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.
JUBA, Sudan — South Sudan vowed on Monday to end its use of child soldiers by the end of the year, as the former rebel force works to transform itself into a regular army ahead of a 2011 independence referendum.
(...more)Today’s edition of Reporting on Conflict was stimulated by a short electronic conversation with a colleague about the ethics of using photos of horrific suffering to raise funds or to sell news or causes during disasters, famine or armed-conflict. We have posted six stories:
We acknowledge Susanne Ure of Amnesty International Canada who pointed out most of these articles. Please let us know about other articles on this topic or online policies or standards of humanitarian organizations of which you are aware.
Archbishop Elias Chacour, who is both a Palestinian and a citizen of Israel, has told a large gathering in Edinburgh that a just and peaceful future in Israel and Palestine depends upon education.
The average age in the area he lives, said the Archbishop, is 14 years, and many young people have been deeply shaped and scarred by the history of occupation and eviction. Transformation of lives and understanding is vital, he suggested.
Chacour is the Archbishop of Akko, Haifa, Nazareth and Galilee of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. Noted for his efforts to promote reconciliation, he is the author of two books about the experience of Palestinian people living in present-day Israel – including the best-seller Blood Brothers, which broke boundaries in the UK by being published by a major evangelical company.
(...more)Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict
10 August 2010 – The start of the trial of Omar Khadr – arrested in Afghanistan in 2002 for crimes he allegedly committed as a child – before the United States Military Commission in Guantánamo Bay today could set a precedent jeopardizing the status of child soldiers around the world, a United Nations envoy cautioned.
Mr. Khadr, the last child soldier held in Guantánamo, was 15 years old when he allegedly threw a grenade that killed a US soldier. He faces war crimes charges at his trial.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, stressed in a statement that the statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is clear that no one under the age of 18 should be tried for war crimes.
(...more)Paul Jay interviews Carol Rosenberg, a senior journalist, currently with the McClatchy News Service. Rosenberg works at the Miami Herald, which has provided extensive coverage of the operation of the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.
(...more)When he was 14 years old, Sergio Limatu… witnessed the murder of a class mate… Limatu tells us that seeing his class mates die and walk around with fire arms was part of his daily routine at high school in Guatemala. “Whenever we went out in groups, we would encounter pandilleros who were waiting to rob us. Sometimes going out and coming back. So we were prepared to fight, until a colleague brought a fire arm. He said they had guns, so we should have guns too.”
Today, at the age of 20, Limatu says that after his friend’s murder everybody wanted vengeance, but when he saw his friend holding the gun he realized that you can’t fight violence with more violence. “If I want to have a future, I have to do something different.” That’s when he decided to become a volunteer at the Safe Schools Program of the Educational Institute for Sustainable Development (Iepades).
(...more)Stressing that Japan has a unique role to play in the area of nuclear disarmament, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on the nation’s young people to lead the way on efforts to rid the world of these deadly weapons.
“Become leaders for disarmament,” Mr. Ban told students at Waseda University in Tokyo. “The international community is looking to you for your leadership and for your vision.”
(...more)Just a few decades ago, “CSR” meant customer service representative. My, how things have changed!
Corporate social responsibility is now a profession. Business schools feature CSR curricula while the popularity of sustainability professional organizations such as Net Impact have exploded. Even CSR-focused think-tanks and trade media have proliferated: The Corporate Responsibility Officers Association joined the ranks of Ethical Corporation which followed Business for Social Responsibility that stood on the shoulders of the Center for Corporate Community Relations (now the Boston College Center on Corporate Citizenship).
It wasn’t always so. CSR, as we now know it, sprung out of the apparel industry’s use of sweatshop and child labor. There are two pivotal events that changed the expectations of business to evaluate the social and environmental impact of its supply chain: the exposure of Nike’s business model and Kathie Lee Gifford’s clothing line.
(...more)The World Health Organization released its annual Global Health Statistics which provides a global snapshot of how the WHO’s 193 member countries are progressing on the health related Millennium Development Goals. The figures are encouraging…
(...more)The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) today welcomed a ban on the recruitment of people under the age of 18 into the national police force and called on the defence ministry to adopt a similar prohibition with regard to the army.
(...more)Maryland’s Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office has made three very interesting conflict resolution-related videos available on their website… (go to videos)
The desire to belong. To belong to a pandilla, a mara, a barra brava. That is what drives Central American youths, as noted by filmmaker Marco Nicoletti while recently shooting a documentary for the NGO Interpeace, that works with building lasting peace in various conflicted areas around the world.
(...more)What’s the real power of storytelling? DNTO looks into what makes a great story, and why we love hearing (as well as telling) tales…. [podcast]
(...more)New York – A video telling the story of Kiran Yadav, an Indian woman who died needlessly in childbirth, has been nominated for a prestigious Webby award, Human Rights Watch said today. The video, produced by Human Rights Watch with award-winning Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas, is nominated for Best Documentary: Individual Episode. It highlights the dangers faced by women in India, where more than 60,000 pregnancies end each year in preventable deaths.
Hailed as the “Internet’s highest honor” by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. The Human Rights Watch video, produced with Magnum In Motion, is also eligible for the Webby People’s Voice Award, which is determined by online votes cast by the global Web community. Supporters of Human Rights Watch have until April 29, 2010, to cast their votes in the People’s Voice Awards at http://webby.aol.com/entries/49544.
(...more)Children Inspiring Peace (ChIP) is a character education project by students in Grades K-6 at Leslie Park Public School [Nepean, Ontario]. The message of ChIP is that we can come together as a community and get along when we learn about one another and listen to each other’s story. ChIP’s goal is to gather stories from children and youth around the world. Already, ChIP has been shared with students in Israel and in Palestine. We invite classes across Canada to participate in our project and add your story to the ChIP album.
(...more)The Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence’s Drawing Peace Contest strives to foster a culture of nonviolence and peace by raising awareness among children ages 6-12 from all over the world, through the medium of art. The objective of this contest is to allow children and youth to appreciate the value of nonviolence, the potential of nonviolent action to address conflicts, the value of social responsibility, the interconnected nature of the human experience, and the planet’s natural environment.. more
A senior United Nations human rights official today called on international troops fighting militants in Afghanistan to follow directives designed to guard against civilian deaths, drawing particular attention to the plight of children caught up in the conflict.
Last year, some 346 children were killed by warring factions in Afghanistan, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy told reporters in Kabul…
Ms. Coomaraswamy noted a “major change in attitude and tactics” on the part of the military since her last visit in July 2008, but stressed that “these ideas and directives have now to be implemented.”
(...more)Last Train Home follows the travails of a couple who leave their children to work 2,100 kilometres away in a garment sweatshop.
Filmmaker Lixin Fan’s documentary chronicles one Chinese family’s struggle to make ends meet as employees of a garment factory, and a whole country’s reliance on migrant workers.
(...more)War has long been the shadow cast on the backdrop of American life, a part of us, varying in degrees of prominence the brighter or darker it becomes, so it chilled me to read a review of this game titled, “Modern Warfare 2 Kills Well With Others.”
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