Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch Blog

• News source:
• 31 July 2009
• Asia Times Online
• By Shawn Kelley

Thailand’s conflict has variously been portrayed as a struggle between rich and poor, urban and rural, feudalists and democrats, with the red shirts claiming to represent the latter in the characterizations. But the country is more clearly divided on regional lines, with the wealthier Bangkok and southern region favoring the Democrat Party, and the poorer but more populous north and northeastern regions leaning strongly towards Thaksin.

The broad brushstroke categorizations, however, do not account for the many exceptions, particularly in the northern city of Chiang Mai where there are plenty of rich and poor on both sides of the political divide…

• News source:
• 30 July 2009
• Arizona State Univesrity News
• By Judith Smith

When a student brings up a controversial issue surrounding religion in a university class, the response of many professors is to change the subject – or risk finding themselves engaged in a discussion that can become uncomfortable, or even hostile.

The result is what Linell Cady, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, calls “the paradox of constrained inquiry.” Cady is a professor in the new School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

“In the institution that should be most committed to free speech and academic freedom, we can, at times, fail to address the issues that matter most to people and warrant our deepest engagement,” Cady said.

To enable ASU to avoid that paradox, the center is working on the second phase of a $200,000 project funded by the Ford Foundation’s Difficult Dialogues initiative, “Teaching and Talking About Religion in Public.”

• News source:
• 31 July 2009
• Globe and Mail
• By Associated Press

The Myanmar court scheduled to deliver a verdict in the high-profile trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Friday it was not yet ready to make a decision and adjourned until Aug. 11, diplomats said.

• News source:
• 31 July 2009
• Mediation World

Restorative justice programs in Lacombe and Hobbema are among 11 projects around Alberta sharing $306,000 in provincial grants.

• News source:
• originally published 17 July
• UN Watch | National Post
• By Hillel Neuer and Marissa Cramer

Last week, not for the first time, the world witnessed state-sanctioned violence against protesters in Iran and China. Yet the United Nations was instead focused on Israel, due to unprecedented hearings held by a UN inquiry into the Gaza conflict of six months ago. This was precisely the goal of the body that organized the inquiry, the discredited UN Human Rights Council.

The inquiry’s lead investigator is former international prosecutor Justice Richard Goldstone. From the beginning, the terms of his mandate have been unclear.

• News source:

The state of play at the West Bank

Israel and the US call the Wall snaking through the West Bank a “barrier”. What if the barrier becomes the playing field for an unlikely soccer match? Pepe Escobar kicks in.

• News source:
• 31 July 2009
• Menassat
• By TANIA TABAR

The Never Before campaign was launched in Beirut, Lebanon, during the December/January war on Gaza. The seven different short 2 to 4 minute videos that have been created since then have been circulating on the web, each with a different theme, attempting to present the Palestinian issue in another light, contrary to what the Never Before Team calls, “one of victimization.”

• News source:

“Innovating for Change”
Accepting Nominations for Honorees
Looking for Refugee Innovators
Deadline: October 15, 2009

Each year, the Women’s Refugee Commission honors individual refugee women and young people who are working on behalf of other refugees. We are now seeking candidates to be honored at our Voices of Courage Awards luncheon on May 6, 2010.

In 2010, we will honor cutting-edge innovations in conflict-affected settings led by refugee or internally displaced women or youth, which measurably improve the lives of displaced women, children and young people. An “innovation” can be a product, a service or an approach developed by a person who is leading change in a new way. Call for Nominations

Nominate a deserving refugee innovator for the 2010 Voices of Courage Award. Photo by Nick Schaden/Women’s Refugee Commission
Voices of Courage Awards 2010

“Innovating for Change”
Accepting Nominations for Honorees
Looking for Refugee Innovators
Deadline: October 15, 2009

Each year, the Women’s Refugee Commission honors individual refugee women and young people who are working on behalf of other refugees. We are now seeking candidates to be honored at our Voices of Courage Awards luncheon on May 6, 2010.

In 2010, we will honor cutting-edge innovations in conflict-affected settings led by refugee or internally displaced women or youth, which measurably improve the lives of displaced women, children and young people. An “innovation” can be a product, a service or an approach developed by a person who is leading change in a new way. Some examples:

* Developing a reproductive health response that helps reduce the incidence of maternal mortality
* Pioneering an alternative to detention to improve asylum practice in the U.S.
* Finding a way for refugees to have a place in a thriving market economy and safely earn a living
* Developing an ethanol-fueled cook stove so that women and girls do not have to leave camps to collect firewood, risking rape
* Training refugee youth to run vocational training programs for displaced young people with disabilities
* Your project here!

Two refugee or asylum-seeking women or young people (up to age 30) will be selected to receive the Voices of Courage Award. The 2010 Voices of Courage honoree’s organization will receive a $5,000 grant from the Women’s Refugee Commission to further his or her critical work to benefit refugee and displaced people in his or her community. We will also feature descriptions of the top innovations in our luncheon journal.

Candidate criteria:

* The candidate may live in the United States or overseas.
* Candidates should be current or former refugees, internally displaced women or young people or asylum-seekers who have developed successful innovations that serve people displaced by conflict or seeking asylum in the United States.
* Candidates should be passionate advocates for improving the lives and protecting the rights of refugee and internally displaced women, children and young people.
* Candidates must be able to travel to New York for a week in May (the luncheon is Thursday, May 6, 2010) to accept their award (all travel and housing expenses will be paid).
* Candidates must be willing to participate in media interviews.
* The ability to speak English is preferred.

To nominate a candidate for a Voices of Courage award, please send:

1. Letter of nomination that details the innovation and tells the story of the nominee
2. Curriculum vitae, résumé or biography of the nominee
3. Three references: Names and email/phone/fax

If you email your nomination, please include all the information in a single attachment or include it in the body of the email. Include the name of the nominee in the subject of the email. Please do not send any additional materials (photos, etc.) as they will not be considered.

