U.S., Japan to hold official talks on nuclear umbrella/US officials eye North Korea in cyber attack/

US officials eye North Korea in cyber attack
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jul 9, 12:40 am ET
WASHINGTON – U.S. authorities on Wednesday eyed North Korea as the origin of the widespread cyber attack that overwhelmed government Web sites in the United States and South Korea, although they warned it would be difficult to definitively identify the attackers quickly.
The powerful attack that targeted dozens of government and private sites underscored how unevenly prepared the U.S. government is to blocksuch multipronged assaults.
While Treasury Department and Federal Trade Commission Web sites were shut down by the software attack, which lasted for days over the holiday weekend, others such as the Pentagon and the White House were able to fend it off with little disruption.
The North Korea link, described by three officials, more firmly connected the U.S. attacks to another wave of cyber assaults that hit government agencies Tuesday in South Korea. The officials said that while Internet addresses have been traced to North Korea, that does not necessarily mean the attack involved the Pyongyang government.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
South Korea intelligence officials have identified North Korea as a suspect in those attacks and said that the sophistication of the assault suggested it was carried out at a higher level that just rogue or individual hackers.
U.S. officials would not go that far and declined to discuss publicly who may have instigated the intrusion or how it was done.
In an Associated Press interview, Philip Reitinger, deputy under secretary at the Homeland Security Department, said the far-reaching attacks demonstrate the importance of cybersecurity as a critical national security issue.
The fact that a series of computers were involved in an attack, Reitinger said, "doesn't say anything about the ultimate source of the attack."
"What it says is that those computers were as much a target of the attack as the eventual Web sites that are targets," said Reitinger, who heads DHS cybersecurity operations. "They're just zombies that are being used by some unseen third party to launch attacks against government and nongovernment Web sites."
Targets of the most widespread cyber offensive of recent years also included the National Security Agency, Homeland Security Department and State Department, the Nasdaq stock market and The Washington Post, according to an early analysis of the software used in the attacks.
The Associated Press obtained the target list from security experts analyzing the attacks. They provided the list on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.
Other experts in cyber assaults said the incident shined a harsh light on the U.S. government's efforts to protect all of its agencies against Web-based attacks.
James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the fact that both the White House and Defense Department were attacked but didn't go down points to the need for coordinated government network defenses.
"It says that they were ready and the other guys weren't ready," he said. "We are disorganized. In the event of an attack, some places aren't going to be able to defend themselves."
The wave of cyber assaults are known as "denial of service" attacks. Such attacks against Web sites are not uncommon and are caused when sites are so deluged with Internet traffic that they are effectively taken off-line. Mounting such an attack can be relatively easy and inexpensive, using widely available hacking programs, and they become far more serious if hackers infect and tie thousands of computers together into "botnets."
Joe Stewart, director of malware research for the counterthreat unit of SecureWorks Inc., said there's no indication yet of a claim of responsibility hidden anywhere in the program behind the attacks. Stewart and other researchers are analyzing the code for clues about the attacker's identity.
Stewart noted that the attacks on U.S. government sites appeared to expand after the initial assaults over the holiday weekend failed to generate any publicity. He said the "target list" contained in the program's code only had five U.S. government sites on it on July 5, but were broadened the next day to include nongovernment sites inside the U.S.
The following day, the South Korean Web sites were added.
"It seems to me they thought the first round wasn't successful ... they felt they weren't getting enough attention because nobody was talking about their attacks," Stewart said.
The cyber assault on the White House site had "absolutely no effect on the White House's day-to-day operations," said spokesman Nick Shapiro. He said that preventive measures kept whitehouse.gov stable and available to the general public but that Internet visitors from Asia may have experienced problems.
All federal Web sites were back up and running, Shapiro said. A State Department spokesman said the agency's site was up but still experiencing problems. A Web site for the U.S. Secret Service had experienced access problems but did not crash, the agency's spokesman said.
The cyber attack did not appear, at least at the outset, to target internal or classified files or systems, but instead aimed at agencies' public sites, creating a nuisance both for officials and the Web consumers who use them.
Ben Rushlo, director of Internet technologies at Keynote Systems, said problems with the Transportation Department site began Saturday and continued until Monday, while the FTC site was down Sunday and Monday.
Keynote Systems is a mobile and Web site monitoring company based in San Mateo, Calif. The company publishes data detailing outages on Web sites, including 40 government sites it watches.
According to Rushlo, the Transportation Web site was "100 percent down" for two days, so that no Internet users could get through. The FTC site, meanwhile, started to come back online late Sunday, but even on Tuesday Internet users still were unable to get to the site 70 percent of the time.
Dale Meyerrose, former chief information officer for the U.S. intelligence community, said that at least one of the federal agency Web sites got saturated with as many as 1 million hits per second per attack — amounting to 4 billion Internet hits at once. He would not identify the agency, but he said the Web site is generally capable of handling a level of about 25,000 users.
Meyerrose, who is now vice president at Harris Corp., said the characteristics of the attack suggest the involvement of between 30,000 to 60,000 computers.
The widespread attack was "loud and clumsy," which suggests it was carried out by an unsophisticated organization, said Amit Yoran, chief executive at NetWitness Corp. and the former U.S. government cybersecurity chief. "This is not the elegance we would expect from sophisticated adversaries."
Officials agreed, however, that the incident brings to the forefront a key 21st century threat.
"It tells you that cyber attacks are real. It's a very serious problem and one of the more serious facing us, along with terrorism, and China and Russia are the main threats," said Rep. Dutch Ruppersburger, D-Md., who was briefed on the incident.
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Associated Press writers Lara Jakes and Pamela Hess in Washington; Jordan Robertson in San Jose; Hyung-Jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea; and Andrew Vanacore in New York contributed to this report.
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U.S., Japan to hold official talks on nuclear umbrella
Thursday 09th July, 03:40 AM JST
WASHINGTON —
The United States and Japan are arranging to hold official talks possibly later this month on a broad range of security issues including the U.S. nuclear umbrella—a topic usually off the agenda, U.S.-Japan relations sources said Tuesday.
Involving director general-level officials from the U.S. State and Defense departments and their Japanese counterparts, the talks are aimed at enhancing the bilateral alliance in light of North Korean nuclear and missile threats and China’s military buildup, the sources said.
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Week Ending July 5, 2009: All Michael, All The Time
Posted Wed Jul 8, 2009 11:47am PDT by Paul Grein in Chart Watch


