A Roundup of Recent News and Happenings

As hundreds of journalists from all four corners of the globe gather in Geneva this month for the United Nations World Health Assembly to debate public-health issues, reporters from Taiwan will be conspicuous by their absence.
This is the fourth consecutive year that the UN DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INFORMATION HAS REFUSED TO ISSUE PRESS CREDENTIALS TO JOURNALISTS FROM TAIWAN.
Paco Audije, deputy general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, demanded that the UN lift its ban on Taiwanese media: “The United Nations is allowing itself to be bullied by China and in the process is chipping away at the values it was created to protect.”
Audije says denying access to journalists is a breach of the UN’s own Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which cites the “freedom to … seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Taiwan was ejected from the UN in 1971, when the organization declared that it recognized the People’s Republic of China as China’s only legitimate representative.
As Taiwan prepares to miss out on vital public-health discussions scheduled to take place at this month’s meeting, Audije added: “These are journalists who want to do their job. They are not engaged in politics and should not suffer discrimination in this way.”

The world of photojournalism is always fast-moving, sometimes dangerous and occasionally glamorous.
Now, the glamour quotient of camera-wielding journalists is likely to receive a major boost following the announcement that Irish actor COLIN FARRELL HAS BEEN SIGNED UP TO STAR AS A PHOTOJOURNALIST IN A GRITTY NEW MOVIE.
“Triage,” which also stars Paz Vega and Christopher Lee, will feature the “Miami Vice” star as a photojournalist covering the Bosnian conflict.
Based on a novel by Scott Anderson and directed by Bosnian Danis Tanovic, the plot hinges on a photojournalist investigating the disappearance of a colleague and best friend during a dangerous assignment.
Farrell, who is currently filming in Spain and Ireland, was described as “deeply disturbed” after a recent research trip to Srebrenica, where thousands of Muslims were massacred by Serb forces during the conflict.
Following a tour of the town’s cemetery, he told Reuters: “It is hard to describe how obviously the air and the land has been poisoned by the act of killing 8,000 people in the space of a day. But you really do get the sense of the pain and the loss and I am sad, I really am sad.”
From the dangers of conflict reporting to post-traumatic stress, the film promises to raise the profile of the numerous difficult issues faced by war correspondents, as well as the human-rights issues that inevitably accompany war.
Just how much Hollywood stardust will be sprinkled onto reality in “Triage” remains to be seen.

“THE MAN WHO PLOTTED TO SABOTAGE THE OLYMPIC FLAME” reads the headline in Aera magazine’s April 21 edition. Filed from the Asahi Shimbun’s Paris bureau, the article singles out Robert Ménard, secretary-general of Reporters Sans Frontières, as being the key figure behind the campaign.
Ménard was first detained on March 24 at the torch-lighting ceremony on Greece’s Mount Olympus, after he unfurled a protest banner depicting the Olympic flag with the five rings as handcuffs.
This incident became the launch pad for the subsequent protests in London, Paris and other cities, according to an unnamed French journalist quoted by Aera.
At around 2 a.m. on April 7, Ménard climbed the façade of Notre Dame cathedral, which was along the planned route of the flame, and bided his time, unfurling the protest banner shortly before the approach of the entourage surrounding the torchbearer.
“Because he didn’t want to make others take a risk, he made the climb himself,” Le Monde reported.
Rather than endorsing a boycott of the Olympics themselves, Ménard's strategy has been to the disregard the actual events and direct protests at the Games’ most iconic aspects, particularly the flame and the opening ceremony.
As a result, concludes Asahi Paris correspondent Norito Kunisue, the Olympic flame itself has been transformed into an international political issue.
(Summary by Masuo Kamiyama)

THE RIGHT to instant access to millions of homemade videos of people tap dancing, eating insects or doing anything else that pops into their head may be fairly low on the list of human-rights priorities.
Around the world, access to cult video-sharing websites such as YouTube, is now taken for granted.
But the issue of access was recently cast into the spotlight when the INDONESIAN GOVERNMENT TOOK STEPS TO IMPOSE A BLANKET BAN ON YOUTUBE.
The ban came into effect in April after controversial Dutch film “Fitna,” seen as anti-Islamic, was posted on the site.
The ban was extended to include five lifestyle and film websites, including popular social networking service MySpace. The move prompted instant condemnation from civil-rights organizations, which called the government’s move “excessive.”
As the row gathered pace, Google, the owner of YouTube, eventually intervened to request a specific list of videos considered illegal so the offending material could be removed – and nine days later the websites were unblocked following an unexpected government apology.
The ban may have been fleeting, but the speed and ease with which it was imposed quite rightly triggered widespread alarm among citizens, journalists and civil-rights organizations. Meanwhile, Indonesians can now rest assured that access to YouTube’s
vast selection of homemade videos has been restored. ❶

Sources: Reporters Sans Frontieres, International Federation of Journalists, Reuters, Variety, Aera.