A curated selection of public diplomacy-relevant news from a global cross-section of English-language media outlets, including independent, corporate-owned, and state-sponsored sources. The stories featured don't necessarily represent CPD's views nor have they been verified by CPD.
Somali Government Raids Popular Radio Station
Somali security forces have raided and closed Radio Shabelle, a popular independent broadcasting station located in Mogadishu. Law enforcement officers entered the building on Saturday. Station owner and director Abdimalik Yusuf Mohamud says some of the 37 staff members were beaten by police before they were arrested and detained. Police also confiscated computers and other equipment.
Following Dear Leader, Kim Jong-un Gets Title From University: Dr. Leader
Make that Dr. Kim Jong-un. North Korea has long been known for its love of titles for its leaders. Mr. Kim’s grandfather, the nation’s founder, was known as the Great Leader; his son, the Dear Leader. The country seems not yet to have decided on the same kind of moniker for Mr. Kim — settling for workaday titles like marshal of the military. But now a university in Malaysia has bestowed upon the 30-year-old leader an honorary doctorate that allows him to spruce up his title count.
Pro-Japan Australia vs. China
Canberra’s foreign policies are a puzzle. Australia depends on China to take 35 percent of its exports. It may have to depend even more as its manufacturing base implodes — past mistakes mean it is about to lose almost all its car manufacturing industry. Yet Australia’s new conservative government has chosen this moment to tell the world that it wants to cooperate with Japan and the United States in their anti-China policies.
Food Fight: Who Owns the Recipes on Israel’s Culinary blogosphere?
The Israeli blogosphere’s obsessive preoccupation with food is making veteran culinary writers reel. The Internet has become a flesh-eating plant that devours recipes in an insatiable frenzy. When you Google the word “recipe” in Hebrew − you get close to three million hits.
In Afghanistan, ‘Force Protection is the Mission’
Attacks on US forces by uniformed Afghan security personnel are now Afghanistan's signature threat, just as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, were in Iraq. And that new and disquieting reality has me thinking hard about the idea of ‘force protection’ here and how it is changing, or, more precisely, needs to change. During my first trip to Afghanistan in 2010, it was shocking to see how lax the soldiers there seemed to be in their own force protection.
Saudi Government Warns Driving Ban Activists
Saudi Arabia has warned that it will take measures against activists who go ahead with a planned weekend campaign to defy a ban on women drivers in the conservative Muslim kingdom. The women organising the campaign have been posting online footage of themselves driving in Saudi cities, and have called on Saudi women with foreign driving licences to get behind the wheel on Saturday.
‘The Square’ Documentary Brings Egypt’s Revolution to the Big Screen
On January 25, 2011, the day Egypt's revolution began, Jehane Noujaim had a tough call to make. She could stay in Cairo to see if anything might come from the rumors about big protests planned for that day. Or, she could chase some high-level Egyptian officials to Davos, Switzerland.
A First Read on Post-Revolutionary Egyptian Media
A new book by Naomi Sakr, Transformations in Egyptian Journalism (I.B. Tauris, 2013), should be required reading for American public diplomacy specialists who want to engage Egyptians through the media. Bilingual Sakr, a media policy professor at the University of Westminster and director of its CAMRI Arab Media Centre, draws on new research and decades’ experience tracking Arab media trends to offer a readout on how Egyptian journalists and their employers have been struggling and coping yet also innovating since the 2011 revolution.
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