Michael Jackson has three of the five best-selling albums in the U.S. for the second week in a row. Number Ones sold 339,000 copies this week and would have held at #1 on The Billboard 200 if catalog albums were eligible to compete on that chart. (The 2003 compilation sold a little more than twice as many copies this week as NOW 31, the album that holds the #1 spot.) Thriller sold 187,000 copies and would have jumped from #3 to #2 if catalog albums were invited to the party. The Essential Michael Jackson sold 125,000 copies and would have dropped from #2 to #5. (Billboard excludes catalog albums from the big chart on the theory that new albums need the spotlight the chart provides more than past hits do.)
Jackson's catalog of solo albums sold 800,000 copies this week, up from 422,000 copies last week. (This was the first full week following Jackson's death on June 25. Last week's total reflected just four days of sales.) Billboard reports that 82% of the Jackson albums sold this week were CDs (vs. digital downloads). Last week, 43% of the Jackson albums sold were CDs. I think this shows that on a special album, people want the CD as a keepsake. (What a retro concept!)
Jackson's total song download sales this week, including hits with his brothers, stand at 2.2 million downloads, down just a little from 2.6 million last week. A total of 47 songs that feature Jackson are listed on the Hot Digital Songs chart. (This is down just a bit from last week's eye-popping total of 50.)
Number Ones racked up the biggest weekly sales total in Nielsen/SoundScan history for a catalog album (excluding Christmas albums). Jackson also held the old record, which he set in February 2008, when Thriller 25 sold 166,000 copies in its first week. Number Ones also posted the biggest one-week sales tally for an album by a deceased performer since the Notorious B.I.G.'s Duets: The Final Chapter debuted in December 2005 with first-week sales of 438,000.
Number Ones has sold 564,000 copies so far this year, which puts it at #18 on Nielsen/SoundScan's running list of the best-selling albums of 2009. If it keeps going like this, it could topple Taylor Swift's Fearless as the #1 album for the year-to-date. (Fearless has sold 1,352,000 copies since Jan. 1.) This will (in all likelihood) be only the third time in Nielsen/SoundScan history that an album by a deceased performer has ranked among the year's top 10. 2Pac's All Eyez On Me was the #6 album of 1996 (he died on Sept. 13 of that year). The Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death was the #6 album of 1997 (he died on March 9 of that year).
Number Ones holds at #1 on the Catalog Albums chart. (Catalog albums are albums that are more than 18 months old, have fallen below #100 on The Billboard 200 and don't have a current radio single.) Jackson owns the entire top 10 this week, counting a Jackson 5 album. The Essential Michael Jackson holds at #1 on the Digital Albums chart. The collection sold 53,000 digital copies this week. This is the third time that Thriller has posted sales of 100,000 or more units in a week in the Nielsen/SoundScan era (which dates to 1991). As noted above, the album sold 166,000 copies when a 25th anniversary edition was released in February 2008. It sold 101,000 last week, in the aftermath of Jackson's death. Thriller is the only the second catalog album (again, excluding Christmas albums) to top the 100,000 sales mark more than once since 1992. It follows the Grease soundtrack, a 1978 blockbuster that came back strong in the mid-1990s. The John Travolta/Olivia Newton-John tune-fest topped the 100,000 sales mark twice in December 1996 and again in April 1998, when the movie was re-released theatrically.
