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Features

Forest rights row exposes cracks in UN climate plans

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 14:38

WACC is encouraging communicators to report climate justice issues from the perspective of the global South. The following feature, written by Hilary Chiew and published by the PANOS Institute on 27 May 2009, is a good example of giving a voice to those most vulnerable to climate change.

Features

Reporting on climate change is an important but challenging task

James Fahn, the global director for environmental programs at Internews, explains how to make your stories both accurate and engaging.

		Climate change could be the biggest story of the twenty first century, affecting societies, economies and individuals on a grand scale. Equally enormous are the adjustments that will have to be made to our energy and transportation systems, economies and societies, if we are to mitigate climate change. All journalists should understand the science of climate change — its causes, its controversies and its current and projected impacts. Start by doing your own research from established sources, such as reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or from local scientific experts you trust.
Journalists interview a farmer about the impact of climate change as part of a training workshop in Vietman, (Internews / James Fahn)

Features

Justicia y comunicación

Por Carlos A. Valle, El ex Secretario General de la WACC

		Los medios de comunicación sin distinción celebraron la condenada que recibió Alberto Fujimori quien fuera Presidente del Perú desde 1990 hasta el 2000. Para ese entonces los escándalos en su gestión habían llegado a ser inocultables. El Congreso decide destituirlo aduciendo su “permanente incapacidad moral”. Aprovechando una reunión en Brunei Fujimori decide continuar su viaje hasta Japón. Desde allí renuncia a su cargo y, amparado en su doble ciudadanía, decide permanecer en ese país evitando su extradición. Pasarán siete largos años hasta que se logre en 2007 extraditarlo desde Chile para ser juzgado y justamente condenado.
Alberto Fujimori, former President of Peru (By JAIME RAZURI/AFP/Getty Images)

Features

Religious communicators moved by screening of Reel Bad Arabs

WACC North America hosted a free screening of "Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People", a documentary, featuring acclaimed author and media critic, Dr Jack Shaheen who attended the screening held in Boston, Massachusetts, March 26. WACC General Secretary, Randy Naylor, and Deputy Director of Programmes, Philip Lee, also attended.

Below is the report written by one of the scholarship students attending the conference...

WACC General Secretary, Randy Naylor (left), with Dr. Jack G. Shaheen, author of ‘Reel Bad Arabs’. (Photo: George Conklin, WFN)

Features

Venezuela's media is caught in a vicious circle

... Outlets supporting Hugo Chavez proliferate under the media-savvy president.

By Charlie Devereux - GlobalPost

CARACAS — A community television station beams daily reports to the shanty towns that sprawl just above its offices in the converted stables of a former presidential residence.

Features

Rural Internet - Not Online but Still Connected

By Katherine Nightingale, SciDev.Net

The use of 'asynchronous' internet is being developed to give internet access to remote villages. According to this SciDev.Net article, where there is no possibility of cables or constant online connection, "[a]synchronous connections use software to queue data (such as emails, web searches and requests for specific downloads) and to ready it for transfer. The data are assembled on a device such as a [universal serial bus] USB memory stick, then carried across mountain passes or down rough tracks that have never seen a cable - to a distant internet connection."

Features

MEDIA: Climate of Fear Pervades Many Newsrooms

By Haider Rizvi

Published by Inter Press Service news agency, (IPS), 10 Feb 2009

In Latin America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, journalists are becoming increasingly vulnerable to physical violence as a result of their work, says a U.S.-based media watchdog in a new report released February 10.

"Today, the greatest threats to freedom of the press are more insidious than a generation ago because they are intended to induce a climate of fear and intimidation," said Carl Bernstein, a well-known investigative reporter, at the launch of the report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Features

Prescription for Life: Take action to help children living with HIV

The vast majority of children living with HIV around the world lack access to HIV testing and treatment. The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA), in collaboration with partners around the world, are embarking on a year-long action with governments, pharmaceutical companies and media to improve access to medicines for children with HIV.

Features

El Salvador’s bitter past haunts the present

By Philip Lee, Deputy-Director of Programmes, WACC

El Salvador’s political parties are preparing for 2009, when presidential, legislative, and municipal elections will be held in the same year for the first time since 1994. The current President, Elias Antonio Saca, won a five-year term in March 2004. It was the fourth successive victory for the controversial ARENA party. However, Saca is ineligible to stand for a second term.

When elected, the former radio and TV sports presenter promised to crack down on criminal gangs and to strive for transparent government. None of that has happened. A recent BBC news report (26 November 2008) about violent death in Latin America says that, ‘The grimmest figures are for El Salvador, where the murder rate among young people is 92 per 100,000 people. A key factor is the presence of violent youth gangs.’

Features

The Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor: Indigenous Peoples have rights too!

By Philip Lee, Deputy-Director of Programmes, WACC

Communication for peace takes many forms. Since 1992, Peace and Dignity Journeys, an NGO based in Phoenix, Arizona, has been organizing a spiritual run for Indigenous Peoples with a difference: it covers the whole of South and North America.

Each run takes place every four years and is dedicated to a theme. For 2008 the theme was spiritual sites, many of which are threatened by resource extraction or development. This year’s run began on 1st May in Eklutna, Alaska, and Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. After more than 7,500 kilometres, the runners completed their journey on 14th November in Panama, where representatives of indigenous peoples from the whole continent met to celebrate Days of Peace and Dignity.

Features

Orissa Violence - A dark tunnel ahead

By Dominic Emmanuel

"Conversions" is a bogey raised by religion-political elements to justify ethnic cleansing and no amount of evidence will persuade them to terminate their policy

Rarely in life does one face such the paradox of being weighed down with heavy foreboding before setting out on a journey and at the same time being ever so fired with the hope of achieving something positive.

Last Saturday, 20 September, when the Archbishop of Delhi, Vincent M. Concessao, phoned me to suggest that there was a proposal for Church leaders to meet with the RSS and VHP leaders on the issue of violence in Orissa, I agreed immediately to be part of it. Little did I realise that I would have to travel to Bhubaneshwar to engage in dialogue.

Features

Can communication rights bring about peace and security?

By Pradip Thomas, School of Journalism & Communication, University of Queensland, Australia.

Will the extension of communication rights bring about peace? Before I move on to answering that question, it is important to define what peace is. In common parlance peace is a state of affairs characterized by the complete or relative absence of conflict and violence at different levels – within the family, the neighbourhood, between communities, between countries. In this way of thinking structural peace be it at home or between countries is a necessary pre-condition for physical and mental peace, the basis for ordinary people to exist and co-exist, to live life. Peace in other words has both macro and micro dimensions.

WACC promotes communication for social change. It believes that communication is a basic human right that defines people's common humanity, strengthens cultures, enables participation, creates community and challenges tyranny and oppression.

The World Association for Christian Communication is a UK Registered Charity (number 296073) and a Company registered in England and Wales (number 2082273) with its Registered Office at 71 Lambeth Walk, London SE11 6DX. It is an incorporated Charitable Organisation in Canada (number 83970 9524 RR0001) with its head office at 308 Main Street, Toronto ON, M4C 4X7.