Google Earth exposes North Korea's secret prison camps. Human rights activists are turning to Google Earth to identify the vast network of prison camps that dot the North Korean countryside and hold as many as 200,000 people deemed hostile to the regime. Rights groups are pushing the United Nations high commissioner for human rights to open an international investigation into Pyongyang's "deplorable" record on its citizens' rights, including a system of political prisons that has operated for more than 50 years...
(Telegraph)

‘Rise of the Drones’ Is Mostly a PBS Infomercial for the Military Defense Industry. The widely-acclaimed PBS program, NOVA, premiered a documentary on unmanned aerial vehicles or drones. The documentary, “Rise of the Drones,” was produced to explore how the technology is revolutionizing warfare and creating the next generation of cutting-edge surveillance. It was created to provide a glimpse at how the technology has advanced and how innovations might progress in the future...
(The Dissenter)

Tweeting the news: Andy Carvin test-pilots Twitter journalism. Andy Carvin’s official title is Senior Strategist, Social Media Desk at NPR, but that bureaucratic fog undercuts the scale of his work. More emphatically, The Columbia Journalism Review has called him a "living, breathing real-time verification system," while The Washington Post declared him “a one-man Twitter news bureau.”
(The Verge)

Time running out for old war stories. AN appeal has been launched to find the stories behind the names on St Clears's war memorial.  Philip Lanc, of Tenby Road, is trying to trace information on the men whose names are etched into the Pentre Road monument.  He said to many people it is just a list of names and he wants to provide the people of the town with the stories behind the men before it is too late.  "At any stage we could go and look at the military service record," said the 57-year-old...
(This is South Wales)

Video Suggests Missile Hit Syrian University.  At least one of the two explosions that killed more than 80 people at Syria’s Aleppo University last week was caused by a missile, according to two analysts who examined new video of the attack posted online by Syrian opposition activists.  Traces of what appears to be a missile descending moments before the huge blast can be seen in three still frames taken from the brief video clip, which seems to have been recorded on the university campus as the second rocket shattered a dormitory...
(The New York Times)

Almost all in Congress use Twitter; if only bills could be as short as tweets. Four years ago, when President Barack Obama was first inaugurated, the savvy social media politician was among the first to use Twitter to his advantage to get his message out to voters. Republicans also used the short-messaging blog back then to heckle the new president as he delivered a speech to Congress...
(NBCNEWS)

Serbia to review probes into killed reporters. THE Serbian government on Thursday appointed a team to review the probes into the unsolved murders of three Serb journalists killed during and right after the 1990s regime of strongman Slobodan Milosevic.  A committee composed of prominent journalists, top police and intelligence officials is ``tasked to examine facts collected during the probes and other circumstances related to the murders of Dada Vujasinovic, Slavko Curuvija and Milan Pantic,'' a government spokesman said...
(The Australian)

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Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is lifting the military’s official ban on women in combat, reports The New York Times.

Reporter Elisabeth Bumiller writes, "The groundbreaking decision overturns a 1994 Pentagon rule that restricts women from artillery, armor, infantry and other such combat roles, even though in reality women have frequently found themselves in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, where more than 20,000 have served. As of last year, more than 800 women had been wounded in the two wars and more than 130 had died."

The New York Times tweeted a link to the story on Wednesday and the tweet ended up being retweeted by users nearly 1,000 times (749 at the time of this story being published).

People from all over the world took to Twitter to express their opinion and react to the news.

Here are a handful of the Twitter reactions, with some in favor, some against.

John McCain ‏@SenJohnMcCain
“I respect and support Secretary Panetta’s decision to lift the ban on women serving in combat”

Tammy Bruce ‏@HeyTammyBruce
“And btw, every line in today's world is the "front line." Women *have* been fighting in combat. Now they'll get paid/recognized for it.”

Desiring God ‏@desiringgod
"A man who endorses women in combat is not pro-woman; he’s a wimp. He should be ashamed" (John Piper, 2007)”

Kelly ‏@KLSouth
“Women in Combat directly impact combat effectiveness of our military. This is an attempt to further weaken America.”