Jackson has five songs in the top 10 on Hot Digital Songs this week: "Man In The Mirror" at #2, "Billie Jean" at #4, "Thriller" at #5, "The Way You Make Me Feel" at #7 and "Beat It" at #10. Later today, I'll post a Chart Watch Extra in which I count down Jackson's 40 most songs with the most cumulative paid downloads. The list shows which of Jackson's songs have best stood the test of time-and which haven't.
Pop Quiz: To get you in the mood, here's a good (but seriously tough) Jackson trivia question. What do these three songs have in common: "Rock With You," "Human Nature" and "Man In The Mirror." Answer below.
Jackson is selling around the world. In the U.K., The Essential Michael Jackson moves up to #1, dethroning Number Ones (which drops to #3). In Japan, King Of Pop vaults from #43 to #6.
In a Chart Watch Extra (here's the link), I told you that Michael Jackson has had 17 #1 hits on the Hot 100 (combining Jackson 5 and solo records). Let me add that he has also had five #2 hits. Twice, he peaked at #2 behind hits that went on to be Billboard's #1 single of the year. That was the fate of the J5's "Never Can Say Goodbye" (which got stuck behind Three Dog Night's "Joy To The World," the top hit of 1971) and his own "Rockin' Robin" (which ran up against Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," the top hit of 1972). The J5's "Mama's Pearl" peaked at #2 behind the Osmonds' "One Bad Apple," which was created in the mold of the early J5 hits. His other #2 hits were the J5's "Dancing Machine" and his duet with Paul McCartney, "The Girl Is Mine."
Quiz Answer: Those were the first "outside songs" (songs that Jackson didn't write) to be released as singles from his three most famous albums, Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad. (I told you it was tough!)
In non-Jackson news (there actually is such a thing!), the Black Eyed Peas this week becomes the first act to hold the #1 spot on Hot Digital Songs for 14 consecutive weeks since the inception of the chart in 2004. The Peas surpass Flo Rida featuring T-Pain, who held tight for 13 straight weeks in 2007-2008 with "Low." The Peas, of course, needed two records to break Flo Rida's record. "Boom Boom Pow" was #1 for 10 weeks, followed immediately by "I Gotta Feelin,'" which sits tight in its fourth week at #1. The song sold 215,000 downloads this week, bringing its four-week total to 899,000.
Lady GaGa has two reasons to celebrate this week. Her debut album, The Fame, logs its 20th week in the top 10, and it becomes only the fourth album to sell 1 million copies in 2009. (It sold an additional 150,000 copies in late 2008.) Lady GaGa got to the 1 million mark before the much-heralded U2 album, which has sold 944,000 copies. Lady GaGa is the only artist to have three songs sell more than 1 million copies each in 2009.
Here's the low-down on this week's top 10 albums.
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ACLU: Racial Profiling "Widespread and Pervasive"
By Haider Rizvi, IPS News. Posted July 2, 2009.
Millions of U.S. citizens continue to face discrimination at the hands of law enforcement just because they are not white. UNITED NATIONS, Jul 1 (IPS) -- Millions of U.S. citizens continue to face discrimination at the hands of police and other law enforcement agencies just because they are not white, although the country's new leader in the White House is himself of African descent on his father's side.

