Peace Corps Returns to Nepal; Withdraws from Honduras Without a Splash

                           Image via WikipediaOn January 17, the US Embassy in Kathmandu announced the return of the Peace Corps to Nepal after a seven year absence.  The announcement coincided with an event hosted by Prime Minister Bhattarai at his office in Singha Durbar and by Ambassador DeLisi at his residence. According to the embassy, the first group of approximately 20 Peace Corps volunteers is scheduled to arrive in Nepal later this year:

"The U.S. Agency for International Development’s collaboration with Peace Corps will build on the strengths and strategies of the U.S. Government’s Feed the Future and Global Health Initiatives partnership with Nepal to reach and impact many more vulnerable Nepalese across the country.  The volunteers will be trained as Agriculture and Nutrition Extensionists and will work with rural communities to improve food security and health of the Nepalese people in the context of the two Presidential Initiatives in Nepal."

The photos from the two events can be found at Flickr.  See also the embassy statement, and the Peace Corps announcement.

The bigger news, of course was the withdrawal of the Peace Corps from Honduras this week.  On January 16, the Peace Corps pulled out all volunteers from Honduras.  According to CBS, neither U.S. nor Honduran officials have said what specifically prompted them to withdraw the 158 Peace Corps volunteers. The report also notes that this is the first time Peace Corps mission have been withdrawn from Central America since civil wars swept the region in the 1970s and 1980s.

On December 21, Peace Corps released the following statement:

The Peace Corps is conducting an ongoing review of the security environment in Honduras, and has cancelled its next volunteer training class while this review is being conducted.


All 158 currently serving volunteers are safe and accounted for and will participate in a conference in January before returning to the United States on administrative leave. Peace Corps will review the safety and security climate in Honduras before continuing with volunteer operations.


“The safety and security of all Peace Corps volunteers is the agency’s highest priority,” said Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams. “During this time, we are going to conduct a full review of the program. We thank the people of Honduras for their strong support of Peace Corps over the years.”

But unlike the return of the Peace Corps to Nepal, one can't really tell what's going on if you look up US Embassy Honduras or the Peace Corps Honduras website.  Both are also on Facebook. Ambassador Kubiske herself is on Twitter. But nowhere is the departure of the Peace Corps volunteers mentioned, not even in warden messages to American citizens. Go ahead, take a look:

• http://www.facebook.com/peacecorps?sk=wall
• http://twitter.com/peacecorps
• http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.wherepc.centralamerica&cntry=honduras
• http://twitter.com/USAmbHonduras
• http://www.facebook.com/embajadahonduras
• http://honduras.usembassy.gov/prl12.html
• http://honduras.usembassy.gov/messuscit2012.html

Peace Corps media arm has statements on a Peace Corps volunteer building a new clinic in Cameroon, on the Peace Corps return to Nepal, and PCVs leading 4 spelling bees in Armenia the last week alone, but absolutely nothing on the withdrawal of its volunteers from Honduras.

It's like if you don't mention it, it did not happen ....

According to CBS, on Jan. 24, 2011, a Peace Corps volunteer was robbed and raped near the village of Duyure in southern Honduras. Three men were reportedly found guilty of rape and robbery in that case, according to an employee of the regional court in the southern city of Choluteca who was not authorized to be quoted by name.

An entry in Peace Corps journals indicates that one of the volunteers in Honduras was also shot in an assault on a bus in early December.  After the announcement that Peace Corps was suspending Honduras’ February 2012 training group, a PCV notes:

"It has been two weeks since one of our volunteers here was shot in an assault on a bus, and this is the first e-mail that we have receive that really says anything. After two weeks of all of us volunteers e-mailing, texting, and calling each other talking about how we thought Peace Corps Honduras handled the situation with the injured volunteer, and what we thought was going to come of it all, it is nice to see some action being taken."