The American Caliban ‏@substitute
“Women now permitted in combat in US military; 300 Hollywood scripts start.”

Malcolm Fraser ‏@MalcolmFraser12
“Women have been unofficially involved in military combat for years”

Jen Kirkman ‏@JenKirkman
“Once the ban is lifted on women in military combat, that draft better not come back.”

MJ Rosenberg ‏@MJayRosenberg
“Women in combat. Progress? Nothing about war is progress except ending it, not enlarging pool of victims.”

Zerlina Maxwell ‏@ZerlinaMaxwell
"women allowed in combat = Conservatives say, "but what about their safety!" 1 in 3 women raped in the military = Crickets."

Andrew Kaczynski ‏@BuzzFeedAndrew
“146 women have died in uniform since 2001, regardless of the ban on women in combat lifted today”

Political Dissident ‏@der_bluthund
"Personally, I think we should put all that energy used against women in combat roles into protecting civilians who get caught up in wars..."

Ron M. ‏@Jewtastic
“I guess since there were not enough women in his White House to please his base, the President threw them into combat instead.”

Jamil Smith ‏@JamilSmith
“Seems @davidfrum was for lifting the ban on women in combat before he was against it.”

Johnny Fuggin Bravo ‏@MrFitMarine
“How I feel about women in combat? BOOTS 2 ASSES. S/O to every brave woman who takes that step.”

Chris Regan ‏@ChrisRRegan
“Women now cleared for combat! Or at least the economically-disadvantaged ones.”

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Photo by Issouf Sanogo

A photograph of a French legionnaire in Mali wearing a skeleton face mask drew an angry reaction from the French military and government.

Reactions on Twitter and other social media sites range from condemnation to expressing support.  One Twitter user @phillycat writes, “It’s badass”. 

AFP photographer Issouf Sanogo took the photo on January 20th, which quickly went viral because of its likeness to the Call of Duty character "Ghost", a non-playable British character in Modern Warfare 2, who wears a pair of sunglasses and a skull-patterned balaclava, similar to the one worn by the French soldier.

Sanogo told the story behind the image to AFP:

“A helicopter was coming in to land and churning up tremendous dust clouds. Instinctively, all the soldiers grabbed their scarfs to avoid getting a mouthful of sand. It was evening, and rays of sunlight were pushing through the trees and into the dust clouds. It was a lovely light. I spotted this soldier wearing a strange scarf and took the photo. At the time, nothing about the scene seemed especially unusual or shocking. The soldier wasn’t posing and there was nothing staged about the image. He was just standing there, protecting his face from the dust, waiting for the chopper to land. No one tried to stop me shooting the picture.”

Here’s a look at the image of the Call of Duty character Ghost.

According to the video game news site Kotaku which calls the controversy “silly”, "The photographer at the heart of the controversy, AFP's Issouf Sanogo, is "surprised" by the resulting media storm."

Luke Plunkett writes, "French authorities are now trying to identify the soldier, presumably so they can reprimand/make a scapegoat out of him."

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Newest Forum for Military’s Ethics Debate: Twitter. There are two major venues for an uncomfortable internal debate about professional ethics currently roiling the U.S. military. One is the Pentagon, where the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is reviewing leadership training after a spate of embarrassing incidents suggested the military’s moral fibers have frayed. The other is Twitter.  While Rebecca Johnson, an associate professor at the Marine Corps University’s Command and Staff College, prepared to teach her ethics elective to a group of mid-career Marine officers, she decided she’d like to get all of Twitter involved...
(Wired)

DOD hopes to harness power of tweets, blogs and updates as intelligence tool. When is a tweet more than just a tweet? When that tweet - along with millions of other bits of digital data - is merged to create a network of real-time information, all that can be harnessed and used by the military.  How to harness and interpret such massive amounts of information is the goal of an initiative through the Department of Defense's Data to Decisions program, run by the Office of Naval Research...
(al.com)

Veteran stands up for 2nd Amendment at Chicago anti-gun forum. After enduring hours of derision and mockery by the panelists at a Chicago-area guns “forum” Sunday, one man in the audience stood up and addressed the crowd, identified himself as a veteran, and proceeded to give a straightforward but passionate defense of his support for the First and Second Amendments...
(Legal Insurrection)

