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The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is celebrating its longstanding partnership with luxury goods brand Gucci and marking a decade of successes in bringing access to quality education to more than seven million children across sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, the agency announced.

The father of Russian youth powerlifting champion Maryana Naumova says an American sports nutrition company refused to renew his daughter’s contract because of trips the athlete took to Donbass. To boot, he says, Maryana is now listed on Kiev’s “list of terrorists.”

Palestinian refugee families living in substandard dwellings and owners of homes demolished in last year’s hostilities in Gaza, are among those gaining access to shelter under a United Nations-backed project to provide close to 450 newly-built housing units, which was stalled for three years due the lack of access to construction materials.

A Transilvania Nemzetközi Filmfesztivál egyik idei díszvendége az elefántcsontparti származású, francia kultúrájú, Amerikában élő színész, Isaach de Bancolé. Ő Jim Jarmusch világhírű rendező egyik kedvenc színésze, akit Hajdú Szabolcsnak is sikerült megnyernie legújabb filmjéhez, a Délibábhoz. A pro...

The only option Libya has, “the only real alternative for the future,” is an agreement, Special Representative and head of the United Nations Support Mission in the country (UNSMIL), Bernardino León said at a meeting in Algeria with Libyan political leaders and activists today.

The only option Libya has, “the only real alternative for the future,” is an agreement, Special Representative and head of the United Nations Support Mission in the country (UNSMIL), Bernardino León said at a meeting in Algeria with Libyan political leaders and activists today.

YEREVAN, 3 June 2015 – OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić in Yerevan today emphasized today in Yerevan the importance of regional dialogue as he concluded his trip to the South Caucasus, following visits to Baku on 1 June and Tbilisi on 2 June.    

During talks with Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan, Dačić highlighted the importance of a dialogue which would steer the region towards a sustainable peaceful solution for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and discussed co-operation between the OSCE and Armenia.

Dačić also met Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, Speaker of the National Assembly Galust Sahakyan and representatives of political parties.

Referring to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Dačić underlined his concern about the recent increase in reported violations of the long-standing ceasefire agreement and the reported casualties. “The basic precondition for progress is full adherence to the ceasefire agreement,” he said. “There is no military solution to this issue. One can only be reached through dialogue. I speak with a certainty that stems from Serbia’s own experience,” he added. “Once the ceasefire is fully respected, it will be easier to explore together issues affecting the security and livelihood of people. Slowly but surely, such talks construct a platform for re-establishing mutual trust and discussing a sustainable peaceful solution.”

Dačić reiterated his full support for the efforts of the Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, as well as for the work of his Personal Representative, Ambassador Andrzej Kaspryzk, and his Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Ambassador Angelo Gnaedinger, who accompanied him.

Visiting the OSCE Office in Yerevan, the Chairperson-in-Office said he was pleased with the level of co-operation between the OSCE and Armenia. “It sets a good example of how a country can employ the OSCE’s expertise to help foster the reforms on which it has embarked,” he said.

Dačić met the OSCE Office’s head, Ambassador Andrey Sorokin, and other mission members, who presented the results of the Office’s work and detailed plans for future programmes of co-operation.

Related Stories

• OSCE Chairperson-in-Office reaffirms commitment to Geneva International Discussions during visit to Georgia
• OSCE Chairperson-in-Office stresses the importance of dialogue during his visit to Azerbaijan
• OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Dačić to visit Armenia

Az utóbbi időben növekszik a civil áldozatok száma Kelet-Ukrajnában, írja a Guardian. Az oroszbarát fegyveresek által ellenőrzés alatt tartott területeken, és környékén újra katonai mozgásokat figyeltek meg, és szaporodik az összetűzések száma is.

A megfigyelők félnek, hogy a törékeny, de eddig többé-kevésbé betartott februári tűzszünet véget érhet, és újra kiújulhatnak a harcok.

Az ukrán hadsereg szóvivője, Andrij Lisenkó az angol lapnak azt mondta, hogy szerda reggel a szakadárok ágyúzták a Donyecktől nyugatra állomásozó kormányerők állásait. "Az ellenség támad, az ukrán hadsereg pedig visszaveri a támadást, és sikeresen tartja az állásait" - nyilatkozta Lisenkó.

Az orosz hírügynökségek eközben az oroszbarát lázadók szóvivőjét idézték. Eduard Basurin szerint szó sem volt támadásról, a kormányerők önszántukból hagyták el állásaikat. A helyi lakosok által feltöltött videófelvételekből mindenesetre az látszik, hogy füst száll fel azon városrészekből, amelyekből a hírek szerint ágyúznak.

A februári tűzszünet óta a harci cselekmények alacsony szinten ugyan, de folytatódtak a 450 kilométer hosszú frontvonalon. A civil áldozatok száma azonban jelentősen lecsökkent. Ez a trend fordult meg az utóbbi napokban: mindkét oldalról megindult az ágyúzás, amelynek egyre több civil áldozata van.