As the incident was called "a tragic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time," another PCV reacts:

"Where my problem comes in with all of this, in my opinion, is the fact that Peace Corps is treating this incident as if the volunteer had been in a car accident or something more along those lines - something that was completely out of Peace Corps or Honduras‘s control. But, no, she was on a bus… this is a matter of Honduras being the most dangerous country in the world (that is not currently in a war), but it is as if Peace Corps Honduras doesn’t want to own up to that. In one of the e-mials, admin said “If we learn anything that would result in a need to change policy or travel guidance we will communicate that straight away.” So, as a result of this accident, their response is that they might just need to make another policy change. It seems to me that this is their response to everything - make another rule or policy change that will help to avoid situations like this in the future, but for this particular incident, I don’t think there is really anything that can be done. People have to travel in and out of San Pedro Sula and/or La Esperanza. There is no way to avoid that - we already have been instructed to make sure and not travel at night, especially in and out of San Pedro or Tegus, and this volunteer was certainly not - it was noon on a Sunday.


To make this situation worse, it was brought to volunteers attention the following day that there had actually been two other assaults on the same bus company over that week - but Peace Corps had not informed any volunteers of these incidents.

So statements and photos about the Peace Corps returning to Nepal when the first batch of volunteers are not even getting there until later this year, but nothing on the Peace Corps leaving Honduras when the departure of the 158 volunteers already occurred. Ow...

Related articles

• 158 Peace Corps Volunteers Leave Honduras (abcnews.go.com)
• Peace Corps evacuates Honduras over safety (cbsnews.com)
• Peace Corps cites safety in pullout from Honduras (sfgate.com)
• US Peace Corps to return to Nepal after 7 years (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

US Mission Russia: Ambassador McFaul Makes Online Splash, and About Those 'Personal' Twitter Accounts

Earlier last week, the new US Ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul launched his new twitter account @McFaul -- http://twitter.com/mcfaul.  By Thursday, the US Embassy in Moscow rolled out its introduction video of Ambassador McFaul via YouTube (below).  On Friday, he and his family were in route to Moscow, arriving on Saturday, just in time for his new blog to go live. Jet lag not allowed. Today, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov accepted copies of the ambassador's credentials.  Ambassador McFaul is now officially the second U.S. ambassador to Russia in 30 years who was not a career diplomat.

The 2:14 minute YouTube video cross-posted in Ambassador McFaul's brand new blog at http://m-mcfaul.livejournal.com/ has already garnered 2440 comments. I don't read/speak Russian so I don't know if the comments are favorable or not.

John Brown of John Brown's Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review, Version 2.0 and former CAO at US Embassy in Moscow, has the following via HuffPo:

I've looked at/listened to newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul's recent video presentation to the people of Russia. Based on my Foreign Service experience in Moscow as Cultural Affairs Officer (1998-2001), several aspects of the talk struck me.

First, the negative ones, from the perspective of U.S. public diplomacy with the Russian Federation, and especially its younger generation:
[...]
1. Repeated references to the Soviet Union (including showing a map of that former geographical expression), which collapsed some 20 years ago;

2. The fact that the Ambassador did not speak in Russian (as his predecessor did fluently on YouTube clips), except for a few words at the end of his remarks*;

3. The use of the word "help" (translated as pomogat' in the subtitle) in U.S. dealings with the Russian population. Of all things Russians dislike most about foreigners, it is condescension of any sort on their part;

4. No reference to high Russian culture, except for Tchaikovsky (to which the Ambassador refers in the same breath as he does to Russian hockey); no references, even indirect, to intellectuals who condemned the USSR.

5. Irritating, feel-good background music that could be straight out of a U.S. TV commercial for a penile dysfunction pill.