Email your nomination by October 15, 2009 to Grace Cheung at GraceC@wrcommission.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . You may also fax the nomination to +1.212.551.3180 or mail to: Women’s Refugee Commission, Attn: Voices of Courage Nominees, 122 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10168-1289, USA.

PLEASE NOTE: We can only consider nominations that are in English.

Thank you for your help. For more information on the luncheon, contact us at the above address.

Download a PDF of this call for nominations.

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• News source:

The Third International Mediation Conference is held together with the permanent partner of the Scientific and Methodological Center for Mediation and Law – Russian Association of Lawyers. The upcoming conference will be held with support of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

• News source:
• 31 July 2009
• Phnom Penh Post

A total of 27 senior judges, prosecutors and provincial court chiefs are set to retire following a meeting Wednesday of the Supreme Council of the Magistracy (SCM), which has enacted a little-used law mandating compulsory retirement at age 60…

Sam Pracheameanith said that the nine-member SCM, which includes prosecutors and judges from the Court of Appeal, Supreme Court and Phnom Penh Municipal Court, has also approved 63 graduate judges to undertake internships under the auspices of the SCM.

The SCM, as the Kingdom’s chief judicial body, has the power to appoint, replace or disqualify any judge or prosecutor on the grounds of conflict of interest or incapacity.

The forced retirements announced Wednesday have drawn some criticism from legal and civil society observers.

• News source:
• 30 July 2009
• AP
• By IBRAHIM BARZAK

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip — Thousands of children in the Gaza Strip attempted to set a new world record Thursday by flying colorful homemade kites amid the ruins of Israel’s bruising offensive earlier this year — a rare display of joy in the isolated seaside territory ruled by Hamas militants.

• News source:
• June 2009
• Vision of Humanity

The results of the Global Peace Index for 2009 suggest that the world has become slightly less peaceful in the past year, which appears to reflect the intensification of violent conflict in some countries and the effects of both the rapidly rising food and fuel prices early in 2008 and the dramatic global economic downturn in the final quarter of the year. Rapidly rising unemployment, pay freezes and falls in the value of house prices, savings and pensions is causing popular resentment in many countries, with political repercussions that have been registered by the GPI through various indicators measuring safety and security in society.

• News source:
• originally published 21 April 2009
• Global Policy Forum
• By Costas Douzinas

Throughout history, kings and rulers have added a veneer of high principle to murderous campaigns. In the west, the quest for moral justification has taken the form of the “just war” theory. However the lack of an arbiter who could sift through the conflicting rationalisations of the warring parties has made the just war one of the hardest moral mazes. As the poet Wyndam Lewis put it: “but what war that was ever fought, was an unjust war, except of course that waged by the enemy.”

• News source:
• 30 July 2009
• Jakarta Post
• By Anak Agung Banyu Perwita

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) last week. The formal establishment of this friendship treaty with the United States marks a new chapter in US-ASEAN relations.

• News source:
• abstract published 30 July 2009
• abstract on Zunia Knowledge Exchange
• By Dr Tim Jacoby Senior Lecturer, The Institute for Development Policy and Management, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom, and Dr Eric James Emergency Coordinator, International Rescue Committee, United States

This paper … presents some background on the general issues that surround the reconstruction of conflict affected countries, before going on to comment on some of the more prominent concerns that have emerged within the sphere of humanitarianism over the past decade or so.

• News source:
• 30 July 2009
• Menassat
• By NELLY AL-MASRI

GAZA – For many years, photojournalism in Palestine was the exclusive domain of men. Women were largely restricted to only taking pictures of weddings and social events. Recently, Palestinian women have burst on the photojournalist scene challenging these social norms, while receiving accolades for the work abroad.

• News source:
• 29 July 2009
• IPS
• By Eunice Wanjiru, interviewing ODETTE NYIRAMILIMO, Rwandan member of the East African Legislative Assembly

KIGALI – Fifty-six percent of Rwanda’s parliamentarians are women, a manifestation of the active role women have taken in rebuilding the country since the 1994 genocide.

Odette Nyiramilimo, who was Rwanda’s minister of state for social affairs from 2000 to 2003 and a senator from 2003 to 2008, attributes the strong presence of Rwandan women in government to an enabling environment for affirmative action in Rwanda.

She believes the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 was a key influence for Rwandan women; as is the firm commitment from President Paul Kagame that women’s rights are human rights and that development is not possible whilst leaving behind 52 percent of the population.

Excerpts of the interview follow.

• News source:
• 29 July 2009
• Business Ethics Blog
• By Chris MacDonald

Why the “S” in CSR? What’s so social about Corporate Social Responsibility? The short answer, presumably, is that CSR is intended to get managers to think not just about their responsibilities to shareholders, but to society more generally. Indeed, much of the debate over CSR has focused on whether managers are a) can (i.e., are they qualified to), and b) should (are they justified to), use shareholders’ resources to achieve social objectives.

• News source:
• 29 July 2009
• Upside Down World

Social movements throughout the hemisphere are fighting for a better future; one where land & indigenous rights are recognized and communities have control over their resources. But, how do they tell this story when the corporate media is controlled by those they are fighting against: a powerful few who exploit resources for profit and repress the movements that challenge their greed.

Date: Wednesday, July 29
Time:6:30pm-8:30pm
Location: Central Library
1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia
Skyline room- 4th floor

• News source:
• 29 July 2009
• UN News Centre

29 July 2009 – Lack of accountability is hindering progress in the peace process in Nepal, the top United Nations human rights official in the country said today, calling for perpetrators of violations, committed both during the decade-long civil war and afterwards, to be brought to justice.