Al Jazeera Is Hiring. Looks like someone is hiring. Al Jazeera just posted a list of over 100 job openings on their website for the soon-to-launch new U.S.-based news channel.  At the beginning of the year, Al Jazeera Media Network announced that it had acquired Current TV, the network founded by Al Gore, and would use the network’s distribution system to launch a new U.S.-based news channel for American audiences...
(Observer)

Some news orgs’ social media policies are on shaky legal ground. If your social media policy prevents employees from saying anything bad about the company, it might be going too far.  The National Labor Relations Board has weighed in on several cases where employees lost their jobs because of social media activity, Steven Greenhouse reports.  The board is standing up for the rights of workers to discuss wages and working conditions...
(Poynter)

Production Begins on DreamWorks’ WikiLeaks Project “The Fifth Estate”.  Principal photography has begun on the WikiLeaks drama “The Fifth Estate,” it was announced today by DreamWorks Studios. The film about the controversial website stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange and Daniel Brühl as Daniel Domscheit-Berg, as well as Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Peter Capaldi, Dan Stevens, Alicia Vikander and Carice van Houten.   Following Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Brühl), an early supporter and eventual colleague of Julian Assange (Cumberbatch), “The Fifth Estate” traces the heady, early days of WikiLeaks, culminating in the release of a series of controversial and history changing information leaks...
(Business Wire)

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The polls are open in the 2013 Military Spouse of the Year which honors military spouses of all ranks and from all branches of service.

This year, Military Spouse magazine added an installation level to the award, ensuring that each and every base, district (Coast Guard), and state (National Guard) has a representative.

Last year’s Military Spouse of the Year award went to Jeremy Hilton, an Air Force Spouse.

If you’d like to learn more, here’s a look at the timeline.

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I stumbled across this interesting post by Ahmad Shuja, an Afghan political commentator and writer/blogger currently based in Washington, DC.

The posting, called Afghan Blogs, offers a directory of English-language blogs written by Afghans on issues relating to Afghanistan, its people and the region.

I’ve come across other directories in the past, like the Association of Afghan Blog Writers website, which promotes blogging and online journalism in Afghanistan.  The AABW has actually launched several blogging workshops in several provinces around Afghanistan, according to its website.

Though the Afghan Blogs directory hasn’t been updated since July 2012, many of the blogs listed are still active.  The bloggers include journalists, students and people from all walks of life.

I’ve started going through both directories again to see if any provide a military perspective and will add them to the Milblogging index, if so. 

Although I may never find one, I’m still looking for a military blog written by an Afghan soldier or policeman, but have yet to find one.

If you happen to know of any military blogs written by Afghans, please feel free to submit them to Milblogging.com.

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42 year old Craig Slee who claimed to be Taliban has been jailed for 5 years after posting terrorist propaganda to the social networking site Facebook. 

Slee posted graphic pictures and videos including beheadings.

According to the news stories Slee was a "fantasist" who had fantasies about being a terrorist, but wasn't actually a terrorist.

“Slee created a false identity and set up a Facebook page using the alter-ego 'Hashim X Shakur'. He was also the creator and administrator of another Facebook account called 'FB Mujahideen'.

He posted links to a communiqué by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and uploaded several videos, which included gruesome beheadings and Islamist terrorist propaganda material. He also chatted to other people inferring he was a member of the Taliban which is a complete fabrication.

Slee was arrested in July 2011 in Windermere. As part of the investigation, officers also recovered a can of CS gas from an address in Preston linked to Slee.”

More here.