Luhanszk ukrán ellenőrzésű régiójának vezetője, Hennadij Moszkal nyilatkozatot jelentetett meg, amely szerint szerda reggel egy ágyúzásban meghalt egy idős pár. Kocsijukat a határtól húsz kilométerre érte találat.

Az orosz Interfax viszont a lázadókat idézte, akik Jenakijev település ágyúzásáról számoltak be, amelyben egy lakos vesztette életét. Az ukrán hatóságok cáfolták, hogy lőtték volna a várost.

A térségben megfigyeléseket végző EBESZ hétfői jelenlétében 109 kifelé ágyúlövésről számolt be, amelyeket a szakadárok által kontrollált donyecki repülőtérről lőttek ki.

Not that kind of troll. Photo credit:
Kai Schreiber via Flickr

If you’ve spent any substantial time on a social networking site, you’ve likely encountered an anonymous troll. They may mock something you’ve said, or a photo of yourself or others that you’ve shared. Then again, maybe they’ll say nothing of substance at all, churning out a slew of profanities or insults. Sometimes they hit below the belt; other times they’re easy to swat away and ignore. Either way, a troll’s purpose is inherently ethereal — its raison d’etre can be shattered by the click of a “block” button.

Much ado has been made about the psychology of trolling — and for good reason. We store a lot of our lives online — photos, private correspondence, biometric data, tax returns. We spend the rest of our time in spaces that we have collectively designated as a digital commons. These virtual public spaces are governed by rules, explicit or otherwise, of their own. Like any crowded physical space, these regions can be noisy, confusing, and easily subjected to disruption. It’s the ideal space for getting your message out so long as you don’t particularly care about being heard. Think of it as like screaming at a rock concert: It’s annoying for those people nearby, but completely ineffective if you want to convince the crowd to do anything .

Those endeavors may be largely fruitless, but they have gained a great deal of ground in one country: Russia. Here, the troll as an agent of information warfare on behalf of the state has garnered a great deal of attention since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. If recent revelations are any indication, the well-oiled, Kremlin-sponsored troll machine has no intentions of closing up shop anytime soon.

State-sponsored or state-sanctioned Internet trolls are nothing new on the Russian Internet — or RuNet, as it is often called. In 2012, a series of emails published by a Russian hacktivist group showed a youth group with ties to the Kremlin was paying bloggers and journalists to post pro-Putin content online. Activists were also paid to down-vote YouTube videos posted by the opposition and to even leave hundreds of comments on news articles with an anti-Putin spin. The leak was huge, but the practice was nothing new. Indeed, a Freedom House report in 2013 noted that “Russia [has] been at the forefront of this practice for several years.”

But the practice became even more critical to the Kremlin’s informational warfare strategy during the invasion of Ukraine in 2014. One firm, called the Internet Research Agency, garnered a great deal of mainstream media attention last year after a major document leak exposed the agency’s operations.

In June 2014, Buzzfeed reported that the Kremlin had poured millions into the agency so as to fund a veritable army of trolls to post pro-Putin commentary on English-language media sites. Commenters were also expected to balance several Twitter and Facebook accounts while posting over 50 comments on various news articles throughout the day. A more recent account described a heavier workload: Over the period of two 12-hour shifts, one employee was expected to draft fifteen posts and leave 150-200 comments.

“We don’t talk too much, because everyone is busy. You have to just sit there and type and type, endlessly,” one former Russian troll told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty a couple of months ago.

“We don’t talk, because we can see for ourselves what the others are writing, but in fact you don’t even have to really read it, because it’s all nonsense. The news gets written, someone else comments on it, but I think real people don’t bother reading any of it at all.”

If they were only trolling comment threads, that’s likely true. Many readers (and writers, sorry) skip the comments. Head over to your favorite mainstream media news site and read the comments on any given article. On occasion you’ll find some gems among the weeds of trolls and spam bots, but they can be few and far between. A paid Russian troll would be just one voice among many.

The new age of information warfare may have started out on comment threads, but its biggest battles won’t be fought there. If recent events are any indication that shift has already begun.

According to a recent account by reporter Adrian Chen in The New York Times, the Internet Research Agency may be behind several larger hoaxes throughout the United States. The first engineered a fake chemical spill in St. Mary Parish, La., through a coordinated social media campaign and text message alerts. This “airborne toxic event” of sorts had media coverage and eyewitness testimony. None of it, investigators soon realized, was real.

Months later, many of the same accounts used to spread the news of the fictional chemical spill reported an Ebola outbreak in Atlanta. Others told of a shooting of an unarmed black woman, again in Atlanta. At first glance, none of these three events appeared to be related, although two videos — the first one documented the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) apparent involvement in the chemical spill and the other the shooting of the unarmed woman — appeared to have the same narrator.

Chen’s account should be read in full, not summarized. Nevertheless, it does raise a few important questions. For one, are these hoaxes the new face of the 21st century information war? It would appear so, if only in for the short term. Will technological developments in image manipulation make conning easier? What about an increase in the number of social media users? Probably. In the latter case, though, it could swing either way.