"Racial profiling remains a widespread and pervasive problem throughout the U.S," said Chandra Bhatnagar of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), lead author of a new report sent to a U.N. rights body this week.

The report submitted to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) describes past U.S. government policies as "a major cause of the disproportionate stopping and searching" of racial minorities by law enforcement agencies.

"Racial profiling is impacting the lives of millions of people in the African American, Asian, Latino, South Asian, Arab and Muslim communities," Bhatnagar, an attorney who specializes in human rights law, added in a statement.

For example, in one federal program called "Operation Front Line," designed to "detect, deter and disrupt terror operations" among immigrants during the months leading up to the presidential election in November 2004, foreign nationals from Muslim-majority countries were 1,280 times more likely to be targeted than similarly situated individuals from other countries.

Not a single terrorism-related conviction resulted from the interviews conducted under the program.

In its report to CERD, the ACLU noted that despite the change of administration in Washington, this and other types of profiling were still happening in all parts of the United States because the policies adopted by the previous administration have not changed.

Like many other U.S.-based rights advocacy groups, the ACLU holds that the U.S. is guilty of violating the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, to which it is a signatory.

About two years ago, a number of rights groups, including the ACLU, concerned about the growing cases of racial discrimination took their case to CERD in Geneva amid calls for scrutiny of the rights situation in the United States.

CERD, an independent panel of experts who are responsible for monitoring global compliance with the 1969 convention, examined the U.S. case, and after considering the written and oral response from the U.S., ruled that Washington was failing to meet its treaty obligations.

In explaining its findings, the 18-member CERD panel said there were "stark racial disparities in U.S. institutions, including its criminal justice system."

Last January, shortly before the end of the George W. Bush administration, U.S. officials submitted a report to CERD defending the policy on racial discrimination, which, critics say they found to be full of "omissions, deficiencies and mischaracterisations".

In a bid to prove that there was nothing wrong with the U.S. policy on racial discrimination and that the administration was in full compliance with the treaty, U.S. officials cited the Justice Department’s "Guidelines Regarding Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agents."

Legal experts think the Bush administration’s attempt to justify its policies was simply misleading because the document did not cover profiling based on religion or national origin. They want CERD to take a critical look at the Justice Department’s guidelines.

"It doesn’t apply to state or local law enforcement agencies, nor does it include any mechanism for enforcement or punishment for violating the recommendations," said Bhatnagar. "It also contains a blanket exception to the recommendations in cases of ‘national security’ and border integrity.’"

The ACLU report suggests that as a result of the Bush policies, people of color have been disproportionately victimised through various government initiatives, including FBI surveillance and questioning, special registration, border stops, immigration enforcement, and the "no fly lists".

Margaret Huang, executive director of Rights Working Group, a broad coalition of a number of rights advocacy organizations, agrees with Bhatnagar.

"The overboard national security and border integrity exceptions have promoted profiling and creates justification for law enforcement agents to profile those who are or appear to be Arab, Muslim, South Asian, or Latino," said Huang, whose group made a joint effort in reaching out to CERD.

Both Huang and Bhatnagar said they want the U.S. government to take "urgent, direct action to rid the nation of the scourge of racial and ethnic profiling and bring this country into conformity with both the Constitution and international human rights obligations."