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Hey, There’s an App for That! Two Airmen supporting Joint Task Force-National Capital Region Public Affairs, the military people who support the Presidential Inauguration, have created a cell phone app just in time for the inaugural festivities.  The program, called “Inauguration”, is a free, user-friendly app that compiles news and other material related to the 57th Presidential Inauguration from across the Web...
(The Pentagon Channel)

'Catfish' Hoax That Snared Te'o Familiar to Troops. Many Americans were introduced to a new meaning for the word "catfish" Wednesday evening.  The term is being used to describe a hoax that has plagued the Army and civilian authorities for years.  A catfish, in social media terms, is someone who creates an online profile and pretends to be someone he is not, using photos and information taken from someone else...
(Military.com)

Bradley Manning denied chance to make whistleblower defence. Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of being behind the largest leak of state secrets in America's history, has been denied the chance to make a whistleblower defence in his upcoming court martial in which he faces possible life in military custody with no chance of parole.  The judge presiding over Manning's prosecution by the US government for allegedly transmitting confidential material to WikiLeaks ruled in a pre-trial hearing that Manning will largely be barred from presenting evidence about his motives in leaking the documents and videos...
(Guardian)

BuzzFeed Story on Gun-Toting Journalists Infuriates Reporters (Updated). BuzzFeed political editor McKay Coppins has a target on his back after posting a story Thursday that turned a sardonic eye on the shooting range trips of a cadre of well-known New York journalists.  With the debate over stricter gun control in the news after the mass-shooting in Newtown, Conn., last month, the story had the potential to be explosive, but it appeared to have blown up in the author's face after the reporters in question slammed the piece's characterization of their trigger happy activities...
(The Wrap Media)

War vet, dancing champ shares story of struggles. As a child, J.R. Martinez was scared of Freddy Krueger, the disfigured menace in the Nightmare on Elm Street film series.  After a bomb in Iraq ripped through his Army Humvee and burned one-third of his body — including part of his face — Martinez felt as if he had become the living embodiment of Krueger. He was horrified and, for a brief time, suicidal...
(The Columbia Dispatch)

Syria - Moment of Sniper Killing Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed al-Horani in Daraa.  Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed al-Horani, killed by a sniper in province of Daraa. Mohammed al-Horani was following the battle in Daraa province and was moving with the terrorists until he was shot by a sniper...
(YouTube)

Syria: Amateur video of Assad's air strikes. Amateur video from Syria appears to show Assad's air force attacking Homs and Damascus. Report by Rob Gillett...
(ITNNEWS)

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It was only days ago that I wrote about the first journalist deaths of 2013, after three journalists were killed in Pakistan, all in the same incident that occurred on January 13.

Al Jazeera English is now reporting that a sniper has shot dead Al Jazeera freelance reporter Mohamed Al-Massalma in the southern Syrian province of Deraa.

"The Syrian journalist, 33, used the pseudonym of Mohamed Al-Horani. He was shot with three bullets, during covering the fights at the front lines in the town of Busra Al-Harir in the countryside of Deraa."

Al-Horani isn’t the first reporter to be killed in 2013 in Syria.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a nonprofit organization that compiles data on journalist fatalities, wrote that a sniper has targeted two reporters in two days: international correspondent Yves Debay and Al-Jazeera journalist Mohamed al-Mesalma.

As of today, six journalists have been killed in 2013.

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It’s the New Year and the U.S. Army is offering five social media predictions that may shape the way we view social media in 2013. 

It’s hard to know whether each of these predictions will play out.  Some are bold, like, Google+ putting Facebook on notice, but it’s interesting to see the U.S. Army make some of their own predictions for 2013.

Are these all trends that the U.S. Army is experiencing itself?  We’ll check back at the end of the year and see how things panned out.

Here’s a quick look at the five predictions:

"Google+ puts Facebook on notice"
Google+ has had its sights on Facebook since its inception in 2011, but has been largely unsuccessful in closing the gap between the two services.  But after some controversial changes to the platform, the tide may turn in Google's favor in 2013.

"If it's not visual, it's not working"
In 2013, visual social media content will continue to dominate bland social media content. Regardless of the message you're trying to convey with your social media post, if there is not a supporting visual element, the post will likely fail.

"Mobile: It's not the future anymore"
According to a 2012 Pew Study, 40 percent of cell phone owners use a social networking site on their phone. This percentage is sure to rise in 2013.

"Social media platforms break out"
Be prepared for several social media platforms to break out in 2013.  These could be platforms that have been around for a while like Tout, Quora or Snapchat, or they could be brand new platforms entirely.

