An American soldier in Kandahar. Photo: Flickr user

Ambassador S. Azmat Hassan is a former Ambassador of Pakistan to Malaysia, Syria and Morocco and Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations. He is currently an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and is a contributing Worldfocus blogger.

Mankind has engaged in violent extremism since Biblical times. Cain became the world’s first terrorist by slaying his brother Abel. Voltaire pessimistically characterized human history as nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

In a sense, America lost its innocence on 9/11. The international community sympathized with Washington but it also said, “Welcome to the real world!”

The Bush administration with its Manichean world view exploited a fearful populace to execute its agenda of “full spectrum dominance” and preemptive war. It invaded two countries — Afghanistan and Iraq — and openly threatened military action against a third: Iran. In the desire to exact retribution, the motivations driving such terrorist attacks were largely ignored. The lives lost and financial resources squandered have been enormous.

More than 8 years have elapsed since the 9/11 atrocity, but it is a moot point if the U.S. is any safer today. That no further attacks on the U,.S. mainland have taken place, suggests that the revamped security structure despite its flaws, is keeping American citizens safe.

What should be clearly understood is that there is no foolproof security system that can prevent committed terrorists from carrying out violent acts against the citizens of another country.

For years, Armenian terrorists were killing Turkish citizens as revenge for the alleged genocide perpetrated by Ottoman Turks on its Armenian subjects during World War I. Israelis and Palestinians have been killing each other since the founding of Israel in 1948. Kashmiris and Indians are doing the same in Indian-administered Kashmir. The list goes on.

The Nigerian underwear bomber’s recent failed attempt to blow up an American airliner, which the media played up, has once again brought a wave of fear to our shores. I wish some senior official of the Obama administration had calmed the public by recalling Roosevelt’s sage advice to his countrymen: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Terrorism is propaganda by deed, since terrorism is theater. Al-Qaeda succeeds every time it plants fear and uncertainty in our hearts and minds. We should get over being overly obsessed about our security. Our despondency comes close to pusillanimity, which runs against the America tradition of courage and fortitude.

Capturing or killing bin Laden and his deputy al-Zawahiri should remain a U.S. objective, but without the media hype. Because by doing this, we are in a sense helping to resurrect them for their dwindling band of followers. The less heed we pay them publicly, the more quickly they will fade away into obscurity.

In concentrating on bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, we may be focusing on the symptoms rather than the disease. Let us be clear: if one or both of them are eliminated tomorrow, al-Qaeda, which has become a transnational enterprise, will not fold. It is not even known how much influence these two fugitives continue to exercise on al-Qaeda’s global reach.

Violent extremism is like a chronic disease. It cannot be eradicated but its effects can be considerably mitigated by a combination of soft power and hard power, with soft power being the predominant element in the mix. The U.S. and the West should focus on winning hearts and minds of the people in whose midst violent extremists operate.

Once we empower these people by making them stakeholders in peaceful economic development, violent extremists will be marginalized. Right now the U.S. seems to be relying much more on hard power in Afghanistan and Iraq. Such an approach — far from being crowned with success — is likely to put the U.S. on the slippery path to ultimate failure.

- S. Azmat Hassan

Only a few days after Turkey excluded Israel from a joint NATO war exercise, a new crisis is brewing between the two Middle East allies.

The problem is a television drama series that Israel condemns as state-sanctioned “incitement.”

“Separation,” a 13-part TV series that aired on Turkey’s state-run television channel for the first time on Wednesday, has several controversial scenes. In one, a Palestinian father holds his new-born above his head in front of Israeli soldiers at a check point. A few seconds later, one of the soldiers shoots the baby dead. In another scene, Israeli soldiers kick and beat elderly Palestinians on the streets and one soldier shoots a teenage Palestinian girl on her chest.

Here is an excerpt from the television drama “Separation:”

The drama outraged Israel. The Foreign Ministry summoned the deputy chief of mission at the Turkish embassy to complain and protest. “Such a drama series, which doesn’t even have the slightest link to reality and which presents Israeli soldiers as murderers of innocent children, isn’t worthy of being broadcast even by enemy states and certainly not in a state which has full diplomatic relations with Israel,” said Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

The coordinator of the Turkish drama replied by saying that none of the incidents in the show were “imaginary.” “It is possible to find photographs of what Israelis did to Palestinians on the Internet,” said Bulent Erdinc, the series coordinator.

The Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also shrugged off angry Israeli protests over the show saying the Turkish state “has no right to comment on the quality of broadcasts or the opinions expressed in them.” This statement should be met with some skepticism as Turkey’s record on freedom of speech issues is not known to be very high.

The controversial scenes in the drama are subjective. I’m sure some people will think they’re simple propaganda and some will think them a reflection of reality. In general, Turkish films, especially TV dramas and soap-operas, do tend towards exaggerated melodrama.

But a broader question here is whether filmmakers should care about the sensitivities of those they depict.  For example, should the producers and writers of the drama series “24″ have taken into consideration the fact that their depiction of Muslim terrorists may have possibly led to suspicion against ordinary Arab-Americans?

The TV drama is airing on Turkey’s state-owned channel, TRT. This channel, according to law, has to be “autonomous and impartial.” However, since the Islamist-based ruling AK party came to power in Turkey, TRT has been criticized for its religious/conservative programming, and also for appointing party sympathizers. I think it’s quite possible that the government officials knew what this television drama, which has been advertised in Turkey for a long time, was going to entail. And I imagine they could foresee the reaction it would draw from Israel.

In that case, considering the already strained relations between the two “allied” nations, the question becomes, is the Turkish government interested in enlarging the rift between the two countries? And if so, what would this say about the future of the Middle East?

- Gizem Yarbil

For more Worldfocus coverage of Turkey, visit our extended coverage page: Turkey between East and West.

The Committee to Protect Journalists — in a report out on Tuesday — says 17 editors, reporters, photographers, columnists and a publisher have been killed since 2000. In only one case have the killers been convicted. The CPJ says critical media coverage is effectively silencing discussion on sensitive subjects like corruption and human rights abuses.

Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss how the murders have impacted Russian journalism and the rise of online journalism in places like Cuba and Vietnam.

Daljit Dhaliwal

Worldfocus anchor Daljit Dhaliwal offers her take on the importance of international news to Americans.

What’s happening to international news? American viewers need quality information and analysis so that they can get a better handle on how the world is changing — and at the same time, changing their lives. But instead, mainstream international coverage is hemorrhaging and the shutters are coming down on overseas bureaus.

Over and over again, I read or hear that most Americans have no interest in what’s happening overseas, as if this is supposed to be some kind of justification for not telling them. Not that long along, I was invited to speak to a group of several hundred PBS viewers in Portland, Oregon. While nobody there doubted the importance of global news, several people talked about how the world is often presented to Americans — full of insurmountable problems and at times even frightening. With better information, it doesn’t have to seem that way.

I believe that if most Americans don’t care, its partly because they’ve been short-changed into thinking that what happens in the far-flung corners of the globe has no bearing on their lives. Well, we are in the middle of a global economic meltdown that sent shockwaves throughout the world, as well as fighting wars in two foreign lands, trying to broker peace in the Middle East and looking to ”reset” the button with a former superpower.

The U.S. has a leadership role, whether we like it or not. Americans need to be more engaged with the world than ever, but to do that there has to be some a level of public understanding about global events.

That’s what we try to do every weeknight on Worldfocus. As a journalist and a consumer of international news, it’s gratifying to be a part of program that is shining a light on global events — not just the day’s big stories, but those that are under-reported or ignored because they are deemed too complex or not ‘’sexy” enough. In my view these stories are the real gems because they surprise and enlighten.

Enjoy the program, tell your friends and colleagues and please join the discussion on the “How You See It” section on our home page.

- Daljit Dhaliwal

As Afghanistan prepared for this highly anticipated election last week, former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah emerged as a legitimate threat to incumbent President Hamid Karzai – who has fallen out of favor with many Afghans, as well as Western leaders — and news media portrayed a run-off election as plausible.

But as results trickle in from last Thursday’s vote, in which some 7 million ballots were cast, the outcome remains unclear. Images of inked Afghan fingers gave way to claims of widespread fraud and intimidation. As the vote count continues, reports on the results have been contradictory.

For the full results of last week’s News Hunt, read their blog summarizing media coverage, check out the top rated stories and browse a full listing of all stories posted on the topic.

Explore our complete coverage of the election and war in Afghanistan.

In the run-up to this Thursday’s elections in Afghanistan, I’ve noticed a menagerie of political artwork and iconography. Every surface is increasingly plastered with political advertisements of all possible sorts, with even the most sacred surfaces growing more profane by the day.

Posters began to crowd empty walls and open spaces about a month ago. Slowly, they colonized billboards for other products. Even the portrait of Afghanistan’s glorified national martyr, Ahmad Shah Massoud, has been concealed by the cascade of paper and glue.

Two styles have seemed to emerge — stuff produced by Afghans and stuff produced for Afghans.

Because the Afghan society is largely illiterate, the images seem to carry the messages. The posters coming from Afghan campaigns remain simple and effective in their message. But public information campaigns seek to bolster participation in the elections and thereby the state’s legitimacy; they seem fraught with too much information and angst.

Photo: Scott Bohlinger

Locally, President Karzai’s chief challenger, Abdullah, has the backing of the powerful governor of the northern province of Balkh, Muhammad Atta. This simple message that a vote for Abdullah is a vote for Atta is forcefully on view everywhere where numerous pictures can be seen of the two men together. The standard picture of them shows Abdullah looking ahead (and at you) sternly and resolutely with Atta looking on towards him. The power relationship is clearly demarcated by Atta’s not weak but admiring expression — for should Abdullah win, Atta would indeed be subservient to him. The message is clear for even the most illiterate person or casual passerby, but for the literate there is also a written slogan that loosely translates to “Going the path of clarity is success.”

The other poster is a public service advertisement explaining the election process to people. It shows a smiling man of average demeanor and income (though smartly and traditionally dressed) casting ballots for the election. That much is clear. In its attempt to explain the voting process encyclopediacally, however, it gets bogged down in details, at once too confusing for the casual observer and too complicated for someone who takes the time to read its full contents.

Photo: Scott Bohlinger

In order to show when the polling stations are open, the man casts a different ballot into a different box with each hand, and above each shoulder is a clock with an arrow connecting them intending to show opening and closing times. The two ballots are meant to be for the two separate simultaneous elections — for the provincial councils and presidency. But the local joke is that the man must be poor because he is only casting two ballots.

On either side of the man is a text in Persian and Pashto — which neither I nor anyone else I know has taken the time to read because they’re never in a position to stand still and examine it with a critical eye. The poster is cluttered with a number of other symbols meant to explain the different ballots taking place, color-coordinating them and providing the number of an assistance hotline. There’s a nifty slogan at the bottom too, “your vote, your future.” Altogether, the attempt to explain everything to everyone in every possible way collapses into a cacophony of colors and symbols.

These different approaches to persuasion are seen in advertising for all manner of other products, from products to services to concepts in Afghanistan. What’s the difference?

The ads produced by those with a direct stake in winning is made by people closer to the audience it is attending to address.

The public service ad was well-intentioned, but made largely by foreign artists trying to adapt to local aesthetics, and the desire to explain gets bogged down in confusion. It is the product of focus groups and field testing, in a way that probably fits good technical standards but still misses its mark.

This is the worrying bit.

In the larger context of war, infrastructure and stability, the government of Afghanistan — as the technocratic product of a massive aid infusion and technocratic bureaucracies — falls short on the emotional plane where Afghans would like to see a state. It loses the feeling it needs to reach the average guy. Relatively few Afghans agree with the Taliban, but those who do have something the others lack: Enthusiasm.

- Scott Bohlinger

Shah Rukh Khan’s name came up on a computer alert list and he was then questioned at length. Khan, a Muslim, was in the U.S. to promote a film, “My Name is Khan,” that explores the racial profiling of Indian Muslims living in the U.S. after 9/11.