Though the Obama administration seems willing to change course, it is not clear when it will take concrete steps. Recently, Attorney General Eric Holder stated that ending racial profiling was a "priority" and that profiling is "simply not good law enforcement".

Bhatnagar told IPS that he was "cautiously optimistic" about the Obama administration’s response to his and other rights groups' call for a reversal of the Bush policies on racial profiling.


The ACLU and other groups are also urging Congress to endorse the "End Racial Profiling Act", a legislative proposal that would require authorities to avoid arrest and search activities, as well as to break down data collection by race.

The CERD members are due to meet in Geneva next month. Among other issues, the committee is expected to look into whether or not the U.S. is in compliance with the treaty.
(Courtesy:AlterNet)
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White House among targets /Hondurans Mount ‘Tele-coup’ to Counter / Women, Health, Peace and Conflict Maximizing thePower of Local Media in Afr..and o

White House among targets of sweeping cyber attack:

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writer – 46 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The powerful attack that overwhelmed computers at U.S. and South Korean government agencies for days was even broader than initially realized, also targeting the White House, the Pentagon and the New York Stock Exchange.

Other targets of the attack included the National Security Agency, Homeland Security Department, State Department, the Nasdaq stock market and The Washington Post, according to an early analysis of the malicious software used in the attacks. Many of the organizations appeared to successfully blunt the sustained computer assaults.

The Associated Press obtained the target list from security experts analyzing the attacks. It was not immediately clear who might be responsible or what their motives were. South Korean intelligence officials believe the attacks were carried out by North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces.

The attack was remarkably successful in limiting public access to victim Web sites, but internal e-mail systems are typically unaffected in such attacks. Some government Web sites — such as the Treasury Department, Federal Trade Commission and Secret Service — were still reporting problems days after the attack started during the July 4 holiday. South Korean Internet sites began experiencing problems Tuesday.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service, the nation's principal spy agency, told a group of South Korean lawmakers Wednesday it believes that North Korea or North Korean sympathizers in the South were behind the attacks, according to an aide to one of the lawmakers briefed on the information.

The aide spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the information. The National Intelligence Service — South Korea's main spy agency — said it couldn't immediately confirm the report, but it said it was cooperating with American authorities.

The attacks will be difficult to trace, said Professor Peter Sommer, an expert on cyberterrorism at the London School of Economics. "Even if you are right about the fact of being attacked, initial diagnoses are often wrong," he said Wednesday.

Amy Kudwa, spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, said the agency's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team issued a notice to federal departments and other partner organizations about the problems and "advised them of steps to take to help mitigate against such attacks."

New York Stock Exchange spokesman Ray Pellecchia could not confirm the attack, saying the company does not comment on security issues.

Attacks on federal computer networks are common, ranging from nuisance hacking to more serious assaults, sometimes blamed on China. U.S. security officials also worry about cyber attacks from al-Qaida or other terrorists.

This time, two government officials acknowledged that the Treasury and Secret Service sites were brought down, and said the agencies were working with their Internet service provider to resolve the problem. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.

Ben Rushlo, director of Internet technologies at Keynote Systems, said problems with the Transportation Department site began Saturday and continued until Monday, while the FTC site was down Sunday and Monday.

Keynote Systems is a mobile and Web site monitoring company based in San Mateo, Calif. The company publishes data detailing outages on Web sites, including 40 government sites it watches.

According to Rushlo, the Transportation Web site was "100 percent down" for two days, so that no Internet users could get through to it. The FTC site, meanwhile, started to come back online late Sunday, but even on Tuesday Internet users still were unable to get to the site 70 percent of the time.