"MySpace is back! But who cares?"
Yes, MySpace is back.  It's hard to say how successful it will be, but the butt of half of all social media jokes is working to reestablish itself in the social media space.

Full story here.

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In a particularly horrible series of tweets, the terrorist Al-Shabaab group posted photographs of a French soldier killed in last Saturday's rescue mission attempt.

Twitter inexplicably has yet to take any action, despite an uproar by many users of the microblogging site as well as lawmakers in late 2012.

In a pathetic attempt to pretend they’re the victims, Al-Shabaab has taken to Twitter to justify posting the photos.

Yesterday, Al-Shabaab published the following tweet:

3:07 AM - 15 Jan 13
How much of the gruesome details of war should be published without detracting from the accurancy and credibility of the event?

Here are a couple of the reactions by other Twitter users to the above tweet:

JustOneBullet ‏@JustOneBullet tweeted:
“@HSMPress "Accuracy".. Anyway, like I tweeted earlier, you publish pictures of corpses for propaganda purposes, not for journalism.”

Abdikhaliq Majid akm ‏@MajidAkm
“@hsmpress so now you have turned to journalism? Each day you get funnier.may be you guys should start doing stand up comedy.cowards”

Al-Shabaab sent several more Tweets including:

“When one of the Mujahideen leaders is killed, the news gets favourable covarage in the media, a kafir is killed & it's labelled "repugnant"

“Up to 35 European newspapers published the bloody image of Ghadafi on their front page. Was it newsworthy or a case of pure triumphalism?”

If you’ve been following the news today, in Al-Shabaab’s latest tweet, Al-Shabab has sentenced the French agent in captivity to death.  The announcement came via Twitter.

Al Jazeera English reports:

“The al-Qaeda-linked group released a statement on Tuesday saying it had "reached a unanimous decision to execute the French intelligence officer, Denis Allex".

"With the rescue attempt, France has voluntarily signed Allex's death warrant," said al-Shabab.

A senior al-Shabab official told the AFP news agency that Allex "has been sentenced and this judgement will not be changed".

"As far as we are concerned this man should die," he added . “

And once again, Twitter does nothing.

Is Twitter above the law?

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Facebook page targets unpatriotic regime supporters outside Syria.  BEIRUT: Supporters of the Syrian government have created a Facebook page that they vow will expose people who have fled the country for comfort abroad, focusing their rage on the children of state officials.  The page is entitled “Syria is not a hotel,” to drive home the idea that Syria’s citizens should not treat the decision to leave the war-torn country lightly. The page also highlights the dire conditions faced by Syrians who have fled the 22-month-old conflict for neighboring countries, where thousands of people have taken shelter in refugee camps...
(The Daily Star)

Cybersleuths Uncover 5-Year Spy Operation Targeting Governments, Others. An advanced and well-orchestrated computer spy operation that targeted diplomats, governments and research institutions for at least five years has been uncovered by security researchers in Russia...
(Wired)

IDF notes increase in attempts to hack army PCs. The IDF’s Information Security Branch has identified an increase in attempts by foreign hostile intelligence entities to listen in on army communications and gain access to military computers.  The increased threat includes a major attempt to eavesdrop on cellphones used by the IDF, as well as hacking attacks directed at army computer networks...
(JPost)

Afghanistan war veterans to tell their story. Four Army veterans of one of the most harrowing battles of the Afghani­stan War will participate Monday eve­ning in a public discussion at The Grand in Wilmington.  The four survivors of an October 2009 Taliban attack on their eastern Afghanistan outpost – a battle that killed eight of their 53-member detachment – caught the ear of Lt. Gov. Matt Denn, who has invited the soldiers to visit and be his guests at Tuesday’s inaugural activities...
(The News Journal)

The future of video journalism. The Time Magazine put Instagram image of Hurricane Sandy on its cover (above) in its 12 November issue.  The photo is pretty impressive but I am more interested in what it says, not only about the future of professional photography, but also videography... 
(Guardian)

Journalists in Greece Are Becoming Targets. The Greek police on Saturday were looking for the people responsible for detonating makeshift bombs at the homes of five journalists in Athens, the latest in a series of actions taken against reporters in Greece that have raised questions about a deteriorating climate for media freedom...
(NYTimes)

