Zimbabwe and Tibet get all the attention, Why?

[Guardian]

If a government wants to abuse human rights and rig elections, it needs to have the support of - or be - the western powers ...The US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, said as much this week when he declared Zimbabwe the "most important and urgent issue" in Africa. Gordon Brown and George Bush both denounced the delay in releasing election results, the prime minister declaring that the "international community's patience with the regime is wearing thin". The British media have long since largely abandoned any attempt at impartiality in its reporting of Zimbabwe, the common assumption being that Mugabe is a murderous dictator at the head of a uniquely wicked regime.... But, on the basis of the scale of violence, repression and election rigging alone, you would be hard put to explain why these conflicts have been singled out for such special attention. In the violence surrounding Zimbabwe's elections, two people are currently reported to have died; in Tibet, numbers estimated to have been killed by protesters and Chinese forces range from 22 to 140. By contrast, in Somalia, where US-backed Ethiopian and Somali troops are fighting forces loyal to the ousted government, several thousand have been killed since the beginning of the year and half the population of the capital, Mogadishu, has been forced to flee the city in what UN officials describe as Africa's worst humanitarian crisis. When it comes to rigging elections, countries like Jordan and Egypt have been happy to oblige in recent months - in the Egyptian case, jailing hundreds of opposition activists into the bargain - and almost nobody in the west has batted an eyelid. In Saudi Arabia there are no national elections at all, let alone the opposition MPs and newspapers that exist in Zimbabwe. In Africa, Togo has been a more flagrant rigger, while in Cameroon last week the president was given the job for life. And when it comes to separatist and independence movements, the Turkish Kurds have faced far more violence and a tighter cultural clampdown than the Tibetans. Full article

Ethiopia cuts ties with Qatar after row over Al-Jazeera

[Daily Star]

Agence France Presse

ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia announced Monday it was severing ties with Qatar, accusing the Gulf Arab state of supporting armed opposition groups across the Horn of Africa region. It cited Qatar's "strong ties" with Ethiopia's arch-foe Eritrea, and alleged Qatari support to armed opposition groups within Ethiopia as well as to Islamist insurgents in Somalia, where Addis Ababa sent troops in 2006 to prop up a weak government..............................

On April 11, the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry had sharply criticized the Qatar-based news network Al-Jazeera for airing a series of TV reports on Ethiopia's restive Ogaden region.

The Ethiopian authorities have imposed a news blackout on the vast area populated by ethnic Somali Muslims and slapped touch restrictions on humanitarian work.

The Foreign Ministry was particularly upset by a report on the activities of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), the separatist group it has been battling for years.

"Al-Jazeera is using inaccurate and misleading information, fabricated by opposition elements backed by a state which makes no secret of its efforts to destabilize not only Ethiopia but also the entire subregion," it had said. "It is hard to ignore the fact that Al-Jazeera broadcasts out of Doha, the capital of Qatar. Qatar is a close ally of Eritrea. It would be totally unrealistic to imagine that any Al-Jazeera program on Ethiopia could be anything other than seriously biased."

Cameraman Filma Tank Shell that Kills Him

Photo: The Sydney Morning Herald

The 23-year-old young Reuters Cameraman, Fadel Shana is dead.Reuters has shown his camera`s last recording, which was an Israeli Tank firing and the sound of the blast with full black out with in 2 seconds.

Journalism become a risky job, unless they seek the truth from the while halls , rather than from the field

Ogaden Media Seige Broken by Al-jazeera: Gorilla Journalism?

" Despite the risks imposed by the nature of the siege and blockade by the Ethiopian forces on the media, the team was able to reach the island sites fighters Territory and portray aspects of their daily lives, including the trained military and the involvement of women in combat operations against Ethiopian forces." Says Aljazeera

It says the report coverage all aspects of life in the region and says would expose human tragedy that the world media ignored.

" Reports cover different aspects of the lives of the inhabitants of the region who are living under siege by Ethiopian troops.They are deprived of primary health care as no health centers only allowed to be established in major cities, which is not accessible by the people of the rural areas to access."

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It would mysterious of how the crew managed to get deep into a region that reportedly deprived of food aid, and humanitarian organization including the worst crisis in Africa, though not lucky enough a fraction of Darfur`s attention. The crew apparently risked their life, and had they been held by the Ethiopian troops it would have been a BIG BIG TILE for the news.Is this the way to get over media black-outs? This is quite risky job and need dedication. By the way this is not the first time that Al-jazeera resorted to such risky job. They have aired a documentary apparently produced under much more risky condition in Iraq, under a documentary programme "Extremely secret". Gorilla Journalism? If the journalists get the courage and put some sacrifice for the truth would censorship be of the past?

Al-jazeera Laughs off Claims of Facing Staff Crisis

Western press has been making a lot of news about the departure of some of the western staffs of Aljazeera, as if it were facing crisis.

However, with “thousands” of applicants lining up to fill the void the channel has laughed off claims that it is facing a crisis.Khalid Ali Johar, Al Jazeera’s human resources manager, told Gulf Times.

Western journalists are apparently angry that they were denied special treatment over their sister Arabic channel staffs. Khalid assures that no staffs are superior over the others and would be treated equally,saying:

The network also introduced a common salary scale that applies to all. There is no favouritism between the Arab and English channel.

Ethiopia Right Wing Goverment?

In an article posted on Economist under the title of "A loveless liaison",analysing the US-Ethiopia relationship a sentence reads as follows:

Leftist hardliners in Ethiopia's government think that its prime minister, Meles Zenawi, is doing the Bush administration's bidding.

Apparently this refer to what we generally call the opposition, or opponents. Is this the beginning of using the right-left wing terminology to show the political divide and our alliance beyond the border political groups?If those who oppose the government are identified as Leftist, then the adversary would be nothing but Rightist?