In the end, the most important question is one that we need to continuously ask ourselves: What am I, as a responsible Internet user and media consumer, doing to protect the integrity of the web? Ignoring the troll(s) screaming in the crowd is a start.

This post also appeared at The Eastern Project.

(BRUXELLES2 – exclusif) Restructurer l’armée centrafricaine ? C’est une nécessité, constatée par tous, mais pas évidente à mener. En Centrafrique, c’est un peu le chaos. Sur 8000 soldats environ sur le papier, seule une partie d’entre eux sont en caserne. 2000 hommes sont ainsi au camp de Kassaï à Bangui. Mais, la plupart d’entre eux sont inemployés. Seul un bataillon, le bataillon d’infanterie territoriale, est opérationnel, avec pour tâche essentielle d’assurer la garde statique autour des institutions. Faute de logement, de subsistance, les soldats qui sont à Kassaï rentrent chez eux l’après-midi. Certains restent carrément chez eux. Cette armée est pauvre. Elle n’a à sa disposition que quelques pickups, quelques centaines d’armes de type Kalachnikovs, et quasiment aucun équipement. Tout a été volé, pillé, jusqu’aux chaises et bureaux et câbles électriques dans les murs…

© NGV / B2

B2 a pu rencontré, lors d’un de ses passages à Bruxelles le général français Dominique Laugel (*), ancien chef de la division Plans du corps de réaction rapide France (CRR-FR) de Lille, qui commande la nouvelle mission militaire de l’UE en Centrafrique (EUMAM RCA), chargée justement d’aider la RCA à retrouver le chemin d’une armée républicaine.

Vous êtes à la tête de EUMAM RCA depuis quelques semaines, la mission est-elle aujourd’hui opérationnelle ?

Oui. Les premiers éléments ont été mis en place le 1er mars pour assurer la suite de EUFOR et reprendre tous les contacts. EUMAM RCA est aujourd’hui un acteur politico-militaire reconnu sur la place de Bangui

EUMAM c’est une petite équipe cependant ?

Je dispose de 30 conseillers qui sont tous là aujourd’hui et à pied d’oeuvre (NB : sur une équipe de 65 personnes, voir encadré, le reste est consacré au support et à la protection). Ce qui est parfaitement adapté à la mission pour faire ce que je souhaite.

Comment définiriez-vous en quelques mots votre mission ?

Aider à restructurer les Forces armées centrafricaines, les FACA (…). L’armée, c’est un des piliers de l’Etat.

… et les principaux handicaps auxquels vous faites face ?

Le financement et les équipements. Il faut faire face aux sanctions et à l’embargo qui frappent l’armée ainsi qu’au budget limité de la défense (et de l’Etat centrafricain), consacré quasi-totalement à la masse salariale.

Avoir une armée, est-ce vraiment une volonté des Centrafricains ?

Très forte. Il y a une vraie volonté de la population de voir les FACA présentes sur le terrain, non seulement à Bangui mais aussi sur tout le territoire. Le Forum de Bangui a clairement montré cette volonté du peuple. Les Centrafricains ont des soucis du côté des frontières avec des rebelles qui passent les frontières, pillent les villages. Ils veulent voir des militaires centrafricains aux frontières.

Quelles sont les priorités que vous définiriez alors pour les FACA ?

Il faut, tout d’abord, remettre en place la chaîne de commandement pour retrouver la crédibilité des FACA. S’il n’y a pas de chaine de commandement, c’est plus compliqué. Ensuite, il faut refaire l’éducation des cadres pour avoir une armée conforme aux standards qu’on veut – en matière de professionnalisme, équilibrée ethniquement et démocratiquement responsable. Enfin, il faut également veiller à la dignité des soldats, leur donner des moyens d’instruction, un minimum d’équipements, afin qu’ils restent loyaux à l’Etat. Un soldat fier d’être soldat est loyal envers ses chefs. (…)

Le manque de moyens est patent cependant. Qu’est-ce qui serait utile le plus rapidement ?

Il faut quelques soutiens rapides, en moyens d’instruction pour faire des cours aux soldats. Ils n’ont plus rien. Il faut des tables, des chaises, des tableaux, des  lits… et tout simplement une cuisine, C’est le problème des FACA. Ils n’ont pas de cuisine sur place. Les soldats ne peuvent manger sur place. C’est pour çà qu’ils rentrent chez eux. Il faut qu’à l’intérieur, on puisse disposer de certains moyens rapidement. Il en va de la crédibilité des Européens.

(propos recueillis par Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)

Lire l’interview complète sur l’édition Pro de B2 (le club de B2) : Un soldat fier d’être soldat est loyal. Pour recréer les FACA, équipements, formation et financement (Gén. Laugel)

Lire aussi : L’urgence de s’occuper des forces armées centrafricaines).

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