In Uganda it's still the message, not the medium, that matters

While American journalists debate whether to blog, Twitter or become multimedia warriors, the journalism that really matters is still going on in the world:

In a two-pronged operation, police and operatives from the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), Joint Anti-Terrorism Taskforce (JATT) and the Black Mamba squad raided The Independent again, exactly a month after the first raid.

It is 9.30am on Saturday April 26 and The Independent’s Managing Editor Andrew Mwenda is driving from his home along Golf Course Road in Kololo for the Capital Gang programme on Capital FM radio. As he climbs up Coral Crescent Rise towards Lower Kololo Terrace, two suspicious cars come from in front of him, the front one towards him at breakneck speed. Thinking that perhaps the driver had lost control, he stops and tries to reverse when suddenly three other cars appear from behind, one knocking his rear bumper.

Then a swarm of security operatives surround the car, one young man tries to open the door but it is locked from inside. He pulls out a gun and points it at Mwenda asking him to get out of the car. When Mwenda opens the door, the security operatives pounce on him, forcefully pulling him out of the car, confiscating his phones, watch and car before dumping him into a waiting car and driving off in a heavily defended convoy at break-neck speed.

“There were not witnesses around,” Mwenda narrates his ordeal. “I realised the state wanted me to disappear without a trace. So I opened the car window and shouted at people along the road that I was Andrew Mwenda being kidnapped by CMI. At this point, the security operatives pulled me back and this time handcuffed me so that I do not cause more trouble.

[via TEDBlog]

International Data Resource Center

The International Data Resource Center collects data for studying global issues. Some of the data is free for anyone to download. Other data requires you to be a member institution.

As the international community is drawn closer together through the phenomenon of globalization, access to international data has become critical for scholars and researchers around the world. Finding reliable data sources that reflect international dimensions can be difficult. In an effort to meet the growing demands for international data, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) has created the International Data Resource Center (IDRC). ...

Data can be accessed through a variety of mechanisms. Scholars and researchers can browse ICPSR holdings using the Subject Terms, Series Data, Geography, or traditional search engines. … There are also a variety of instructional resources available on this site.

It includes data from "pivotal studies" that "transformed the way world politics were studied by using scientific method to study international phenomena."

One intriguing dataset coming soon is the "Correlates of War":

The Correlates of War project was the brainchild of Professor J. David Singer. Singer, a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan, set out to identify and study those factors that account for war. Since its inception in 1963, the COW Project has continually conducted systematic and quantitative studies pertaining to warfare. Data pertaining to militarized disputes, interstate and civil wars, national capabilities, and alliances are some of the more popularly used datasets. COW is one of the most often used datasets in international relations and has informed the work of hundreds of scholars across the globe

The World Bank, Mapped

The bank explains:

"We’ve mashed up Google Maps with World Bank data to give you a visual entry point to browse our projects, news, statistics and public information center by country."

Ways to research foreign entities

... from BRB's Public Records Blog.

Iraq Study Group Web site

The Iraq Study Group, whose work may form the foundation of a new policy in Iraq, has its own Web site. It includes a helpful fact sheet.