Niger⎪Libya⎪China Secret Fuel⎪Kosovo⎪Media Monitoring⎪Tech⎪Journalists
+ Latin America elections overview⎪All About RADIO ⎪UN Human Rights Council⎪Epistemic Security⎪Twitter⎪Cable News
The Reads
1. Niger
...is heading to the runoff. In December 2020, the country held the first election to transfer power from one civilian regime to another since independence from France in 1960. The ruling party candidate Mohamed Bazoum will face former president Mahamane Ousmane in a presidential election runoff in February, according to provisional results of the first round of the contest announced by the electoral commission only at the end of January. Bazoum led the first round with 39.33% of the vote, falling short of the 50% needed to win outright in the first round. Ousmane received 17% of the vote. The second round is expected to be held on February 21 after the results of the first round have been validated by the constitutional court which will hear any appeals. The Africa Report has more.
2. Latin America
The region is heading to a super-electoral-cycle with 15 elections to be held this year: five presidential and legislative elections (in Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Nicaragua, and Honduras); three exclusively legislative elections (in El Salvador, Argentina, and Mexico); elections for the constitutional assembly in Chile; and several local or regional elections in six countries (El Salvador, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, and Venezuela), points out IDEA. Regional think-tank American Society - Council Of Americas has even further, in-depth overview.
And another handy briefing paper for this year is definitely: Latin America and the Caribbean: Fact Sheet on Leaders and Elections
3. Libya
Libya does not disappear from the headlines. And rightly so. The political mediation process leading to elections never materialized the way it is doing right now. While “time-needs-time” remains true so there’s no point in jumping to conclusions, the fact is that within the next 10 months the country should be holding general elections. Earlier this year, the “rehearsal” municipal elections in some regions of Libya fell short of attracting the voters. Meanwhile, the election management bodies remain fragmented as the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) appeals for unification of the election administration.
4. Truth or False
The terms "national security" or "cyber-security" may be familiar – but what about "epistemic security"? If societies lose it, they will struggle to tackle some of the most worrying crises of the 21st Century, from pandemics to climate change. BBC piece on a report published by the UK's Alan Turing Institute: “Tackling threats to informed decision-making in democratic societies”.
5. UN Human Rights Council - briefing before the 46th session
The Universal Rights Group looks ahead at the 46th regular session of the Council, which runs from 22nd February to 23rd March 2021. Their impressive briefing aims to provide those interested in the Council's work with an at-a-glance brief on what to expect from HRC46: the key issues, debates, and questions that are expected to keep delegates busy; the country situations that will require the Council's attention; and the draft resolutions that will be negotiated and voted upon.
The UN’s Human Rights Council is a diplomacy body as opposed to the judiciary UN’s Human Rights Committee. But, since it is a public and political body, debates there do steer the human rights practice to some extent. So definitely something to watch to feel where the wind may blow. However, do not expect spectacular pro-human rights tools or decisions.
Watch: Kosovo first democratic elections
Video on first democratic election. October 2020 marked the 20th anniversary of the first democratic elections in Kosovo. In commemorating this event, the OSCE produced a short video.
Tool: African Platform For Safety Journalists by the UN
UNESCO-launched, African-built: https://SafetyOfJournalistsInAfrica.AFRICA is a platform for real-time monitoring, reporting, and follow-up actions by both the duty and right bearers, in order to hold the perpetrators of violence against journalists and media outlets accountable for such violations.
IFEX has a great background story on this.
Foreign Interference
The French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI) announced it had discovered a years-long cyber intrusion campaign into “several French entities” by hackers likely linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU).
A new report on Russia's influence in the US Presidential campaign 2020 was just released: Kremlin’s Social Media Influence inside the United States: “A Moving Target.
European diplomats are pushing to create a long-term United Nations group that would consider how to respond to government-sponsored cyberattacks, which would replace U.N. forums on cybersecurity that will end this year.
Meanwhile, information emerges on yet another dimension of Iran and China’s partnership. According to an extensive report “China is still brimming with Iranian oil” despite the sanctions on the latter. The report details tanker-to-tanker transfers at sea, in which Iranian ships unload their crude oil cargo onto Panamanian-flagged ships owned by Chinese companies. The oil is then transported to China and marked as arriving from somewhere less politically problematic — often Malaysia.
In fact, China lists so much oil from sanctioned countries like Iran and Venezuela as being Malaysian that Malaysia’s recorded oil exports outstrip its domestic oil production to the tune of $6 billion per year.
Technology
Twitter is going to label the accounts of the government officials and associated entities for users to be more aware of official propaganda. Since it is a private company, it is rather excluded from the unified policy and some of these policy decisions are surprising. So, for example, Russia’s Sputnik and China’s Xinhua News will be labeled as associated with the governments, as they should, but Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei will not … It is difficult to understand why one of the main sources of Iran’s propaganda and disinformation is operating as “just a private user of Twitter”.
With years of ignorance towards social media, it seems that the pendulum just moved on the other side, and traditional media are not as analyzed as they used to be. The first Draft goes ahead and publishes an extremely insightful report on how the two media worlds interact: The role of cable television news in amplifying Trump’s tweets about election integrity.
BBC Monitoring and Reuters Institute ask: Is public service media doing enough to tackle misinformation?
Seemingly Unrelated Extras
Cartooning For Peace is a website that actually does what it states in its name. The comic-book designers and cartoonists respond to the most recent global human rights issues.
Seriously Unrelated But Also Good
Radio is still my favorite medium, even if packaged in a trendier-podcast-word, it is still RADIO. This is why the Radio Garden, a website that uses a globe planetary view to list radio stations comes in handy. The United Nations uses radio all around the world and sets up a mission or country-specific stations to disseminate the most vital information to the population. Some of those materials are later available as the UN Podcast. More on peace role of radio in the essay by the UN Foundation.
The radio played a key role throughout history and grabbed the interest of researchers and historians and online exhibitions are mind-blowing. Why not revisit old radio shows by subject. A number of national broadcasters have their archives online like the UK's BBC. France's RFI has even continentally-dedicated archive shows. USA’s NPR archive is also pretty good.
That’s it for this time. See you next week.
DB
Heads up on something special coming in March!
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