POLITICS TODAY

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Attacks on the Press: Journalism on the World's Front Lines



Everyone who can read and really wants to know the challenges and dangers of being a journalist in the world today, should get copies of Attacks on the Press: Journalism on the World's Front Lines (Bloomberg) by Committee to Protect Journalists (2013).

Book Description
February 19, 2013 1118550552 978-1118550557 1
The world's most comprehensive guide to international press freedom
From Aleppo to Zacatecas, Beijing to Brasilia, the past decade has seen a sharp rise in the number of journalist imprisonments, assassinations, and disappearances worldwide. Caught between warlords and religious extremists, corrupt police and drug cartels, and hemmed in by increasingly oppressive censorship laws, journalists have never been at such peril, nor asked to pay such a high price for the ethical practice of their profession.
Begun as a simple typewritten list in 1986, Attacks on the Press has grown to become the definitive annual assessment of press freedoms globally. Compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists, it provides up-to-the-minute analyses of media conditions, press freedom violations, and emerging threats to journalists in every corner of the world.
In this 2013 edition, you will find front-line reports and analytical essays by CPJ experts covering an array of topics of critical importance to journalists, including:
  • Journalist casualties at the front lines of conflicts in Syria, Nigeria, Somalia, Afghanistan, and other global hot spots
  • The curtailment of Internet freedoms across Southeast Asia, with an emphasis on the draconian measures now in place in Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand
  • The status of investigations into the disappearances of 35 journalists worldwide, and why more than half of those disappeared went missing in Mexico and Russia
  • The rise in journalist imprisonments globally, the spate of new anti-terrorism laws that made it possible, and the example set by the U.S. government in the wake of 9/11
  • The state of journalistic freedoms in Iran since the Green Movement and the practice of summary imprisonment of Iranian journalists
  • How the rise of mobile Internet technology and social media has engendered new dangers for journalists from both insurgent groups and the governments they are fighting
In addition to being an invaluable source of timely information and guidance for media professionals, Attacks on the Press gives voice to journalists globally, providing them with a platform for direct advocacy with governments and a seat in discussions at the UN, OAS, EU, AU, and other official bodies.

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Thursday, March 20, 2014

Orikinla Offered Residency at the Famous Tyrone Guthrie Centre

Orikinla Offered Residency at the Famous Tyrone Guthrie Centre 

Award winning Nigerian artist and writer Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, aka Orikinla Osinachi has been offered residency at the famous Tyrone Guthrie Centre for creative artists at Annaghmakerrig, Ireland.

 Orikinla who is also Nigeria's most influential citizen journalist started writing professionally at 18 as a scriptwriter for the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) Channel 10 in Lagos in the early 1980s and his drawings for books have been exhibited in Japan when he was 20.  He is the author of Children of Heaven (1987), Scarlet Tears of London (2006), Bye, Bye Mugabe (2008), In the House of Dogs (2011), Diary of the Memory Keeper (2013), The Prophet Lied (2013), co-author of Naked Beauty (2006), The Language of True Love (2006) and also the most prolific African blogger with over 30 blogs of which the most popular is Nigerians Report Online and Publisher/Editor of Nollywood Mirror, the most circulated publication on Nollywood in paperback, hardcover and Amazon Kindle. He started his Screen Outdoor Open Air Cinema and launched the Screen Naija One Village, One Cinema Project in 2013 and recently started Nollywood Digital that will have an annual Nollywood Digital Cinema Fair every summer. His new social media project iPost Nigeria has attracted the attention of major international companies and organizations.

Orikinla is expected to complete his theatrical work "Chi Amanda" during the course of his residency. "Chi Amanda" chronicles the lamentations of three women from the three dominant tribes in Nigeria who fled from different agonies of domestic violence and also tackles the plight of a young woman with the burden of unwanted pregnancy. Orikinla's last major theatrical work "Sleepless Night", the first play on the martyrdom of Chief MKO Abiola and the June 12 Crisis was premiered in July 2002 at the old French Cultural Center in Ikoyi, Lagos. It was co-sponsored by United Artists for Human Development (UAHD), French Cultural Center and Dele Momodu, Publisher of the popular Ovation International magazine. The cast was from the famous Crown Troupe of Africa led by Segun Adefila featured in the award winning documentary "Bariga Boy". See full biographical profile on http://www.changemakers.com/users/michael-chima-ekenyerengozi.