Vietnamese conscripts army of bloggers. The glorious Vietnamese Communist Party has hired an army of bloggers to troll online discussions and post comments supporting the Communist Party's policies. The party has confirmed that it operates a network of nearly 1,000 "public opinion shapers" who are assigned with the task of spreading the party line... 
(Fudzilla)

War stories wanted; local, national efforts run on parallel track.  A small news tip to the Journal led to a discovery: The American Legion wants veterans’ war stories.  Legion Commander Ed Miller and member Larry Waters confirm that about a year ago, they started asking members to submit information about themselves and their service history...
(River Falls Journal)

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In November, I wrote about lawmakers wanting Twitter to crackdown on terrorists.  Unfortunately, no action has been taken by Twitter to shut down the accounts.

However, the call for Twitter to do something will likely be rekindled once again.

Earlier today, Al-Shabaab posted photographs of what they claim is a French soldier killed in Saturday's failed rescue mission reports Daily Mail.

“Three pictures posted on Twitter show a white man wearing military pants and a blood-soaked shirt surrounded by three guns, ammunition clips and protective gear.

Militant Islamist group al-Shabab taunt the dead man's religion in their posts writing 'A return of the crusades, but the cross could not save him from the sword,’ and asking president Francois Hollande if it was 'worth it'.”

The Twitter account can be found here and is still online at the time of this story.  WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT.

Read more at Daily Mail.

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YouTube user TheBobjohnson1984 of WelcomeHomeBlog.com uploaded this heartwarming video of a dog reuniting with his owner who was home on leave from Afghanistan.

The video was actually some time ago, but is still going viral, racking up nearly 30,000 views since being uploaded on January 8.

News outlets are even covering the story.

Daily Mail discussed the video and even broke it down play by play, writing: "As the newly-returned soldier, known only as Josh enters a garage to greet the dog - her reaction is crazy.  Howling and barking, Jasmine, bounds over to him, jumping wildly up onto his uniform, trying to lick his face.  Despite polite protestations from the soldier the delighted pet refuses to leave his side as he rubs and tickles her, eventually jumping again and forcing him over on the floor."

The story goes like this, according to Linda P. who shared the video with Welcome Home Blog:

“My daughter’s boyfriend was deployed to Afghanistan 2011-2012 with an Army Reserves Task Force, and we were caring for his dog, Jasmine, at our house. Josh had last seen her in October of 2011, when he came home on leave. He returned to the states in March 2012. Jasmine is a well-behaved dog who loves her master, whining and snuggling when she sees him, getting very excited and as close as she can to Josh. Our dog, Sheba, doesn’t know what to do as Jasmine runs around, so excited about Josh’s return.”

If you're not familiar with Welcome Home Blog, it's a website that features heartwarming stories, videos & pictures of members of the armed forces returning home to surprise their families & friends.

And yes, if you're wondering, there's an entire section of the website dedicated to Dog Reunions.

To watch the video of Jasmine welcoming her own, check it out on YouTube here.

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Three journalists have been killed in 2013, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) website.

While Syria saw more journalists killed in 2012 than any other country and thus became the “Deadliest Country”, Pakistan, which only had a reported 7 deaths in 2012, starts off 2013 with three journalists already being killed, all in the same incident that occurred on January 13.

Mirza Iqbal Hussain (News Network International, photographer), Saif ur Rehman (Samaa TV, senior reporter) and Imran Shaikh (Samaa TV, senior cameraman), died as a result of injuries suffered in a bomb blast that occurred 10 minutes after an initial explosion near a billiards hall in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province.

According to CPJ, "The twin explosions killed dozens, including police, emergency workers, and journalists who rushed to the scene of the first explosion, according to news reports. The billiards hall is in a predominantly Shia area of Quetta. The explosions were part of a series of bomb attacks reported across Pakistan that day, news reports said."

This time last year, three journalists had also been killed, each in different countries: Thailand, Syria, and the Philippines.