Following the incident — which was widely reported in the Indian media — several of Khan’s supporters gathered in India to protest, and some burned an American flag. View a video of protests in New Delhi courtesy of YouTube user midday:

Was Khan’s detainment the result of insensitive racial profiling, or was the actor simply accustomed to India’s VIP culture?

Worldfocus asked Nitin Govil — an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego and the co-author of “Global Hollywood” — for his thoughts on how the incident has been perceived in India:

For much of his career, Shah Rukh has rather carefully avoided putting his Muslim identity at the forefront. This is why his forthcoming film “My Name is Khan” is so interesting given the context of his stardom in India.

Responses in India have varied from protests to the burnings of U.S. flags, condemnations by high-ranking Indian politicians, celebrities, cricketers and other public figures, to a kind of “what else can one expect in America” kind of attitude that confirms what most around the world think about the U.S. policy on travel and detention.

Given that all Indians have a deep familiarity with bureaucracy in their everyday lives, there has been a general sense that a short questioning period for Khan might have been alright, but that U.S. authorities clearly took things too far. Although Khan has called for folks back home not to, in his words, “take things too far,” at the same time, many think that he has quite smartly used the incident as a way to promote the new film as well as the issues it addresses.

NDTV, a leading English-language news channel in India, covered the incident — calling it “a huge, huge embarrassment” — and spoke with Khan:

Comments on an Indian social networking site, iTimes, reflected the smattering of opinion in India:

Gayatri Goswami writes:
This is no joke people. Shah Rukh Khan is the biggest movie star in India, a country of 1.3 billion people, thereby making him the biggest movie star in the world. I’m struggling to find a comparable here in the US. No offense to Will Smith or Matt Damon or Pitt, Cruise, Clooney, Angelina or whomever else you can think of, but they all pale in comparison.The detention was shameful and U.S should apologize, they better

Dilnaz Seth writes:
i think U.S should apologize, but why r we making so much of noise abt it, because it is SRK, there are so many innocent muslims with surname Khan who go through this everyday, what about them, do we care for all or just the celebs

Kaushik Sanyal writes:
Hey guys, I think India should learn that, “VIP treatments” which are part of everyday life in India, does not happen in other parts of the world. Even, ex-president of USA Al Gore has to go through security checks in US airports ! I don’t know why SRK is making such a big issue out of it or so called patriotic Indians are raising such a noise ! Everyday in our lives, we see or meet people who takes advantage of their VIP status in India and resent that - why should it be different in this case. I am no USA lover but I recognize the fact that a small time Immigration official can insist to follow the rule book. I hope it also happens in India.

Rragijav Achar writes:
I feel appreciating the US for talking this step. They have given the highest level of interest to their countrymen, unlike India. Wake up India, the US doing the right stuff so only they could stop the terror in their country. Imagine India how many times this happened with us and what actions we have taken against it. They have full rights to do so, as they consider their countrymen as their biggest asset. Count how many times the underworld dons escaped from the hands of Indian government and image what would have US done if the same thing had happened. Think out of the box. Wake up India wake up… it’s time for tight security… I would appreciate if India takes similar actions against each and every person enters and exits India.

Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo — including mass rapes — has received relatively scant international media coverage. Photo: Taylor Krauss

Tom Rhodes is the Africa Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to visit the Democratic Republic of Congo’s volatile eastern city of Goma during her historic seven nation tour of Africa. Press briefings from the state department highlighted her intentions to address a chronic problem particularly acute in this region: violence against women. The home of the deadliest war since World War II; Congolese women have, to this day, been the main victims and targets of marauding militias and government soldiers.

“In just one province alone there was recorded 40 women being raped every day — 13 percent were under the age of 14 and 10-12 percent contracted HIV,” remarked photojournalist Marcus Beasdale in a Mediastorm interview last year. The award-winning journalist had spent a grueling eight years in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and saw firsthand the systematic use of rape as a tool of war.

Watch the Worldfocus signature story: Rape as a weapon of war in DR Congo.

But there are more local voices that live in this war-torn area that continue to cry out against this plight. Franchou Namegabe Nabintu, or ‘Chouchou’ as her friends call her, is a founding member of the South Kivu’s Association of Women Journalists (AFEM) and plans to meet Clinton tomorrow. Since 2003, Nabintu and her female colleagues have trained female journalists and produced programs concerning women’s issues. No stranger to American politics, Nabintu testified before the U.S. Senate in May to call for more international support to end the ongoing gender-based violence. Her efforts to mobilize women have not come easy. Nabintu told the New York-based media watchdog, the Committee to Protect Journalists, of the numerous threats she receives for her work and the exorbitant fees AFEM must pay local radio stations to get their programs broadcasted.

But despite the staggering crisis in the DRC and courageous advocacy efforts by journalists such as Nabintu, the DRC catastrophe has received relatively scant international media coverage. The Congolese crisis represents a dangerous, costly operation for most foreign media bureaus with a complex story not easily digested by western audiences. But there is also a more straightforward reason for the lack of western media coverage: censorship.

Since the beginning of this year, Radio France International (RFI) has been cut off the air by the government three times, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. One of two major foreign broadcasters in the region, Congolese citizens heard static since late July after authorities shuttered the station. At a press conference in the capital, Kinshasa, government spokesman Lambert Mende accused the station of “a systematic campaign of demoralization of the armed forced of the DRC,” AFP reported.

According to freelance journalist Charles Mushivizi, RFI has been unpopular with the government since 2006, after the station produced a series of stories critical of the army. The stories reported on rising criminality among the Congolese army ranks — including rapes, looting and the embezzlement of soldiers’ pay by superior officers. One journalist, Ghislaine Dupont, was expelled for her coverage but continues to report on the country, Mushivizi says.

In all three RFI bans this year, Congolese authorities never disputed the accuracy of the French broadcaster’s reports. According to Mushivizi, Mende warned that the authorities would not tolerate any information the government deems prejudicial to troop morale, “no matter the accuracy of the information.”