Positive:

1. Mentioning a new visa agreement that will make it easier for Russians to visit the U.S.;

2. An effort to reach out to the Russian "provinces" by comparing them to the Ambassador's home state of Montana;

3. A "down-to-earth" approach that might appeal to the "muzhik" (regular guy) side in the character of many Russians;

4. Stress on people-to-people exchanges;

5. He did not go on for too long, as do so many Russian politicians.

*However, it is better, in official remarks, for a foreigner to speak in his own language than address Russians in bad Russian, which will quickly turn off his audience. A few words indicating an appreciation of their language, yes; a long delivery full of grammatical and pronunciation errors, no. The Russians, though more tolerant of foreign accents than some other Europeans, are a bit like the French who cringe when they have to endure an American murdering their mother tongue by trying awkwardly to express himself in it, in his effort to show that he "understands" them.

Read in full here: U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul's YouTube Presentation From a Public Diplomacy Perspective. 

More than the irritating background music, I actually got a headache from the speedy photo transitions in this video. It feels like going on a super sprint, in YouTube - makes you feel dizzzzyyy and out of breath. 

In any case, Ambassador McFaul actually speaks fluent Russian (as well as Polish and Portuguese), so he could have done this intro video in Russian; instead it is in English with Russian subtitles which is good since a bunch of folks in D.C. and the WH also do not speak Russian.

Must also note that his new Twitter account is @McFaul, not Ambassador McFaul like @AmbassadorRice (UN) or @AmbassadorRoos  (Japan).  Whether or not he continue as U.S. Ambassador to Moscow in a year or two, he remains @McFaul in the twitterverse. Which is good for him, but not so good for the US Embassy in Moscow, who would have to start from Twitter scratch with a new ambassador in a year or in five years, depending on how 2012 turns out.

The same thing with Ambassador Susan Rice, who has some 115,653 followers, and Ambassador John Roos with 48,152 followers; both are political appointees. The USUN Mission just like the US Embassy in Japan would have to start from zero when these political appointees end their tenure. Given that these offices actually have social media teams handling their online accounts, wouldn't it make mire more sense to use the position not the name as the handle for these accounts?  I can only find one -- @WHAAsstSecty -- formerly used by Arturo Valenzuela and currently used by the Acting Assistant Secretary Roberta Jacobson, which has done that. 

And what do you do with http://twitter.com/AmbStephens now that she is no longer the US ambassador to Seoul? Does it go to a twittermentery?

Anyway, I'm also confused about the "personal" notations on the ambassadors' Twitter accounts. Isn't a U.S. ambassador the personal representative of the President of the United States overseas, and the public face of the U.S. government in his/her host country?  Doesn't it follow that everything he/she says is official?  So then to pretend otherwise is rather silly, isn't it?

   

US Mission Italy: #CostaConcordia Shipwreck (Contact Numbers)

Carnival Cruise's Costa Concordia struck rock off the coast of Isola del Giglio, Italy  at approximately 10:00pm CET.  It sustained significant damage causing the ship to list severely and the order was given to abandon ship and deploy the lifeboats. The cruise ship which had approximately 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members was on a seven-day voyage. News reports currently put the deaths at three with 40 passengers missing.

Some footage here:

The US Embassy in Rome via Twitter https://twitter.com/AmbasciataUSA reports that there were 126 Americans onboard and no crew members based on information from local authorities.

The U.S. Consulate Florence and Embassy Rome are reportedly assisting Americans from Costa Concordia with travel arrangements & documents. We note that the consular section in Florence has two officers and six LE staff. The consular section in Rome is not much bigger with two and a half ELOs, two mid-level supervisors, and the section chief.

Via US Embassy Rome

Rome, January 14, 2012

The United States Embassy in Rome sends its condolences to the families of those passengers of the Costa Concordia cruise ship who died in a shipwreck off the coast of Tuscany early this morning. 

The welfare of American citizens in Italy is the highest priority of the U.S. Embassy in Rome, and the U.S. Embassy in Rome and the U.S. Consulate in Florence are working with local officials and the families of the passengers to provide assistance to Americans affected by the accident.

