Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch Blog

• News source:
• 10 March 2010
• Globe and Mail
• By Cara Anna

BEIJING — Like the United States, China is having its own tea party movement, but this one has a very different agenda.

Police have long tried to shush and isolate potential activists, usually starting with a low-key warning, perhaps over a meal or a cup of tea. Now, the country’s troublemakers are openly blogging and tweeting their stories about “drinking tea” with the cops, allowing the targeted citizens to bond and diluting the intimidation they feel.

• News source:
• originally published February 2010
• BarTalk | Canadian Bar Association, BC Branch
• By James M. Bond

Legal Aid is in crisis in this province. The funding model for the Legal Services Society doesn’t work and as a result there is simply not enough money to fund the current system. As a result, there are fewer and fewer lawyers (particularly more experienced lawyers) who are willing to take on legal aid cases. Those that do so in any significant way undoubtedly believe it as the right thing to do, not the financially sound thing to do.

The Legal Services Society has cut service areas, cut staff and in the very near future will close offices everywhere but in Vancouver. There has also been an attempt to shift the form of legal aid delivery from a lawyer model to a “self-help” model. The results of “self-help” are being felt in courtrooms across the province. They are being clogged with unrepresented litigants…

It’s time to get the public involved in a real and meaningful discussion about Legal Aid in our province – what the framework should be, what should be covered, who should deliver it and how it should be funded. Last spring, a group of justice system stakeholders passed a resolution (which was adopted by the British Columbia Branch) calling on the government to hold an inquiry into the state of Legal Aid in British Columbia…

We have begun discussions with other justice system stakeholders to establish a Public Forum on Legal Aid in British Columbia. While it is still in the planning stages, this Public Forum would travel the province and hear from members of the public and others who understand the problems of the current Legal Aid system.

• News source:
• 8 March 2010
• Vancouver Sun
• 'In all thy sons command' sends a message that is both insidious and sexist, while 'In all of us command' hurts no one
• By Shelley Fralic

Ironic, isn’t it, given that today is International Women’s Day, when the world stops for a moment to reflect on the advances society has made on the rocky path to gender equality.

In Canada, like most modern industrialized countries, there are many achievements to celebrate this past century, even as there is still much work to be done: Women can vote, they work outside the home, they wear what they want in public and they speak up with impunity about injustice and inequity, the universal goal that of rectifying the social, economic and sexual prejudices of the past.

• News source:
• 7 March 2010
• International Analyst Network
• By Mark Silverberg

Natan Sharansky uses what he terms “the 3D test” to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism, and he identifies the three categories as delegitimization, demonization and the double standard. Taking these three factors into account, one can discern that the new anti-Semitism manifests itself in many different forms and in many different forums – through divestment campaigns, international boycotts of Israeli products and entertainers (as Norway has done recently), boycotts of Israeli academics by Western universities, holding Israel to standards no other nations in the world are required to meet – not nearly, and through “Israel Apartheid Week” on Canadian and American college campuses where Israel is assigned the role of Jew among the nations of the world to be singled-out, cursed, harassed and defamed…

It is true, of course, that criticizing Israel does not make one an anti-Semite anymore than criticizing the government of France makes one anti-French. But it’s one thing to criticize France, and something else to declare the French nation illegitimate and to advocate its destruction…

• News source:
• 1 March 2010
• Pew Research Center | Project for Excellence in Journalism
• How internet and cell phone users have turned news into a social experience

In the digital era, news has become omnipresent. Americans access it in multiple formats on multiple platforms on myriad devices. The days of loyalty to a particular news organization on a particular piece of technology in a particular form are gone. The overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get news on a typical day, including national TV, local TV, the internet, local newspapers, radio, and national newspapers. Some 46% of Americans say they get news from four to six media platforms on a typical day. Just 7% get their news from a single media platform on a typical day…

In this new multi-platform media environment, people’s relationship to news is becoming portable, personalized, and participatory…

• News source:
• 28 February 2010
• CTV News
• By Alia Dharssi

Housing activists experimented with a novel protest strategy Saturday: they attempted to set a Guinness World Record while raising awareness of national housing issues.

Supporters of the Red Tent Campaign gathered in downtown Vancouver to wrap 1,700 metres of red banners around the block surrounding the Canada Pavilion on West Georgia and Beatty…

The protesters hope to increase support for Bill C-304, which will be reviewed by Parliament in the spring. The bill would establish a constitutional right to housing in Canada, while providing the foundation for a national housing strategy with funding commitments and timelines.

• News source:
• Vancouver2010.com

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.

• News source:

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

Full details (pdf)

• News source:
• vimeo.com
• By John Richardson, Pivot Legal Society

John Richardson of Pivot Legal Society @ THE RIGHT TO THE CITY: RALLY FOR A NATIONAL HOUSING PROGRAM from working TV on Vimeo.

• News source:
• 23 February 2010
• Art Threat: Culture+Politics
• By Amanda McCuaig

Yuri Arajs, a Kelowna born artist who recently returned to Vancouver after a 30-year stint in Minneapolis, Minnesota, first heard about the Pivot Legal Society’s Red Tent campaign from his mother…

So inspiring that within four days of talking to his mom, Yuri had rented time at a screen printing studio and had already created the two colour prints that would become the basis of his art-meets-fundraising efforts to help raise money for the Red Tent campaign.

Yuri created 125 prints in the studio, and has been selling them online for $25.