The only other major international station, Radio Okapi — a joint project of the Hirondelle Foundation and the United Nations — has had two reporters murdered in mysterious circumstances since June 2007. Botched investigations into the murders of Radio Okapi journalists Didace Namujimbo and Serge Maheshe have allowed their murderers total impunity.

Few locals in South Kivu listen to national broadcasts since they are generally controlled by political forces, Mushivizi said, while the press is hampered by fiscal and political pressures. With RFI banned and local media compromised — there are few voices left to report one of the world’s greatest tragedies.

As Hillary meets President Joseph Kabila to call for an end to the mass rapes that plague eastern Congo, she must also call for an end to media censorship. The free flow of independent information within and outside the country is pivotal to solving the rape crisis.

- Tom Rhodes

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

View Worldfocus’ complete coverage of the crisis in Congo and an interactive map exploring Clinton’s African tour.

Venezuela shut down 34 radio stations.

My guess is that you are one of the poor deprived people among us who has not had the opportunity to watch and understand the charming, engaging, benevolent, all-knowing president of Venezuela — Hugo Chavez — in action.

It also could be that you are doing this on purpose — that would make you not just deprived, but depraved. Perhaps you are an agent of Venezuela’s enemies.

Fortunately Chavez is protecting Venezuela against you and all such agents. Last week, to root out the vermin that spread lies and plot against the people, President Chavez shut down several dozen private radio stations. His parliament — whose members understand exactly what needs to be done in all cases — has promoted new libel laws that protect the Chavista revolution from foul lies that could be spread on the airwaves. “Any person who speaks out in any form in the news media” can be considered a “media criminal” for disseminating seditious opinions, we’ve learned from Teodoro Petkoff, a long-time Venezeulan political analyst. Petkoff’s column last week was titled with a large headline reading “Censorship Law.”

It all makes perfect sense.

Venezuela’s enemies fall into two categories — you are either well-meaning but deceived and brainwashed; or you are an enemy of the revolution, and you could be a spy sent by the Central Intelligence Agency.

I learned this by watching Chavez’s televised performance at a meeting of his Cabinet in February, during his successful campaign for a referendum that abolished presidential term limits. Chavez apparently has a little button he can press when he wants to preempt all television and radio broadcasting in Venezuela to speak directly to the people. In the particular meeting, he told jokes, gave orders and questioned Cabinet members seated around the table, who looked uncertain when to laugh, agree, disagree, or react in any way, fearing for their heads. He also denied any involvement, as the CIA-stooge opposition was charging, in an attack on a synagogue in Caracas some days earlier.

In any case, when you can have the president speaking directly to you, why do we need a filter from these troublesome, CIA-funded newspaper and broadcast reporters, who are certain to be on a vendetta to destroy the country? If the president is all-knowing, infallible and looking out for our interests, who needs critics, dissent, or anything that will get in the way of the true path that the president has now set out for us?

Such a filter is Teodoro Petkoff, the journalist and politician, who has been a prominent critic of Chavez. Petkoff, by the way, is an ex-guerrilla, a student leader, and ran against Chavez briefly for the presidency in 2006. Beware — how can he be reliable? He disagrees with the president.

Nevertheless — understanding that the president of Venezuela doesn’t want you to hear about this, read about it, or even think about it — here’s what Petkoff has to say about the new censorship law promulgated by Chavez:

The proposed law has to be sent to all the governments of America, to all the news media of the world, so that they might see for themselves the dictatorial and totalitarian monstrosity that has been placed before our nation. It is not necessary in any way to even comment about it. It is so obvious, so naked in its repressive intent, that it explains itself. For us, Venezuelans, this “law” is a call to battle stations. One can hope that everyone is listening.

- Peter Eisner

Gaurav Mishra

The Iranian government has restricted all journalists working for foreign news organizations from reporting on the streets of Tehran, where thousands have been gathering to protest the country’s disputed presidential election. What’s been harder to control is social media tools like Twitter, where thousands of users post and share information worldwide.

Gaurav Mishra is the co-founder of social media research and analytics company 20:20 Web Tech and a 2009 Fellow at the Society for New Communications Research. He previously taught social media at Georgetown University and co-founded Vote Report India. He joined Worldfocus to discuss the role of Twitter in the aftermath of Iran’s election.

Worldfocus: What role has Twitter played in the aftermath of Iran’s election? Has there been a “Twitter Revolution”?

Gaurav Mishra: The story which I’m reading in the media is that of the “Twitter Revolution.” And the story is that Twitter is one of the key things used to organize these protests, and the State Department is contacting Twitter to make sure it doesn’t go down, and so on and so forth. That’s the wrong story — it’s the wrong story in Iran, it was the wrong story in Moldova. There is no “Twitter Revolution.” We haven’t seen a “Twitter Revolution,” and I don’t think we’ll ever see a “Twitter Revolution.”

The revolution in Iran is not about Twitter. It’s about Iranian people protesting against perceived irregularities in the election. It’s a grassroots movement, and we’re abusing it in many ways by calling it a Twitter Revolution. It’s a big country with one of the biggest elections around the world, and clearly Mousavi supporters and Ahmadinejad supporters — all of them — have huge offline networks who are getting people to mobilize, getting support and getting people to come out and protest. We are underestimating the value of that network in a country like Iran or a country like India or China — that is a network which culturally matters. Even in the U.S., that is a network that matters. So we’re really underestimating the value of that network by saying this is a “Twitter Revolution.”

On a scale of one to 10, if 10 means it is a legitimate revolution, I would say Twitter as an organizing tool is at five or six.

Twitter does play a very important role in some other areas. It has played an extremely important role in fixing the world’s attention on the crisis, both in terms of getting individuals like you and me to focus on the crisis, and also in getting the attention of the international media and making sure this crisis gets the amount of coverage it deserves to get. The #cnnfail meme on Saturday, which basically asked why the protests were not on the front page of CNN — that’s a very clear example that the activists know what they’re doing. They’re using Twitter to focus international attention on Iran, and to put this on the media’s agenda.