The centre has since hosted people such as Michael Harding, Loreena Mckennitt, Oonagh Kearney, Derval Symes, Page Allen, Roisin Meaney, Anne Rigney, Gemma Browne, Colette Bryce, Phil Coulter, Brian Kennedy and Peter McCann.

The Tyrone Guthrie Centre is a centre for creative artists at Annaghmakerrig, Newbliss, County Monaghan, Ireland, founded in 1981. The mansion was the family home of theatrical director Sir William Tyrone Guthrie (2 July 1900 – 15 May 1971).


 The centre accommodates eleven residents and there are five self-catering cottages plus a facility and studio for a disabled artist and carer. Each artist must apply individually to the Board of Management and submit examples of their work. To be accepted as a resident, an artist must have demonstrated a proven track record in their field. Facilities include a baby grand piano, seven studios for visual artists, a performance space, an acoustic recording studio, a dark room for black and white photography and a recently added print studio. The ethos of the house is focussed on facilitating creative work within a welcoming, homelike and trusted environment. The only condition of residency is that all the artists must assemble for the evening meal. This was one of the terms of Guthrie’s will as he felt that conversation over good food would encourage creativity and collaboration. The Centre was one of the first North/South collaborations in the early 1980s and was managed as a joint venture by the Arts Council of the North and South of Ireland. Many artists have commented on the fact that a stay in the Centre has given them the time and space to produce creative work and it is no exaggeration to describe the Centre as a place of heightened creativity. -

See more at: http://www.nigeriansreport.com/2014/03/orikinla-offered-residency-at-famous.html#sthash.RQ8DR0KV.dpuf


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Monday, March 03, 2014

Lupita Nyong'o and Steve McQueen Make History As "12 Years a Slave" Wins 3 Oscars!

Kenyan actress Lupita Amondi Nyong’o has become the first Kenyan to be nominated and also win an Oscar by winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar at the 86th Academy Awards held in Los Angeles, California on Sunday night for her role in the movie "12 Years a Slave" that won the Academy Award for Best Picture and also making history as the first movie from a black director to do so in 86 years of the Oscars. Steve McQueen, the British director was ecstatic as his film also won Best Adapted screenplay.
“Everyone deserves not just to survive but to live, this is the most important legacy of Solomon Northup,” said McQueen in his acceptance speech. The 2013 historical drama film is an adaptation of the 1853 memoir of the same title by Solomon Northup, a New York State-born free negro who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and sold into slavery. He worked on plantations in the state of Louisiana for twelve years before his release. The first scholarly edition of Northup's memoir, co-edited in 1968 by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon, carefully retraced and validated the account and concluded it to be accurate. "12 Years a Slave" received critical acclaim following its release in 2013, and was named the best film of the year by several media outlets. It also proved to be a box office success, earning over $128 million on a budget of $20 million. In 2014, the film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) recognized the film with a Best Film award and a Best Actor award for Nigerian born British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Lupita Nyong'o celebrates her Oscar win in Fred Leighton gold jewelry. (PRNewsFoto/LoveGold) "When I look down at this golden statue may it remind me, and every little child, that no matter where you are from your dreams are valid," she said.  Lupita Nyong'o made history by becoming the first Kenyan to win an Oscar. "You are the pride of Africa!" President Uhuru Kenyatta exclaimed on Twitter celebrating Kenya's first major Oscar win by actress Lupita Nyong'o. "It is our intention that Lupita becomes the first of an endless line of Oscar nominees and winners from Africa and Kenya," he said. Read full report on Nigerians Report Online.
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