The report was launched as part of the Global Week of Action Against Gun Violence.

SOMBATPOONSIRI: I would start like this, I would say in the report we pointed out the insecurity situation in the south and that insecurity situation leads to the proliferation of firearms, especially amongst civilians. So basically three channels of firearms have been indicated in the report. First is private ownership, so basically we give the number of registration of firearms in the area, so approximately there are 160,000 registered firearms in the area.

• News source:
• 2008
• YouTube | mattharding2718
• By Matt

Matt is a 32-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. Matt achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he’d saved to wander around Asia until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.

A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said “Hey, why don’t you stand over there and do that dance. I’ll record it.” He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It’s actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, this turned out to be a very good idea…

Matt’s 2008 video:

…how Matt got people to come out and dance in the 2008 video.

• News source:
• 26 June 2009
• The Independent
• By Frédéric Tellier, Senior Iran Analyst at the International Crisis Group

The events that have roiled Iran since its highly questionable presidential election are the product of a perfect storm, the confluence of several crises that simultaneously have come to a head…

The regime must now deal with unprecedented internal rifts within the system even as also faces public demands for freedom and democracy far exceeding anything any of the presidential candidates can offer. The events of the last few weeks in this sense are a watershed – shaking the foundations of the regime, undercutting the Supreme Leader’s status, and exposing a deepening rift with the people.

It is a turning point in what could be a very long story – but a turning point nonetheless.