Web sites of major South Korean government agencies, including the presidential Blue House and the Defense Ministry, and some banking sites were paralyzed Tuesday. An initial investigation found that many personal computers were infected with a virus ordering them to visit major official Web sites in South Korea and the U.S. at the same time, Korea Information Security Agency official Shin Hwa-su said. Associated Press writers Hyung-Jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea; Andrew Vanacore in New York; and Pan Pylas in London contributed to this report.
(Courtesy: AP)

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JOURNALISM IN THE AMERICAS

Hondurans Mount ‘Tele-coup’ to Counter One-sided Media

Young Hondurans opposed to the expulsion of President Manuel Zelaya are uploading amateur videos and cell-phone photos to YouTube in what they have branded a “tele-coup,” France’s AFP news agency reports.

Under control by the interim government, national channels have offered biased political coverage and have often cut off cable channels to broadcast their message, AFP’s Henry Orrego says.

"We call it 'tele-coup' because on the national channels you can't see the reality of what's happening," a university student explains. The most popular of the more than two dozen videos, called “Nothing’s Happening in Honduras,” shows soldiers firing tear gas and hitting protesters, as well as bloodied soldiers and protesters.

Students quoted by Orrego say they are using word of mouth and leaflets to spread news of the site. In a country where only 11 percent of homes have computers, the students are taking their laptops into the streets of some middle-class districts to show their neighbors the other side of the crisis, Orrego says.

TV Channel 36, kept off the air for a week because it was considered loyal to Zelaya, was permitted to return to the air over the weekend, EFE adds.

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Women, Health, Peace and Conflict
Maximizing the Power of Local Media in Africa

Building radio stations for communities in Chad and Sudan... training journalists to report on HIV/AIDS accurately and sensitively in Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia...helping build more peaceful societies in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Sudan... In Sub-Saharan Africa, Internews empowers local media to tell the stories that need to be heard and provide people with the information they need to improve their lives.
“Now I Want to Speak Too”
Women Refugees from Darfur Get a Radio Program Just for Them Seide sits cross-legged on a straw mat, surrounded by a dozen other refugee women in the training center of the Djabal camp for Darfur refugees in Eastern Chad. She reaches over for the bright blue radio set which is the center of attention, unfolds the handle of what looks like a child’s toy and winds it vigorously to hear another 10 minutes of Women’s Crossroads, a program on 89.9 FM, Radio Sila. (More)
Crossing Borders to Share Airwaves
In Sudan, a Radio Exchange Program Fosters Peace The eight reporters jammed into the studio of Nhomlaau FM were dancing, laughing, singing − full of spirit. Luka’s fervor on the microphone was infectious to the others. Deng picked up the energy, and the community in this remote corner of Northern bar el Ghazal, Southern Sudan heard radio like they’ve never heard before − eclectic, mixed, dynamic. What was incredible about this jam session was not the music itself, but rather the exchange taking place. (More)
Media Play Key Role in Ethiopia’s Development

Sonya De Masi, Internews’ Country Director for Ethiopia, wrote this commentary about the importance of helping Ethiopia’s media to address the country’s enormous development challenges. Internews works in Ethiopia to improve the frequency and quality of media reporting and programming on HIV/AIDS and other critical health issues. (More)
In Kenya, Conflict-Sensitive Reporting Seen As Vital

A year and a half after the post-election violence that rocked Kenya, many of the underlying issues remain unresolved, and thousands of people remain displaced from their homes. Kenya’s media must prepare for the possibility that a new cycle of violence could erupt, requiring great skill and sensitivity in covering events without inflaming the conflict. These were the conclusions of a May 20 emergency roundtable that Internews’ Nairobi office organized for Kenyan journalists, media advisors and political analysts. (More)
Internews Peace-Building Films Featured at Rwanda Film Festival

The 5th Annual Rwanda Film Festival (June 12-28) screened four documentary films made by Internews as part of a peace-building project that has reached thousands of people in Rwanda and the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). (More)
A Male Journalist in Chad Takes Lead in Gender Programs

"I have been working for more than 15 years in journalism," says Nara Hantabou. "When the director of the radio station decided to choose me for this training course, my colleagues laughed at me. I was also reluctant to go. Out of pure ignorance!" Hantabou took part in an training course conducted by Internews on reporting on gender-based violence. (More)
Shunned and Abandoned, HIV+ Woman Tells Her Story