The U.S. Embassy has established an emergency response team.  Concerned Americans may call +39 06 4674 1 for emergency information.

Based on information provided by local authorities, the US Embassy estimates 130 Americans may have been on board.

As of 5:00 pm local time, there are no reports of serious injuries to American citizens, though we cannot yet account for all Americans believed to have been present on the ship at the time of the accident.

Further information will be posted on Twitter @AmbasciataUSA and Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ambasciatausa

The American Citizens Services Units for Rome and Florence respectively also have email inquiry addresses but I don't know how well these accounts are monitored:

Rome: uscitizensrome@state.gov

Florence: uscitizensflorence@state.gov

The Carnival company has released the following country-specific contact numbers to reach Costa Cruises:

U.S.          800-462-6782
Italy          848505050
Austria     00438109006565
Germany     +4940570121314
France        +33155475554
Spain         +34934875685
Portugal      +34914185951
UK             08453510552

Update 1/16:
The US Embassy in Rome has revised the estimated number of Americans aboard the #Costa #Concordia down to 120, of which 118 have been accounted for. It is also using Twitter for help in locating retired Minnesota couple, Gerald and Barbara Heil believed to be passengers of Costa Concordia and are unaccounted for.   Email any info to ItalyConcordiaUSC@state.gov.

Related articles

• Carnival Corporation & plc Statement Regarding Costa Concordia (prnewswire.com)
• Cruise Ship Captain Questioned by Police (abcnews.go.com)
• Three confirmed dead and thousands evacuated as cruise ship runs aground off coast of Italy (telegraph.co.uk)
• Three dead as luxury cruise ship runs aground off Italian coast (mirror.co.uk)
• US: No reports of Americans injured on cruise ship (sfgate.com)
• The Costa Concordia - in numbers (telegraph.co.uk)

Wild, Wild Web Chat on 21st Century Statecraft - Disinfectant, Control Freaks and Please, No Shots in the Heads

You must know by now that the month of January has been designated as 21st Century Statecraft month at the State Department.  Of course, what is 21st Century Statecraft without the Secretary of State’s most Senior Advisor for Innovation?  On January 10, Alec Ross had a web chat with journalists and bloggers from around the world to discuss 21st Century Statecraft.  Below are some quips that made us take out our highlighter:

On the question, "How do you work with your diplomats who might not be social media savvy?", this is what Mr. Ross had to say:

MR. ROSS: Yeah. So social media intimidates a lot of people that just aren’t used to it. I’m 40 years old, which makes me 12, 15 years older than digital natives, than people who grew up with the internet. I didn’t send or receive a single email when I was at university. I didn’t own my first mobile phone until I was in my late 20s. So I’ve had to learn this just like everybody else has.

What I tell our diplomats is that you don’t have to be a social media expert, but if you are working at our embassies, and certainly if you’re an Ambassador and leading one of our embassies, you don’t have to do it yourself, but you better find somebody in your embassy or on your team who does understand it. And then part of what we’re trying to do as a practical matter is train our diplomats – everybody from the 22 year-olds who are new diplomats, who, to be honest with you, don’t need the training because I’ve yet to meet a 22 year old, at least in the United States, who doesn’t understand social media – to train everybody from our most junior diplomats to our ambassadors.

So I personally train everybody who is a rising Ambassador. We have this thing at the State Department called the Foreign Service Institute. And you literally take classes to be an Ambassador. You go through what’s called an Ambassadorial seminar. And when you are in your Ambassadorial seminar, you get a class from Alec Ross about how to use social media. And what I tell them is you don’t have to use it, but if you don’t, you need to empower somebody at your embassy who does.

And it’s not about talking. This isn’t about pushing out a message. What I tell our ambassadors is remember you only have one mouth, but two ears. So even if you aren’t using these tools to communicate out to people, at a bare minimum, you need to use them to listen to people, because this is how people are talking to you in the 21st century.