Twitter users voiced their anger at the lack of media coverage of Iran.

It’s very interesting — I see different stories happening. First is the story of the protest itself, and that’s a very big, legitimate story in itself. Then there’s the story about how Twitter and Facebook are being used to organize the protests. I think that’s a fake story. It distracts from the real issue, from the real story of these protests happening in Iran, which are the biggest protests since the 1970s. And it’s dangerous — we are telling them this is an organizing tool; that you can use this tool to organize protests. That’s not the case, because in countries like India or Iran, only single-digit percentages of people use Twitter. Clearly it’s not an organizing tool.

The mobile phone is an organizing tool and e-mail is an organizing tool, because everybody has mobile phones in these countries. And the first thing you do if you want to organize a protest is send a text message to everybody in your address book. That’s how these protests are being organized in all likelihood, not via Twitter.

Worldfocus: How have traditional blogs fared in Iran compared to micro-blogging tools like Twitter?

The #iranelection feed on Twitter.

Gaurav Mishra: We’ve seen that in all types of crisis situations — whether it’s the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the China earthquake, or the Moldova protests, or elections in India or Iran — in all these kinds of big events, Twitter is great at giving alerts. You’re seeing a news cycle emerge where at first, stories are reported on Twitter. Then, blogs pick them up, they aggregate these stories and expand on these stories. They’re the first slightly detailed sense of what’s happening. And then the news organizations come in, and they write the 30-second piece on this, or do a deep story on it. And then we go into the context phase, where people add context to it and reference old stories — and this again happens both in the mainstream media and on blogs.

And finally it goes through that news cycle, and after that context and analysis happens, people start reacting to these stories, in mainstream media and blogs — and again, the reaction happens on Twitter. So if you go through the whole news cycle, what’s happening is that in the alert stage, and in the conversation stage, Twitter plays a very important role. But in the stage of developing the story, giving it context, giving it analysis, blogs and mainstream media still play a very important role. Twitter very clearly doesn’t have a role in developing the story, giving it context and analyzing why is it important.

Worldfocus: Why is it seemingly more difficult for the Iranian government to control Twitter compared to blogs and Facebook?

Gaurav Mishra: Here’s the interesting thing about censorship and control. Typically how governments censor Web content is to ban specific URLs or specific IP addresses. So they would ban the Facebook IP address or the Twitter IP address or the blogger.com IP address or the wordpress.com IP address.

In countries where most of the bloggers are on blogger.com, once you’ve blocked blogger.com, you’ve basically blocked all the blogs in that country. However, people like me host blogs on our own URLs and on our own servers. Therefore, unless the government has a database of all the blogs which are self-hosted, they can’t really block all blogs. You can block a blogging platform easily, but it’s very difficult to block individual blogs which are self-hosted. Facebook is fairly easy to block because most people who use Facebook actually go to Facebook and use it there.

Twitter is interesting because most people who use Twitter don’t actually go to the twitter.com Web site. Most people who use Twitter go to something like TweetDeck, which is a desktop application, or one of the thousands of desktop applications to use Twitter. Or they use it via text messages. So even though you can block the twitter.com Web site, you can’t really block Twitter usage, because people can send and receive text messages, people can get tweets and send tweets on applications and it’s very difficult to block.

On all these things, whether it’s blogs, social networking sites, news Web sites, Twitter, of course there are fairly simple ways to go around the censorship. People who are technically sophisticated find it trivial to go around censorship using circumvention tools.

Worldfocus: Some Twitter users outside Iran have begun a campaign to change their profile location to Tehran, in order to shield Iranian Twitterers from government detection. Do Twitter users in Iran need this protection? And has it impeded or confused the flow of information from on the ground?

Twitter users outside Iran have begun a campaign to change their profile location to Tehran.

Gaurav Mishra: I think they do need this protection, because what’s happening in Iran is that a lot of people are joining Twitter, because they’re hearing about this. I saw some stats — a large number of people, some hundred, are joining every hour. The number of Twitter users in Iran is low, less than 10,000. Which means that when Twitter users join from Iran, it’s very easy to track them. Sometimes people don’t understand the complexity of this, and they reveal their location information. Then it becomes easy to profile them. I think it comes from a good place, this movement to change your Twitter location/handle to Iran to confuse Iranian authorities who might be looking to profile people.

I do think the Iranian government has more important things to do. I’m sure they have a very sophisticated database of known dissenters, and they will first go after these people. These people who are joining Twitter — they are pretty low on the list of the Iranian government in terms of cracking down on them.

I think it’s overkill, but comes from a good place. Of course it harms the information flow. The only way you can make sense of the Iran feed right now, the #iranelection feed, is filtering by location. This misguided movement precludes the possibility of making any sense of what is happening now. It also precludes the possibility for academics to go back and make sense of it after it has happened. In the Moldova “Twitter Revolution,” a lot of people went back and saw all the tweets related to Moldova. They found that of the 700 people who were tweeting about Moldova, only 200 people were actually from Moldova. So it becomes very difficult for people to do that kind of analysis when the location information itself is misguiding. It’s harmful to do this in a way, because it breaks the validity of information and introduces more noise. But I think it comes from a good place, so I’m not criticizing the people who are trying to do this. Different people have different perspectives on what is important.

Worldfocus: We’ve seen a lot of mainstream media sources quoting Twitter users in recent days. Are traditional media outlets embracing Twitter more so than in the past?

View an interactive map of the Iranian blogosphere from The Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Gaurav Mishra: News organizations can’t hope to break stories anymore, in the same way you’re used to breaking stories, because you have limited bureaus outside the U.S., and there are millions of people with mobile phones out there who become accidental reporters, who just happen to be at the right place at the right time and happen to take a photo or a video or send a text message. What news organizations can do is hire people who understand these tools, who actively identify bloggers and Twitter users. The only way news organizations can catch up is by having these curators, who highlight news and the unconfirmed reports, and then who go back and try and verify these reports and add context to them, saying “This news came from somebody on Twitter, but this is what it means, and we verified it.”