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No 'Death Star' for US Military, White House Says. The planet-killing Death Star may have been the ultimate weapon for the Empire in the "Star Wars" films, but it has no place in the United States military today, a White House official said Friday (Jan. 11)...
(SPACE.com)

To Pin A Criminal.  Police Departments from San Francisco to Pottstown, Penn. have begun using the image-sharing platform Pinterest to track down criminals, using it as a sort of digital replacement for the Post Office wall.  Departments making forays into social media began dabbling in the service, whose largely female audience has made it best known, perhaps, for wedding planning, as one of a range of tools aimed primarily at public relations and at generalized community outreach. But the service's image-centric interface has turned it into a tool for solving serious crimes as well...
(Buzzfeed)

Facebook Calls Rally Azeris to Protest Army Hazing After Death. Thousands of Azeris are signing up on Facebook Inc. (FB) to rally against violence in the armed forces tomorrow after the death of a conscript that his family has blamed on a beating in a hazing incident.  The campaign, which has been joined by more than 13,000 Facebook users in the former Soviet republic, was prompted by the Jan. 7 death of an 18-year-old conscript, Ceyhun Qubadov, at an army base in the western Daskasan district. The U.S. Embassy in the capital, Baku, has warned the planned demonstration may turn violent...
(Bloomberg)

Why Am I Not In Afghanistan? Okay, there have been some questions raised and comments made, so wanted to get out this short version of why I'm not in Afghanistan.  As some of you may remember, I posted here a while back about finding an embed, and that post was answered by a very nice and competent PAO.  We talked, agreed on things, and began to work the effort.  This is where the first problem came up, and I take responsibility for it...
(Blackfive)

Kuwaiti blogger sentenced for insulting ruler on Twitter. A Kuwaiti court sentenced an online journalist to prison on Monday for insulting the ruling family on social media, according to news reports. Ayyad al-Harbi was ordered to begin serving the two-year jail sentence immediately, news reports said.  Police arrested al-Harbi on November 13 in connection with a series of posts he made to his personal Twitter account, starting in October, in which he criticized the government and called on authorities to stop oppressing Kuwaiti citizens, according to news reports. He was released the next day on bail, the reports said. A court convicted him on Monday on the insult charge, which is punishable by up to five years in prison, according to Article 54 of the constitution...
(CPJ)

Bloggers imprisoned in mass sentencing in Vietnam. At least five independent bloggers were sentenced today to harsh jail terms in Vietnam, according to local and international news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns this move and calls on Vietnamese authorities to reverse the charges on appeal and release the bloggers...
(CPJ)

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Commander Chris Hadfield captured some dazzling photos from space earlier this week that he shared through the microblogging site Twitter.

CBS News reports, "The Canadian astronaut has been tweeting breathtaking photos of Earth all week since he and two others (NASA's Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko) arrived at the International Space Station last Friday.”

Hadfield (who can be found on Twitter @Cmdr_Hadfield) has quickly gained a large following since the photos went viral.

Before last Friday, Hadfield had around 50,000 followers, but the number has since grown to nearly 200,000 followers in less than a week.  At the time of this story being published, the count is at 191,487.

At this rate, tracking sites like Twitter Counter predict he’ll be at 400,000 followers in a couple weeks.

Hadfield has been a prolific Twitter user – sending over 3,000 tweets since joining, averaging about 20 per day.

In a tweet posted earlier this morning, Hadfield wrote, “Good Morning Earth, from 5 miles per sec. I'll be talking with Air Cadets in Newfoundland today, if their snowstorm allows, via ham radio.”

You can stay up to date on Hadfield and his mission by following him on Twitter.

(Image of Bahamas from space via @Cmdr_Hadfield)

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Jeff Gilmore, a C-17 Instructor Pilot and Air Mobility Liaison Officer assigned to III Corps at Ft. Hood, Texas, has written a lengthy piece for Small Wars Journal about social media and digital collaboration in the military.

The story is called “Where is Lt Zuckerberg? An Advocacy for Social Media and Digital Collaboration in the Military”.

Instead of only pointing out problems with what Gilmore calls "the lack of effective social media in the military", Gilmore offers some suggestions.

1.) Define a social media strategy, simplify DoD guidance and train for success.

2.) Actively cultivate social media expertise from the millennial generation.