Want more? Okay, more from Mr. Ross:

"I believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and as our information networks become more universal and more powerful, there’s more of this sunlight to bring to light what’s happening all around the world."

"The difference in the United States versus other places is that we do this without sacrificing universal rights. So people have freedom of expression. They have the ability to exercise peaceful, political dissent. They have the ability to communicate however they see fit"

"[W]hat social media tends to do, is it redistributes power. It redistributes power from hierarchies to citizens, from large institutions and the nation-state to individuals and networks of individuals."

"The 21st century is a lousy time to be a control freak."

"We can try to control the space, but I’m very skeptical about the degree to which we can or should control the internet. I think that it’s a losing proposition. The far better thing to do is to understand that everybody’s going to have a voice, that good points of view and bad points of view are going to be conveyed there, and what we need to do is be aggressive in getting out there and pushing out the truth."

"What I will say, though, is if hundreds of people at – let’s say hundreds of people at the State Department – if hundreds of people are using social media and one person goes a little bit off message, I don’t think that person should be shot in the head. I think that they should be corrected. But part of the – part of getting people involved in using social media means that you’re giving up a little bit of control."

"The traditional way in which the State Department got its message out was standing behind a podium and our spokesperson communicating the policy of the United States Department of State. We still do that and it’s the right thing to do. But part of what Hillary Clinton has empowered our diplomats to do is to have literally hundreds of other people out there communicating and having conversations, and I think that this is a good thing. Of course we all have to operate and communicate within the parameters of U.S. policy, but one of the things that we know is because of the hyper-transparency that comes with all of this social media, if anybody steps out of it for a minute, we hear about it."

"I think that now that we’ve been doing this for three years, I think that what we can see is that, by and large, our diplomats get this right. By and large, they understand our policies. By and large, they represent us well on social media. So I think we should be doing more of this rather than less."

"At the United States Department of State, we, like the rest of the world, are learning and adapting to a world that’s becoming increasingly disrupted by social media. This disruption can be good, it can be bad, but we live in a world of constant change. And what we’re seeking to do, even though we are historically a pretty conservative organization, part of what our boss, Hillary Clinton, has said is that we’ve got to keep pace, we’ve got to listen, we’ve got to learn, we’ve got to experiment. And so even things like this session today, this LiveAtState session today, I think is very important and very positive. Part of what we want to do is take diplomats like myself sitting here in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. and bring them to countries around the world where you might otherwise not be able to speak with us and ask questions of us."

Oh, Alec, this is wild, just wild! 

Prior to Foggy Bottom, Mr. Ross worked on the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team and served as Convener for Obama for America's Technology, Media & Telecommunications Policy Committee.  He is not a career official.  He says that he personally trains rising ambassadors and the chiefs of mission seminar.  Which makes one wonder how far this flavor stick when the Obama Reelection Campaign comes calling.  Video here in case you need to show this to your boss who just slapped your hands with an imaginary bamboo stick for blogging, tweeting and touching those shiny but pesky 21st century statecraft tools.     

When the harassment and discouragement of State Department bloggers first manifested we had a chance to point out the problems to Mr. Ross. On January 2010 he told this blog, "If I'm given specific names of people doing the "discouraging" then I will take it up with those individuals (or their bosses or their boss' boss) directly."

Which is good to hear at first blush but not the best response or solution to this problem. See, Mr. Ross, whatever his actual employee category is not a career employee of the State Department. He may leave when Secretary Clinton term is up, or may sign up for another term if there is an Obama II. Or he could get recycled out if there is a new tenant in the WH.