What’s happening in Iran is nothing new. We’ve seen this happen before, we’ve seen this happen in multiple locations. We should stop calling these things “Twitter Revolutions.” Again and again we call these things “Twitter Revolutions,” and Twitter is not at the center of revolution.

Now, not only do citizens use [Twitter], but also political parties use it. In a country like India or Iran where most people are not on the Internet, political parties — especially the challengers, the incumbents don’t use it so much. Ahmadinejad did not usually use these tools, the Republicans in the U.S. didn’t really use these tools — but Democrats used it, Mousavi used it. These are great levelers that allow you to level the playing field with people in control of traditional media. I’ve seen this work in election campaigning, I’ve seen this work in protests — it’s the same dynamics happening in different situations, used by different kinds of people. We should start looking at it realistically and stop being surprised every time this happens.

- Katie Combs

For more, view our Voices of Iran extended coverage page and listen to our online radio show on Baha’i faith and modern Iran.

North Korea has sentenced American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee to 12 years in a labor camp.

Earlier this week, North Korea sentenced two U.S. journalists to 12 years in a labor camp after they were convicted of illegal entry and crimes against the nation. Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge writes that the U.S. is in a precarious position as it tries to ensure the journalists’ safe return while pressing North Korea on nuclear containment.

First off, if you can predict North Korea, then you are not an expert — you are divine.

That said, here goes. It is my sincere hope Laura Ling and Euna Lee will be back with their families ASAP. But I fear it could be some time — months, perhaps years. The North Koreans know they have something the U.S. wants. Also, North Korea has just begun what could be a difficult transition of power from father to third son. They don’t want reporters snooping around.

As long as North Korea holds the pair, they hold an edge over the U.S. and send a strong message to other journalists. The U.S. must disconnect the issue of journalist imprisonment from the larger issue of nuclear containment. Good luck on that…North Korea always feels like the Rodney Dangerfield of the world when it comes to respect.

So the U.S. needs to send an envoy. It’s got to be somebody well known, especially to them, but not a government official. Al Gore is the obvious choice. He’s known, he’s a civilian and he represents the company the journalists were working for when they were on assignment. Like any negotiation, North Korea will want something in return. There’s the rub for the U.S., which would prefer to punish the regime even more.

Truth is, the journalist capture and conviction couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Obama team has seen that the previous policy of carrot and stick used by the Clinton and Bush administrations didn’t work. Now they’d like to use more stick…but how likely are you to board a suspect North Korean ship carrying weapons or nuclear technology when they hold two Americans hostage?

Is North Korea America’s biggest problem now? No, that dubious honor still rests with the economy. But North Korea would like us to think they are our biggest problem. They love brinkmanship. They also, it seems, like nukes — and I’m not sure you are going to get them to give those up. It’s that respect thing again. The U.S. needs to defuse the problem by taking it out of the headlines and by opening the quiet and obscure channels of negotiation.

- Martin Savidge

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Steve Rhodes under a Creative Commons license.

Meanwhile, following North Korea’s recent nuclear testing and missile launches, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC’s “This Week” that the United States could potentially reinstate North Korea on a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Leon Sigal, a project director at the Social Science Research Council, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the Obama administration’s approach to North Korea and how the two journalists factor into the equation.

Umbrellas block the view of Tiananmen Square on the 20th anniversary of a bloody crackdown there.

On June 4, two decades ago, the Chinese government ordered its soldiers to open fire on demonstrators calling for democracy in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

On Thursday, the anniversary of that bloody day in 1989, there were no activists or student protesters to be seen — only members of the People’s Army. Security was kept tight and foreign journalists were not granted permission for entrance to the square.

Blogger “Hugh” at ”Zhongnanhai” is a journalist who has been living and working in China since 2004. He visits Tiananmen Square on the anniversary and describes the heavy security:

THE SQUARE ON JUNE 4 - 20 YEARS LATER

I hadn’t planned to mark this June 4th in Beijing in any particular way. But work ended early, and my subway trip home takes me directly under Tiananmen Square. At a time when the younger generation in China has little or no idea what happened in the capital 20 years ago, and the older generations just want to forget about it, I decided a stop at the infamous landmark was in order.

As I ascended from Tiananmen West station, the first thing I expected to see was an immense amount of security — and I wasn’t disappointed. Amid the thinner-than-usual crowds were the usual contingent of local police and slow marching PLA soldiers. On any given day in Tiananmen, you will also see a healthy smattering of plain clothes security personnel. Today there were legions of them. Aside from the standard issue dress shirt and slacks, they weren’t even trying to blend in. If the rather large CPC pins they were each wearing wasn’t a give away, then the rather girlish summer umbrellas each of them was carrying certainly was. Altogether, the number of security personnel easily matched the number of tourists. As I strolled eastward, I glanced back to see if I was being followed. I don’t think I was. It wouldn’t have mattered though, since each plain clothes cop was stationed about ten feet away from the next one. Their penetrating, suspicious-of-anything eyes followed every step I took.

Just past the looming portrait of Mao, I stopped for a moment and surveyed the area to the south. I remembered that famous photo of the man in front of a line of tanks, taken just meters away from where I was standing.

[...]As I approached the entrance to Tiananmen East station, the only public display of grief I saw was a young lady crouched on the sidewalk next to a lamppost. She had her face cupped in her hand, but instead of remembering the hundreds — possibly thousands — of students and workers who were indiscriminately gunned down here 20 years ago, I suspect she was simply trying to cope with a mild case of heatstroke.

Twenty years after an event here that shook the world, everything at Tiananmen Square seems pretty quiet and under control. Just the way the government wants it.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user flippy whale under a Creative Commons license.

Deborah Bonello is a multimedia journalist based in Mexico City who works for The Los Angeles Times. She blogs at Mexico Reporter, where she writes about attending a survival training session. 

Training Day 

My breath is tearing out of my lungs and my leg muscles are screaming for a reprieve. I just scaled a 60-degree hill coated in thorny brambles and poisonous plants whilst being pounded by rain. In the dark. I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but it did. Later that night, my fellow journalists and I were kidnapped by masked guerillas who jumped onto our bus.