"My mother and younger sister drove me and dropped me far away," said Halima Yassin, an HIV-positive woman in northeastern Kenya, who was abandoned by her wealthy family and left for dead. "I had to crawl to the main road where I was spotted by a good samaritan who brought me here." (More)
HIV-Positive Police Recruits Reinstated After Media Outcry

When 26 young recruits were sacked from the Nigerian Police Academy for testing HIV-positive, local civil society activists turned to Internews for help in reversing the unjust decision. Within weeks of their press conference, 24 out of the 26 were back on the force. (More)

More on Internews' Africa projects

Photos on Flickr from Internews' projects in Africa.

(Courtesy:Internews)
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Journalists can Submit Entries to King of Spain International Awards


Media professionals have until Sept. 30 to apply for the 27th edition of the King of Spain International Journalism Awards. The contest recognizes projects in print, broadcast, digital, and photographic journalism produced in Spanish or Portuguese. The competition is sponsored by the news agency EFE and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).

Entries must have been published or broadcast between Sept. 1, 2008 and Aug. 31, 2009 to be eligible. Specific information about the competition and the application process is available in Spanish and Portuguese from the EFE website.

Other Related Headlines:
» Call for submissions to the 27th edition of the King of Spain Journalism Awards (Portuguese) (Globo)
» Call for submissions to the 27th edition of the King of Spain Journalism Awards (Spanish) (ABC)

* Posted by Eva Menezes/JV at 07/06/2009 - 11:13
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I Saw 'Food Inc.' -- Now What?

By Sarah Newman, Huffington Post. Posted July 3, 2009.

Here's how to transition off of a corn-based diet, lessen your carb(on) footprint, support local farmers and humanely raised meats

To read AlterNet's interview with Food Inc. director Robert Kenner, click here. You can also click here to read an essay by farmer Joel Salatin who's featured in the film.

It's hard to see Food, Inc. and not be inspired. Okay, so most people might not be selling their house and quitting their office job to become full time farmers, but the movie certainly inspires people to change something in their lives. There's a lot of super simple but highly effective things you can do to transition off of a corn-based diet, lessen your carb(on) food/footprint, support local farmers and choose humanely raised meats. We are thrilled by the deluge of emails we've received from people across the country who are inspired by the film and want to make changes but are looking for some help.

Below is a list to some of the most commonly asked questions.

1. Where can I buy organic food? The Eat Well Guide is a handy resource which lists local farmers markets, farms, restaurants and Community Supported Agricultural programs in your area, all of which offer organic and sustainable foods.

2. Where can I buy sustainably raised meat? Eat Wild is a user-friendly resource with listings for grass-fed meat and dairy near you. Do you need some clarification on all of those confusing terms used to describe meat products, such pasture-raised, non-confined or natural? If so, Sustainable Table's wallet-sized glossary of meat production will help you better understand what these each mean.

3. What is the status of Kevin's law? Unfortunately, nothing right now. However, you can support the ongoing work of Barb Kowlacyk and her mom, Pat Buck, for safer food standards nationwide through their organization, Center for Foodborne Illness, Research and Prevention.

4. How can I get in touch with Michael Pollan? Yes, he's a hot commodity right now, but you can chat with him! There will be live-chat with him this Thursday at 3PM PST on Facebook. Click here for details.

5. I didn't see Food, Inc. When is it coming to my town? We're constantly adding new cities and theaters, but if yours isn't listed here, tell your local theater that you want to see it! And, stay tuned for the DVD release date.

Assuming these actions whet your appetite, don't forget to check out the official film site which offers lots of juicy resources. The 10 tips will help to jump start some lifestyle changes you can make now. Learn more about issues raised in the film, ranging from workers rights to genetic engineering and connect with organizations leading efforts to reform our industrial food system. The enthusiasm generated by Food, Inc. is evidence that it is helping to galvanize people across the country who are all committed to making sure we all have access to safe, healthy and sustainable foods.

Sarah's Social Action Snapshot originally appeared on Takepart.com

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N.B. Our announced features on Bangladesh would be released shortly