QUOTATION FOR THE DAY (for Francophiles)
General de Gaulle to his follower from 1940 General Jacques Massu: "Ah Massu, toujours aussi con?" Massu: "Toujours con et toujours gaulliste, mon général."
--Times Literary Supplement (July 30, 2010), p.8; de Gaulle image from
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
Magharebia and SETimes: Invasion of the news snatchers? – Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting: “USC Center on Public Diplomacy, 7 August 2010, Philip Seib: 'One of the most impressive online U.S. public diplomacy venues is Magharebia, a website and news service for North Africans that is published by the United States African Command (AFRICOM).' [Elliott comment:] I have read magharebia.com and its sibling setimes.com on and off for the past few years. Perhaps my perception is colored by their Defense Department sponsorship, but my impression is that their content is (to borrow a phrase from Douglas Adams) almost, but not quite, entirely unlike news.
Each site states that it provides 'accurate, balanced and forward-looking coverage' about the region it covers. Might be. A graduate student could assess this self-description for Magharebia by consulting news.google.com and similar indexes, and finding out how often stories about Algeria, Mauritania, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia are covered by at least two major news organizations, but not by Magharebia. Also determine which stories are covered by Magharebia but not be any other major organization. Discern patterns and discuss." Image fromExpo At Night (Videoblog): Jian (Jay) Wang, Newswire – CPD Blog & Blogroll, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: US pavilion evidently not in this footage.
State embraces Bloomberg speech – Ben Smith, Politico: "The White House has been avoiding the New York mosque issue -- it's pretty much lose-lose, politically, they seem to think -- but the State Department yesterday appears to have offered a tacit endorsement to Mike Bloomberg's vocal support for the project, posting his speech on its public diplomacy website America.gov with translations into Arabic and Persian. 'New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg recently addressed the importance of religious freedom in America after city officials rebuffed an effort to halt the building of a mosque and community center near the site of the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan,' says the introduction to the speech. 'Mayor Bloomberg said the U.S. Constitution guarantees Americans religious freedoms and that 'Muslims are as much a part of our City and our country as the people of any faith and they are as welcome to worship in Lower Manhattan as any other group.'"
Obama's fragrance in Yemen Fan - rfv121: "With the announcement of US Administration to appoint a new American Ambassador to Yemen Mr. Gerald Michael Feierstein, it looks that US Foreign policy towards Yemen will continue with its counterterrorism agenda yet with may be some new flavor and fragrance. ... From the US ex Ambassador to Yemen Edmund Hull and his successor Mr. Thomas Krajeski, why the US Administration has been nominating Ambassadors to Yemen that have an obvious intelligence and counterterrorism background and CV may be Marni Handbags more than anything else?! Yet, what would be so different or that distinctive with the New Ambassador Feierstein?!
What would come first for him; Public Diplomacy mixed with aid and educational exchange programs with a special youth focus or/and more air strikes and civilians causalities!? Or maybe the quick preparation for His own 'Army of Liberation/Salvation'!? One may wonder after this long US/Yemeni diplomatic relations; exchange and sociopolitical readings and reporting...etc., that goes back to the 1940s, if the US Government really knows Yemen very well and its leadership and people knowing what she wants exactly!" Feierstein image from
Chinese envoy makes symbolic trip to Taiwan rivals’ tombs - AFP, posted at Wandering China: From AFP: "Zhang Mingqing, vice president of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, toured the tombs of late president Chiang Kai-shek and his son and successor Chiang Ching-kuo Monday, a local official said. It was the highest-ranking Chinese visit so far to the tombs, located in Taoyuan county in the north of Taiwan, said Chiang Nan-chih, the head of the Taoyuan tourist attractions management unit. The symbolic gesture by Zhang, on the last day of an eight-day trip to Taiwan, reflects rapid improvement in relations between the two sides, which have been split since the end of a civil war in 1949. From Wandering china: "Another major piece of news that seems a little understated in the press. The Chiangs would probably qualify as mortal enemies of Communist China, and this gesture, no matter how much of a Public Diplomacy act in itself, will be read with great intent by Chinese people from both sides."
Beating Swords into Straws – Paul Rockower, Levantine: "I have crafted a gastrodiplomacy responsa to the Dr. Strangelove threat. I am hereby advocating that Taiwan arm its coastline with plastic straw cannons of bubble tea, as well as Howitzers of stinky tofu.
Study Lack Of Success Of Asean Growth Triangle Projects - Kohilan - Bernama: "There is a need for in-depth studies to identify the cause behind the lack of success of the various Asean Growth Triangle (GT) projects, and find a solution, said Deputy Foreign Minister Senator A. Kohilan Pillay. ... Kohilan said that Asean member countries, particularly at grassroots-level, lacked awareness on Asean, including what Asean meant, its history and also achievements for the past 43 years. 'Existing public diplomacy road shows targeting schools and communities of Asean member states are neither consistent nor adequate due to financial, structural and other constraints,' he added. Meanwhile, Kohilan hoped Asean member states would give prominence to the activities and programmes that had direct impact on the people to enable them to see the relevance of Asean in their daily lives."