3.) Collaboration is a force multiplier.

4.) Most importantly, tell our story effectively.

Whether you agree with Gilmore or not, there are a number of interesting ideas and tidbits.

You can read the full story here.

Hat tip: Blackfive

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People have come up with some nifty ways for getting married.

You know, like in a hot air balloon, or in an airplane, or in a hospital room. 

People are creative.

Well, here’s another way to get married: online.

According to NBC August 26, Jacqueline Durham married Fort Gordon soldier Trey Durham through Skype.

Trey Durham is still deployed to Afghanistan, but that didn’t stop him and his bride from tying the knot or even sharing a kiss through the internet.

Lauren Walsh reports:

After two years of dating Trey, Jacqueline told us she couldn’t wait any longer.

“He is a really good person,” she described. “Everyone likes him. He’s funny. He’s easy going. He’s very laid back. It takes a lot to make him mad.”

Sunday afternoon, Trey and his army family lined up in Afghanistan while Jacqueline and her family shared the moment from her Hephzibah home.

More the story here including video.

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SCANDINAVIA Swedish news channel tv4 shows porn during report on Syria. Only in Scandinavia! Swedish TV news broadcast shows porn movie in the background for TEN minutes.VIEWERS of a Swedish news channel got more than they bargained for while watching a sober report on Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, as a porn film played on a studio screen in the background.  The incident took place during a Monday broadcast on 24-hour Swedish news channel TV4 News as the presenter was interviewing the station's Moscow correspondent.  As the journalists discussed Russia's support for the Syrian regime, a pornographic film began playing on one of the television screens situated behind the anchor...
(ExclusiveWorldNews1)

At Huffington Post, everything old is new again: All reporters get blogs. HuffPost is rolling out a new blog template in two weeks that will allow every reporter in the organization to maintain his or her own personal blog as a supplement to their usual beat-reporting for the site.  About a dozen or so reporters, including Matt Sledge (civil liberties), Joy Resmovits (education) and Michael Calderone (media), have already begun their blogging duties using the existing template, which is being overhauled...
(Capital New York)

Endgame Syria: Apple shoots down rebel scenario simulator. The bloody conflict in Syrian, that's been dragging on for almost two years and claimed more than sixty-thousand lives, has now entered the realm of Internet gaming. Called 'Endgame Syria', players get the chance to fight on the side of the rebels, exploring various options to push the conflict to the end...
(RT)

Does aiding WikiLeaks equal aiding Al Qaeda? Prosecutors and lawyers for alleged WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning were back in court here Tuesday, sparring over one of the central questions in his case: does giving sensitive government information to the media equate to aiding Al Qaeda?  Manning faces, along with a slew of other charges, a count of aiding the enemy by giving thousands of military reports and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. That charge alone can carry a life sentence, or the death penalty, though the government has agreed not to seek death in this instance...
(Politico)

Tanzanian journalist found murdered in forest. A journalist was found murdered in northwestern Tanzania on Tuesday, three days after he went missing from his home, according to local journalists and local reports.  The body of Issa Ngumba, 45, a reporter for Radio Kwizera, was found in Kajuhuleta Forest with a gunshot wound in his left arm and evidence that he had been strangled or hanged, according to local journalists who interviewed coroner Primus Ijumaa...
(CPJ)

Retired Ellet history teacher collects artifacts, stories from Civil War. For John Gurnish, fascination with the Civil War began in 1961.  He was a fifth-grader, and the country was marking the 100th anniversary of the start of the conflict.  “I began to study it and find out all I could,” said Gurnish, now 61. A retired Ellet High School history teacher, Gurnish has spent his life digging into the subject and getting to know the people from the Akron area who fought in the Civil War...
(Ohio.com)

Face-Off in a Beijing Newsroom: An Insider’s Account. Fallout from a high-profile conflict over censorship between Chinese propaganda officials and journalists at Southern Weekly, one of China’s most daring newspapers, has spread to sister newspaper Beijing News, which lost a dramatic stand-off with authorities late Tuesday night over the reprinting of an editorial that was harshly critical of Southern Weekly...
(The Wall Street Journal)

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