Our only comfort? That none of this was real. But it could have been, which is the point of the survival course 18 journalists who live and work in Mexico attended last week in Toluca, just outside of Mexico City.

During the five day survival program, the journalists dodged tear gas and Army tanks and learned how to survive in the wilderness. The psychological stresses were addressed, too; they learned strategies for dealing with emotions.

In Mexico these days, that may be the most important lesson of all.

“Once in Apatzingan a cameraman and I were taken,” says Miguel Garcia Tinoco, a 40-year-old journalist and owner of the Notivideo video news website based in Michoacan.

“They took us to talk with a drug-trafficking boss on a street in Apatzingan, and they wanted to make us write what they wanted, what they wanted to communicate.”

This group of traffickers gained infamy three years ago when they tossed the severed heads of six enemies onto the dance floor of a nightclub.

“They wanted us to publish an explanation of why they’d murdered those six people. What we told them was that we couldn’t make a decision in terms of what we published or didn’t publish in the newspaper - that it was up to the editor. And in the end my editor decided not to publish anything at all.”

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

A machine used for mining in Indiana, where Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge was once held by an armed mine owner.

American journalist Roxana Saberi is heading home after she was released from an Iranian prison earlier this week. She had been sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of spying, but was released after an appeals court reduced her punishment to a two-year suspended sentence.

Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge writes about his own experience being detained. 

After what must have been a frightening time for her and her family, Roxana Saberi is heading home.

We’re still waiting to hear the exact cause for her trial and imprisonment in Iran, which Saberi says she will reveal when she’s ready. One account from an Iranian lawyer says it was because she was caught in possession of some sort of sensitive government document.

I have been detained twice in my life as a journalist so far.

The first incident was very early on in my career. It was my first television job, and I was working at WCIA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Champaign/Urbana, Illinois. There was a nationwide strike by the United Mine Workers, and my assignment editor got wind of a strip mine located just across the state line in Indiana that continued to operate. He thought that might make a good story, so the cameraman and I drove off.

It took a while to find the place on the dirt back roads. As we were getting close, we passed a family butchering a pig that was hanging from a tree in their front yard. I should have seen it as an omen, but I didn’t.

We found the mine, but it wasn’t operating. It wasn’t shut down in observance of the strike, but rather due to the recent rain — it was just too muddy for the heavy equipment. I radioed the assignment desk for instructions; they said “Shoot what you can and come on back.”

We started filming from the road but couldn’t see much, so we ventured onto the property — which of course was trespassing, and a mistake.

Not long after, I heard a voice from behind asking, “Just what the hell are you doing?” I turned to find a big, weather-beaten man with a grim face holding a large gun aimed directly at us.

I stammered out some weak answer. This was clearly the mine’s owner. He knew, as I did, that if the UMW found out he was operating during their strike, he’d be in deep trouble.

He proceeded to demand the tape and the camera. I was young, dumb and just out of journalism school, with just enough idealistic passion to tell a man with a gun in his hand “No.”

He marched us into a worksite trailer on the property. He sat me down at a desk and told me to call my station. I got my assignment editor on the line and told him that the owner had shown up and was demanding our video — failing to mention the gun. The assignment editor broke into an amazing string of expletives describing the mine owner and his lineage. It was also very loud. I heard it and so did the gun holder — that’s when I decided to let my assignment editor in on the fact the man had a gun on us.

The assignment editor stopped mid-”@##$!,” got quiet and asked if we were alright. “Yes,” I said.

“Give him the tape and the camera,” he told me. Just like that — no debate, no harsh words, just give him what he asks.

“But…” I started to stammer.

“Just give it to him,” came the worried voice over the phone.

So I told the cameraman to eject the tape and give it and the camera to the mine owner.

The funny thing was, the guy just sort of looked at me staring at the gun, which he seemed to notice in his hands for the first time. He could see I was scared. He quickly put it down on the desk making sure to point it away from us.

“@#$%!” the mine owner said. “Keep the damn tape and your camera and get out of here.” I told my assignment editor who was still on the phone listening that we were coming home.

After a long quiet ride back to the station, I walked in and gave the tape to the assignment editor. He asked if I was okay. I said yes. “Do you want me to write up something about the mine story?” I asked.

“Nah,” he said. “It’s not worth it.”

Since those days, I have had other run-ins with people with guns who’ve demanded my tape. I don’t argue with them — instead, I have devised other ways to prevent from ever losing a story. So far, I never have.

As for the second incident? That took place in Kuwait, and no amount of fast-talking would get me out of trouble — not when I was in the hands of the secret police being held at a secret military base. But that’s for another blog.

- Martin Savidge

For more on detained journalists, watch an interview with Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists: North Korea sets trial date for detained U.S. journalists.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user cindy47452 under a Creative Commons license.

Euna Lee and Laura Ling, reporters for Current TV, were reporting on North Korean refugees living in China when they were arrested in March. They were accused of illegal entry and unspecified “hostile acts” and could face up to 10 years in prison.

This case is one among many stories of journalist detentions, including the recent detainment of Roxanna Saberi in Iran and the holding of journalists by other countries including the U.S.

Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, provides a closer look at the plight of journalists around the world. Simon discusses the most dangerous places for journalists and gives his thoughts on the effect the Internet has had on press freedoms.

American journalist Roxana Saberi was released from an Iranian prison on Monday.

In Iran, an American journalist sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of spying for the United States was released on Monday.

Roxana Saberi, who reported for National Public Radio and other news organizations, was freed after an appeals court rejected the original sentence and issued a two-year suspended sentence.

She was held for a total of four months, and her release removes an obstacle in President Obama’s efforts to open a dialogue with Iran.

Journalist “Liana” sympathizes with her counterparts in Iran: 

I woke up to the great news this morning that Roxana Saberi, the American journalist who had been convicted of espionage and sentenced to 8 years in prison in Tehran, Iran has now been freed and reunited with her parents. She had been arrested in late January, followed by a one-day secretive trial.