So, let's pretend for a moment that I am a State employee with a blog that is getting some flack from my boss in say, the CA bureau. I give Mr. Ross my boss' name.  Mr. Ross may take up my issue with the top honcho of Consular Affairs. If that does not work, he may take it up with the boss of the CA boss, which would be, yes, the Under Secretary for Management, pretty high up the chain.  I imagine that those bosses, whether they agree or not would listen to Secretary Clinton's Senior Advisor for Innovation; that's a given.  So I'll happily blog along, problem solved. Until, of course, Mr. Ross moves on to his next adventure and exits Foggy Bottom.  I, presumably would still continue working for the bureaucracy.  My boss, and his/her boss' boss would  still continue working for the bureaucracy.  And they would remember me as the blogger somebody who rat on them to the 7th floor using the super fast elevator.  Under this scenario, Mr. Ross' solution to "take it up" directly with the bosses is like the career equivalent of taking rat poison.   


     

Related articles

• U.S. State Department Celebrates Social Media (mashable.com)
• State Dept. Official: Governments Can't Fight Social Media (pcworld.com)
• U.S. State Department to interact with public on Twitter (thehindu.com)
• U.S State Department to Take Press Briefing Questions via Twitter (techland.time.com)

 

 

 

 

2011: An FS Roundup of Protests, Disasters, Evacuations and More

US Mission New Zealand: Two Years in Pictures

Our wonderful folks at U.S. Mission New Zealand who went through seven earthquakes in 2011, including the Christchurch Earthquake in February, have put together a collection of photographs to remember the life of the mission in the last two years. 

Here is how Ambassador David Huebner explain it in his blog:

As a general matter, I think it’s important to remind folks of the value and meaning of the work they do, and of how skilled they are at doing it. So, I plowed through my files and selected photos from many of the events in which the Embassy and Consulate General have been involved since I arrived, plus a couple of images from elsewhere to provide context. The slide show below contains all 70 photos in our new hallway exhibition:

U.S. Embassy Wellington - The Past Two Years in Pictures (2009-2011)

View more presentations from U.S. Embassy Wellington, New Zealand

After we got everything up on the walls, I asked my Embassy colleagues to vote for their favorite of the images on display. The “winner” was the photo below of our colleague Mike leaving Christchurch four days after the February 22nd earthquake.

Photo by Josh Greene February25,2011
via US Embassy New Zealand

In Christchurch for the US-NZ Partnership Forum when the quake struck, Mike and seven other staffers camped on the floor of the US Antarctic Program offices at night and forayed into the ruined city by day to search for injured Americans, provide relief services to American citizens, and facilitate the arrival and deployment of urban search and rescue teams from the United States.

It was difficult, emotional, and highly stressful work … with little sleep, limited water, no amenities or toiletries, more than a few unpleasant surprises, and only the clothes on their backs. Snapped by my colleague Josh with his Blackberry as he and the others finally boarded an evacuation flight after their work was done, the photo of Mike powerfully captures the mood of the week.

The second most "favorited" photo is that of the Emperor penguin colony representatives in Antarctica during their first diplomatic encounter with Ambassador Huebner.

Photo by USAF/MarkDoll | December1,2011
via US Embassy New Zealand

Read his post in full here.


Below are three from the 70-photo collection that I particularly like: 1) Ambassador Huebner with Chelsea, the Kiwi; 2) the two men in suits working on the haka, a traditional ancestral war cry/dance of the Māori people; and 3) the half naked Hawaiian dancers with the four U.S. Marines in full uniform.

Independence Day 2011 Hawaiian performers in Wellington
Photo by Ola Thorsen August 4,2011
US Embassy New Zealand

Kudos to US Mission NZ, particularly Mike C., the digital engagement specialist and Ola T., who snaps the photographs, for  their dedication and active management of the embassy's social channels.  The streams are always current and the photos are appropriately labeled. We can't find an excuse to invent our own captions :-)  I have to add that USNZ has a pretty well organized website, too. The only thing that I'd like to see it improve is if a link to Warden Messages is located right on the main page, instead of four clicks deep. (update @10:10 pm-link on the main page now, wow!)

