Foreign Service Updates

Bahrain UK Ambassador to Bahrain Ian Lindsay - end tenure Bahrain's HR achievements highlighted Gulf market important to UK http://www.bna.bh/portal/en/news/678428 World Report 2015: Bahrain https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/bahrain UK ambassador needs to maybe take a look at this report. Ukraine / Canada Father Raymond J. de Souza Roman Catholic priest of Archdiocese of Kingston, Ont. #Canada writes pro US puppet Ukraine propaganda #Ukraine - Goebbels would be proud: "...national journey is from lies to truth" Cookie Nuland's boy PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk in Quebec last week free trade agreement with Canada / push toward privatization and deregulation http://www.thewhig.com/2015/07/22/ukraine-also-at-war-with-corruption-from-within Canada embassy in Ukraine (amb. Roman Waschuk) was 'safe house' for #Ukraine coup protesters 2014 Bob Fowler Canada diplo under 3 govts says Canada playing w. fire / disruptive influence *Harper govt:  all mouth and no brain Ukraine:  appearance that Canada was an active participant in 2014 regime change.   http://ipolitics.ca/2015/07/13/former-diplomat-says-canada-should-scale-back-anti-russian-rhetoric/ Somalia Somalia & AU forces capture key militant stronghold / al Shabab lost all key towns, but control rural http://horseedmedia.net/2015/07/22/somalia-and-au-forces-capture-key-militant-stronghold/ Bolivia / Germany #Bolivia #LatAm #Merkel German embassy - explosion during protests /  miners protesting their working conditions http://en.europeonline-magazine.eu/german-embassy-in-bolivia-grazed-by-explosion-during-protests_403976.html

TURKEY & OTHERS GAOL JOURNALISTS

Turkey   By AFP 6:04PM BST 08 Aug 2014 Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, faced a new outcry on Friday over his attitude to the media and women after he branded a prominent female journalist a "shameless woman" and told her "to know your place". Just ahead of Sunday's presidential election which he is clear favourite to win, Erdogan attacked Amberin Zaman, who writes for the Economist and the Turkish daily Taraf, over comments she made in a television debate. She had asked the main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the debate whether any Muslim society was capable of challenging its authorities. Mr Erdogan lashed out at Ms Zaman, without mentioning her directly by name, at an election rally in the eastern city of Malatya on Thursday, calling her a "shameless woman".  "A militant in the guise of a journalist, a shameless woman... Know your place!" he declared. "They gave you a pen and you are writing a column in a newspaper... and you insult a society that is 99 percent Muslim," he said, drawing loud boos from the crowd. This is not the first time Mr Erdogan has lashed out at journalists, who have come under increasing pressure in Turkey, which has more reporters behind bars than any other country in the world. [...] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/11022632/Turkish-PM-tells-female-reporter-to-know-your-place.html

Never mind the 'shameless woman' bit.  They gaol journalists!  I had no idea.  And it's not just one or two bad boys; it's 40 journalists in the one year.

Check out this article for places not to work if you're a journalist:

• Turkey, Iran, and China accounted for more than half of all journalists imprisoned around the world in 2013

• Eritrea remained Africa’s worst jailer of journalists, with 22 behind bars compared with 28 in 2012. Eritrea is the world’s worst abuser of due process; no Eritrean detainee has ever been publicly charged with a crime or brought before a court for trial.  

• Vietnam was holding 18 journalists, up from 14 a year earlier, as authorities intensified a crackdown on bloggers, who represent the country’s only independent press.

• The number of prisoners rose in Ethiopia, Bahrain, and Somalia, in addition to Vietnam.

[used mostly anti-state charges to silence a combined 107 critical reporters, bloggers, and editors]

 http://cpj.org/reports/2013/12/second-worst-year-on-record-for-jailed-journalists.php

That journalist that was expelled from Turkey the other day was LUCKY!