Turkish, Armenian NGOs join forces in İstanbul to boost mutual relations - Today's Zaman: "Turkish and Armenian representatives from various nongovernmental organizations (NGO) came together in İstanbul to address relations between the two countries and share messages of goodwill. ... Andranik Arshakyan, the director of the Association of Unions Compatriots, also spoke at the event. Stating that the event would go down in history, Arshakyan pointed out that it would set a precedent for further events between Turkey and Armenia.
Arshakyan added that they are also planning to invite Turkish representatives of NGOs to Armenia in the coming months as they work for public diplomacy." Image from
Turkey goes global as cultural outreach follows foreign policy forays - Fulya Özerkan, Hürriyet Daily News: "A new Turkish cultural center joins airline flights and radio and television broadcasts in expanding the country’s reach around the globe, with a UK office on the way and more planned for Moscow and Damascus. Experts say such ’public diplomacy’ efforts complement Ankara’s ambitious foreign policy by helping present Turkey’s changing image to the world."
Iran-Saudi rivalry deepens - Richard Javad Heydarian, Asia Times Online: "In the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, amid growing tensions between Iran and the West, Iran - under Ahmadinejad - would elevate its regional ambitions to a new level by explicitly supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon. ... Iranian and Saudi-backed factions were practically using Lebanon's political landscape as a site for their proxy wars.
In the midst of this, Ahmadinejad courted the Arab streets, intensifying Iran's public diplomacy, openly challenging the Arab monarchies - especially Saudi Arabia - and calling on the Shi'ite minority to fight for their rights. Iran was becoming hegemonic in the eyes of the Arab regimes. ... Growing tensions over Iran's nuclear program, the elimination of Iraq as the main regional counter-weight, and the Islamic Republic's expanding influence in the Middle East will continue to guide Saudi Arabia's calculations with respect to its relations with Iran. The evolution of the post-9/11 regional order has made it extremely difficult for both sides to deepen their cooperation and considerably normalize their bilateral relations." Image from
Meeting Of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy - US Department of State: "The Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy (ACIEP) will meet on Thursday, August 12, 2010, at 2:00 p.m. in Room 1107 of the Harry S. Truman Building. The meeting will last until approximately 4:00 p.m. and is open to the public. ... For further information about the meeting, please contact Outreach Coordinator Tiffany Enoch, Office of Economic Policy Analysis and Public Diplomacy, Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs, at (202) 647-2231 or EnochT@state.gov."
RELATED ITEMS
Thinking about AFRICOM’s think tank - Dr. Carl LeVan's Homepage
Development, Security, African Politics. Via DW
Blogging in Cuba is largely for international consumption – Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting
War Propaganda: Soldiers Become Pawns For The Powerful - Jake Diliberto, Huffington Post: Americans need to send a sarcastic thank you to the Pentagon for their gifts of unwarranted war propaganda.
Whether you are an anti-war activist or a pro-Afghan war cheerleader, everyone needs to be aware of our collective canard. The war gag is over. The truth curtain has fallen. The gig is up. Anyone with careful eye sees the war in Afghanistan is not going as smoothly as previously advertised. Image from
The Petraeus Propaganda Tour: Who Supports the Troops? - Josh Mull, seminal.firedoglake.com: The military is working very hard to push the war on the public. US casualties were at an all time high in June, it was worse in July, and August isn’t looking any better.
Taliban dismiss Time cover as 'desperate propaganda' - AFP: The Taliban have dismissed the use of a mutilated Afghan woman on a Time magazine cover as "desperate propaganda" and denied being the culprits, a US monitoring group said Monday. The Taliban said Time was lying when it accused the group of slicing off 18-year-old Aisha's nose and ears after she fled her abusive in-laws in southern Uruzgan province last year. "This desperate propaganda by Time magazine has shown the whole world the lengths which the world media will go to please America, even at the cost of their journalistic integrity," a Taliban spokesman said. Image from article 1tal
N.Korea goes YouTube for propaganda – AFP: North Korea has opened an account with the global video-sharing website YouTube, uploading clips praising the isolated communist state and denying allegations that it sank a South Korean warship. Eleven clips were found Tuesday under the name of uriminzokkiri, a North Korean government website. One English-language video with a duration of five minutes and 56 seconds praised leader Kim Jong-Il, calling him as a "general sent by the heaven."
On a Warsaw Ghetto film, an unwitting collaboration - Tom Tugend, JTA:The place is the Warsaw Ghetto, the year 1942, and the black-and-white footage shows fashionably dressed men and women, with yellow Stars of David as accessories, having a high time at a champagne ball. Later we see emaciated kids rooting through mounds of garbage and excrement for scraps of food.
The contradictory scenes are from “A Film Unfinished,” an unwitting collaboration between a Nazi propaganda crew and an Israeli filmmaker, Yael Hersonski, separated by nearly seven decades. In 2006, Hersonski, an Israeli television editor and director whose grandmother was a Warsaw Ghetto survivor, was attracted to the “A Film Unfinished” project for two reasons: her interest in film archives as permanent witnesses to history and the sheer amazement at discovering the Warsaw Ghetto footage. Image from article: Promotional poster for a "A Film Unfinished," which features real and staged footage from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. Trailer of film at