Check out the mission's online presence below:

US Embassy NZ / Samoa
Follow US Embassy NZ / Samoa
Follow Me
View my Profile
Photos
Connect with Wellington / Apia
Watch our Videos & Subscribe
Watch our Videos on Vimeo

Related articles

• 5.3 Earthquake Rattles New Zealand's Capital (foxnews.com)
• Earthquake city! - Christchurch, New Zealand (travelpod.com)
• Coast Guard sends drinking water to South Pacific (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

FS Blogging: An Opportunity, Not a Threat (FSJ Speaking Out)

The December issue of the Foreign Service Journal is out.  FSO, Matt Keene has an excellent piece on Foreign Service blogging -- FS Blogging: An Opportunity, Not a Threat. Mr. Keene, a Foreign Service consular officer since 1999, is currently a special assistant in the Bureau of Human Resources. In addition to overseas assignments in Jerusalem, Dubai and Sofia, he was deputy director of the Office of Maghreb Affairs in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs from 2009 to 2011.

Excerpts below:

[...]
Anyone who has been called on the carpet for blogging — especially those who have been summoned more than once — can tell you that the only consistent aspect of the department’s feedback is inconsistency.

Blogging is encouraged by some elements within the department and is even discussed on the official page, www.careers.state.gov, complete with a substantial set of links to popular Foreign Service-related blogs. Yet even bloggers listed there are sometimes targeted for official harassment by other elements within the department for having a blog in the first place.

One colleague informs me that an A-100 orientation instructor warned his class of new FSOs not to blog — but turned out to be doing so himself. Some individuals have been warned that their careers could be harmed by their or their spouse’s blog — but when they press on this in subsequent meetings, their hair is blown back by the force of the wind generated by the back-pedaling. Others have asked whether it would be better to shut down their blogs entirely, only to be told that they would never be asked to do that. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, after all, is a big supporter of social media.

As usual, the department is about a century behind the times. Its decidedly schizophrenic approach to social media would be comical if it weren’t so serious.
[...]
Official social media outlets serve a purpose — as far as they go. But no one who wants the real skinny on a company goes to its monthly newsletter. Instead, they grab a beer with a few of the employees. Not only is the feedback there more candid, but it covers subjects that are simply inappropriate for official communication.

This is the type of benefit private Foreign Service blogs offer, one that the department itself has done a woefully inadequate job of providing to date: communicating to the American people what it is we actually do and why it matters, thus putting a human face on the diplomatic corps. No wonder Overseas Comparability Pay is so difficult to secure. The average American doesn’t have the first clue of who we are or what we do.

Social media are here to stay, and the generation of officers who have grown up with Twitter, Facebook, Blogger and Wordpress are not going to abandon what they see as a First Amendment right. State should embrace this reality and work robustly and actively to ensure that the Foreign Affairs Manual contains specific, practical guidance to officers on how public speaking and communication regulations apply to private blogs — and spells out what is inappropriate, and why. The current guidance found in the 5 FAM 700 series and its myriad cross-references is neither effectively codified nor well understood.
[...]
Foreign Service bloggers and users of social media should not be left cowering in fear, bewildered as to what might get them into trouble, and made to feel like dissidents. Instead, their creativity should be harnessed, and the adversarial relationship between bloggers and department management should be mended.

Foreign Service blogging isn’t a problem to be managed. It is an opportunity to be seized.

Read in full via AFSA/FSJ, FS Blogging: An Opportunity, Not a Threat (pdf).

Governor #HeBlowsALot Apologizes for Twitter Flap Over in Kansas, USA

Oh, Sam Brownback, one of the Senate's old advocate for human rights in North Korea who decamped to Kansas, USA after the last election is back in the news, and not in a good way.

As the story goes -- Shawnee Mission East senior Emma Sullivan, 18 and apparently newly registered voter went with a group of students to the statehouse for a Youth in Government program.

Must have been exciting, she tweeted:

Oops! Except that it's not even true ... she did not actually said that to the guv, but she did tweet it.

