Our weekly round-up of must-read stories you might have missed. In focus this week: Clashes in DR Congo, Ushahidi Wins MacArthur Award, assault on freedom of expression and access to information in Zimbabwe, and Connie Hedegaard on the United States combating climate change.
DR Congo: UN mission shelters hundreds of civilians following clashes – February 27, 2013
The United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is sheltering some 400 people in what remains a tense situation following fighting between national troops and an armed group, a spokesperson for the world body said today. “The UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) reports that, earlier today, near its base in Kitchanga, North Kivu, heavy fighting took place,” deputy UN spokesperson Eduardo del Buey told journalists in New York. The situation remains “tense” following the clashes between Congolese armed forces and elements of the Alliance des Patriotes pour un Congo Libre et Souverain (APCLS), an armed group, Mr. del Buey added. At least one civilian was killed and nine other people injured, MONUSCO reported, including one of its peacekeepers, who was shot in the arm and remains in stable condition. The sheltering of civilians at its base in Kitchanga falls within the Mission’s mandated role to protect civilians, defend human rights and support provisions of humanitarian aid…
Ushahidi, 2013 MacArthur Award Recipient – February 27, 2013
In early 2008, villages and cities across Kenya were ravaged with violence following a disputed election. The election controversy became the pretext for ethnic clashes that displaced hundreds of thousands of people and claimed the lives of more than 1,200, some in grisly fashion. An ad-hoc group of tech bloggers based in Kenya decided to act. They built a software platform, called “Ushahidi” to shine a light on human rights violations and, bring much-needed attention and support to developing emergencies. Ushahidi means “bearing witness” in Swahili. The software enabled Kenyans to document and report on incidents in real-time, giving the media, governments, and relief organizations an immediate picture of what was happening on the ground. By aggregating texts, tweets, photos, and descriptions from phones and computers, Ushahidi created crowd sourced maps that made incidents of violence, election fraud, and abuse plainly visible on a broad scale. Since that catalytic moment in 2008, Ushahidi has grown into a mapping platform used in crises around the world, supporting 35,000 maps in 30 different languages…
Zimbabwe: Short Wave Radio Ban Triggers Uproar – February 27, 2013
SHORTwave radio was for grannies when most of us were growing up. Sitting under the tree, lonely, with the kids playing far away, my grandfather always had this fascination with his shortwave radio: it was a way of keeping up to date with the latest news, and with the cold war still on, radio Moscow had an ominous presence on short- wave, and BBC World Service also carried its loud voice across the globe using this channel. ZANU-PF also blasted its news from Mozambique – it was propaganda war on the shortwave! But those who thought shortwave radio had passed its prime and was on the deathbed, hold on a bit. In Zimbabwe, it had become fun and shortwave radio had turned out to be a gadget to own, thanks to donors who had been distributing these radios to rural communities, most of which have not been receiving the national broadcaster’s signal for years. Until police recently declared that it was criminal to own these devices…
Hedegaard challenges US to get serious about climate change – March 01, 2013
Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s top climate change official, said on Thursday (28 February) that if the Obama administration rejects the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, it would send a strong message that the United States is serious about combating climate change. “That would be an extremely strong signal for the Obama administration,” Hedegaard, the EU Commissioner for Climate Action, told reporters in a briefing in Washington. Hedegaard has been visiting lawmakers, administration and World Bank officials as well as other groups in Washington and Boston this week. She is due to meet with Democrats, including Representative Henry Waxman of California and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, two of the most vocal supporters of climate legislation in Congress, as well as US envoy for climate change Todd Stern and White House economic adviser Michael Froman. Hedegaard said rejecting the controversial pipeline, which if completed will transport 830,000 barrels per day of heavy crude oil from Alberta, Canada, to oil refineries in Texas, would show that the United States would “avoid doing something” that could contribute significantly to climate change…