My heart sinks every time I hear of a journalist being equated with  a criminal or being accused of criminal activity. This case was especially close to home because my family is from Iran. I always remember the fact about how my life would have turned out if we had never left. How differently would I have turned out? Would my passions, goals and dreams have been the same? Would I have even considered becoming a journalist, knowing that because of what I said or did, I could be arrested and put in jail with an 8 year prison sentence? In my heart of hearts, I have to believe that my passions in life would not only have stayed the same, but would have been stronger.

David Andelman of World Policy writes about the political undertones of Saberi’s release: 

The alacrity with which the “appeals court” on Sunday reversed the decision of the Revolutionary Court, reducing the charge from conveying classified information to the less onerous “crime” of possessing it, then reducing her sentence to two years (suspended) and freeing her immediately, suggests the degree to which the judicial system can be manipulated in the interest of political or diplomatic expediency.

Several issues, however, remain cloaked in mystery. Why and how did the charges against her escalate so quickly and dramatically?  What message was the Revolutionary Court trying to send—internally or externally?

Iran is in the midst of what could prove to be quite a fraught, and critical, national election campaign in which the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is fighting for his political life. Is this a message from extreme Islamists in control of the Revolutionary Court system to the moderates of what might be in store should their candidate be elected? Or is it simply a question of one hand not really knowing what the other is doing—and, in the end, reason returning to the political leadership that is indeed anxious to resume a constructive dialogue with the West, especially the United States?

Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic’s “Washington” blog explores possible meanings behind the release: 

Iran watchers will be making one of two cases today: that the freeing suggests nothing at all about Iran’s intentions toward the West; Iran’s government wants to demonstrate to Europe (in particular) that it is capable of acting in good faith.  The other is that Iranian-United States relations have come a long way since 1/20, and even in the wake of saber rattling, the presidency of Barack Obama has so flummoxed the Iranian leadership that they have no choice to vary their routine.  I don’t know which interpretation is correct, I would add, as a point of information, that Iran’s government is not monolithic; that the bureaucracy and many judges consider themselves independent of the executive branch and the mullahs.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user El_Enigma under a Creative Commons license.

Ask an expert your questions on the H1N1 flu virus.

Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, discusses how quickly the H1N1 virus is spreading, how world governments have responded to the crisis and the potential for a vaccine.

Eric Klinenberg, a professor at New York University and author of “Fighting for air: The battle to control America’s media,” discusses how U.S. and foreign media have fared in terms of covering the H1N1 outbreak.

Asia has suffered through a series of health crises in recent years — most recently the SARS outbreak in 2002 and 2003. Simon Tay, the chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs and member of the Asia Society, discusses how the crisis is playing out in Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and China and looks at which countries are best prepared to deal with the H1N1 outbreak.

Of course, no country has been affected by the H1NI outbreak so deeply as Mexico. Mexico has also suffered a great deal of economic damage, and it has concerns about how other countries are reacting to the epidemic. Christopher Sabatini, the senior policy director of the Council of the Americas, discusses economic damage from the flu, complaints that Mexicans are being discriminated against and how Mexico’s southern neighbors view its handling of the crisis.

A photo of civilian refugees released by the Sri Lankan army. Source: IRIN

As the Sri Lankan government continues its assault against the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE ), journalists and most aid groups have been barred from the front lines — meaning the conflict is largely hidden and reports are difficult to verify. 

The Tamil Tigers have long fought for an independent state for Sri Lanka’s Tamil ethnic minority, but the government is now pushing into their last stronghold — a strip of land only four square miles in size. 

Morten Hvaal is a photographer based in Sri Lanka. He writes at “Frontline” about his frustration at being prevented from covering “what might be left of the war.”

For more on the conflict, listen to our online radio show on Sri Lanka’s civil war.

Free Tiger tour, anyone?

So, “Foreign media taken on a free ride by the LTTE“, according to the Sri Lankan Government’s propaganda website “Media Centre For National Security” (MCNS). Apparently, many of us are terrorist sympathisers and, well, stupid. I might actually have been insulted, had I not been at the receiving end of similar accusations for many months now. And, one does need to try and stay in the MCNS’ good books, because they too occasionally take the foreign media on free rides.

Saturday morning, 0500hrs, a military airport in Colombo; I’m reading the printed program for the day’s “VISIT OF MEDIA PERSONAL” (sic) to, amongst several other unpronounceable locations, Pudumathalan, which is on the frontline to the LTTE-held “no-fire zone”. After several hours of flights, briefings, displays of captured LTTE weapons, refreshments and rides in armoured personnel carriers the motley crew of close to 30 sweating journalists and a handful of senior Sri Lankan military officers dismount “near the front line”. 

The television talking heads do their thing: “We’re at the front line where LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is about to face his destiny”. Except we’re not. The front line is four or five kilometres away. All we can see is a dirt road, Pudhumathalan lagoon, some very relaxed-looking soldiers and a few red buses, supposedly waiting to transport civilians coming out of the no-fire zone. Apart from the chatter of the TV crews it’s quiet.

The ultimate proof of how safely removed we are from what might be left of the war is that two of the Sri Lankan Army’s most important general officers are happy to hang around and chat. Both are adamant that it would all be over soon if it weren’t for the civilians. No surprises there; everything indicates that the Tigers are on their last legs as a conventional fighting force, and the generals are visibly proud to declare that the army has killed thousands of terrorists. The surprise comes when they say they’re not killing any civilians. 

People are getting hurt though. Our departure from the helipad at nearby Puthukudirippu is delayed, and while we wait several casualties arrive in ambulances, only to be loaded back in and driven off again after we try and photograph them. At the same time we start hearing the sound of distant detonations. 

See the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Today, Turkey is wielding influence once again in the Arab world — not militarily, but through its soap operas. More than a dozen Turkish soaps have aired on Arab television, offering an escape from the hard daily realities of life.

Worldfocus producer Mohammad Al-Kassim reports on this new Turkish invasion.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Turkey, visit our extended coverage page: Turkey between East and West.