• News source:
• CoRe Clinic, UBC

2010 CoRe Clinic Speaker Series
Singleton Urquhart LLP, sponsors and host of the CoRe Speaker Series located at
1200 – 925 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC

Vicki Trerise
“Disputes Between the Canadian Polity and Aboriginal Peoples: Is Neutrality Possible?”
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 – Time: 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

Nancy Cameron Q.C.
“Litigation, Dispute Resolution and the Brain: What do These Have to do with One Another, and with us as Practitioners?”
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 – Time: 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

Christine Mingie
“Online Dispute Resolution – A Quiet Revolution in Justice?”
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 – Time: 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

Sharon Sutherland and Carrie Gallant
“Improvisation and Mediation”
Wednesday, May 12, 2010 – Time: 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

• News source:
• 21 February 2010
• Globe and Mail
• By Guy Dixon

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.

• News source:
• 5 February 2010
• No Caption Needed
• By Christopher Gilbert

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.”

• News source:
• 15 February 2010
• War and Peace
• By Sidney Traynham

Back in 1998 when the Afghan Taliban was large and in charge, a British aid worker friend of mine was stopped past curfew at a checkpoint outside Kabul. He had traveled from Peshawar, Pakistan across the border with a Pashto translator and a bag full of “illicit and pornographic materials.”

My friend, Andy Bowerman, was taken and detained overnight as Taliban officials interrogated his translator and tried to determine what to do about these numerous sexual objects and disturbing images — also known as condoms and sexual health workshop materials.

“We ended up being put in a room with 30 Taliban officials from the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice,” said Andy, now an Anglican priest. He recalls how he and his translator were told: “Do your presentation for us and we’ll decide what we do with you afterwards.”

So Andy launched into the workshop of his life, showing slides on reproductive health and discussing the risks from various sexually transmitted diseases. He decided to close the session in his typical way with a game for these vice and virtue experts — and so one of the men was sent out to procure several cucumbers from the local bazaar.

• News source:
• 12 February 2010
• Everything PR | Blog
• By Phil Butler

The Winter Olympiad in Vancouver kicks off this evening, amid great expectations and some criticism too. The world’s greatest athletes, the hopes of nations, the ideal of athletic competition are set to be showcased in one of Canada’s (the world’s) greatest cities. But, as in all such human endeavors, there is another side to the human drama of it all. The story of human beings so far beneath the glory and pageantry of Olympic celebration as to be invisible, the downtrodden and homeless of Vancouver and the world…

One news station released a video today that tells the story of the other side of Vancouver, the dark underbelly of that great city and so many others – poverty and neglect. Vancouver, while the most celebrated Canadian city as far as progress economically is concerned, is also the worst city in that country if you are “out of luck”, or need a good job…

The video below is something we should all watch, before we get wrapped up in the games and events themselves…

• News source:
• 11 February 2010
• A Peace of Conflict
• By Rebecca Sargent

Many of the peace strategies used in current conflict zones focus on reducing the direct violence or the structural violence within the government systems while neglecting to truly address the cultural violence that lingers within the society…

Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed is an approach to social change that allows for protected dialogue into an issue behind a veil of theatrics…

• News source:
• 9 February 2010
• Common Ground News Service
• By Maha Akeel

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – Perhaps one of the most misunderstood and stereotyped countries in the world is Saudi Arabia, particularly when it comes to its women.

Some of the negative perceptions surrounding Saudi women could be justified. After all, we are the only country that does not allow women to drive, though the government has declared numerous times that it has no objections to giving women licenses. Saudi women are also denied many of the rights granted to women in Islam. Under the Saudi system, male guardians control decisions concerning a woman’s education, employment, travel, marriage, divorce, childcare, legal proceedings and health care–basically, every aspect of her life. It is a system that renders half the country’s population helpless dependents.

Nevertheless, there are Western perceptions of Saudi women that need to be addressed objectively.

• News source:
• abstract added 8 February 2010
• Harvard Business School | Working Knowledge
• By Sean Silverthorne interviewing John A. Quelch

Google, the “do no evil” company, gained entry into the Chinese search engine market last decade by agreeing to ban search results on topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese government. To Google’s way of thinking, it could do more good for Internet freedom and the cause of human rights by working inside the country to create value for its Chinese users, employees, and business partners. To critics, Google was selling out its core principles to play in the world’s second largest economy.

So it was a shocking turn of events on January 12 when Google announced it would pull up stakes in China unless the country agreed to stop censoring search. The precipitating event: an unsuccessful cyber attack from inside China attempting to burrow into the Gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents. Since the announcement, little has transpired publicly; the two sides are presumably negotiating…

• News source:
• 8 February 2010
• New York Times
• By JOHN TIERNEY

Sociologists have developed elaborate theories of who spreads gossip and news — who tells whom, who matters most in social networks — but they’ve had less success measuring what kind of information travels fastest. Do people prefer to spread good news or bad news? Would we rather scandalize or enlighten? Which stories do social creatures want to share, and why?

• News source:

University of British Columbia
Conflict Resolution, Arts and iNtercultural Experience (CRANE)

CRANE is pleased to sponsor an Interactive Symposium during which visionary leaders in conflict resolution will present on creative approaches to social change on divisive issues including race, climate change and crime.

March 26, 2008, 12:30 – 4:30 pm
The Coach House, Green College, UBC

Please RSVP at craneevents@gmail.com