Normally, a tweet like that gets overtaken by well, a whole lot of noise in the twitterverse.

But not this time.  Apparently, Governor Brownback's office monitor social media comments over there in Kansas and saw this tweet. And so the highschooler was reported by the governor's office to Youth in Government officials. When this hit the news, Gov. Brownback’s spokeswoman Sherriene Jones-Sontag then said, “It was important for the organization to be aware of the comments their students were making. It’s also important for students to recognize the power of social media, how lasting it is. It is on the Internet.” She added of Sullivan’s tweet, “That wasn’t respectful. In order to really have a constructive dialogue, there has to be mutual respect.”

Holy molly guacamole .... where or where did this woman learn her public affairs skills, from Vladimir Putin's Russia?

So then, the highschooler was called into the principal's office where Mr. Krawitz, the principal asked her to write a letter of apology to Governor Brownback and his staff. Apparently, Monday was the due date for the letter.

In the meantime,  #heblowsalot started picking up on Twitter.

Somebody even bothered to make a poster here and here.

I imagined it was a rough weekend over there in Kansas.  As if the bad publicity was not enough, there is also a fake Sam Brownback Twitter account. And in the last 24 hours, a Govblowsalot account, specializing in twittermockery was born.

Then Monday came, and the school district, after a weekend of adverse publicity released the following statement:

"District officials have reviewed recent events surrounding the reported tweet by Shawnee Mission East High School student Emma Sullivan.  The district acknowledges a student's right to freedom of speech and expression is constitutionally protected.

"The district has not censored Miss Sullivan nor infringed upon her freedom of speech.  She is not required to write a letter of apology to the Governor.  Whether and to whom any apologies are issued will be left to the individuals involved.

"The issue has resulted in many teachable moments concerning the use of social media.  The district does not intend to take any further action on this matter."

Also on Monday, at 10:46am, Governor Brownback's statement regarding Emma Sullivan's tweet was posted on Facebook:

Topeka – Kansas Governor Sam Brownback issued the following statement today regarding the tweet by Emma Sullivan:

“My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize. Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms.

I enjoyed speaking to the more than 100 students who participated in the Youth in Government Program at the Kansas Capitol. They are our future.

I also want to thank the thousands of Kansas educators who remind us daily of our liberties, as well as the values of civility and decorum.

Again, I apologize for our over-reaction.”

Yep, Emma, you're not in Kansas, Russia. 

As of this writing, Emma Sullivan http://twitter.com/#!/emmakate988 has 11,264 followers, up from 60.

The official Gov. Brownback account http://twitter.com/#!/govsambrownback is holding on to its 3,230 followers.

And the guv's social media monitoring shop just got a heck lot more stuff to monitor.

Related articles

• Gov. Brownback Apologizes For Reaction To Emma Sullivan's Tweet (forbes.com)
• Brownback Apologizes For '#heblowsalot' Incident: 'My Staff Over-Reacted' (thinkprogress.org)
• When Reputation Monitoring Backfires (forbes.com)

Secretary Clinton's "Hawaiian Surprise" in Photo-Op

This video was posted by the State Department's EAP Media Hub:

Hillary Clinton's Hawaiian Surprise! (with exclamation point in original posting)

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gets a surprise when a scantily-clad Hawaiian performer with a flaming torch runs through her photo op with Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權). Honolulu, Nov. 12, 2011."

The EAP Media Hub made it sound from the above description as if the "scantily-clad Hawaiian performer" streaked through Secretary Clinton's photo op. In fact, some media outlets call the runner, a streaker.

Um, you don't really think this is some random performer who just runs around with a fire stick, do you?

Have you ever heard of the Hawaiian torch lighting ceremony? Traditionally, a Hawaiian native runs on the beach with a lighted torch at dusk and lights each tiki along the way. It's part of the Hawaiian cultural tradition. See this one, also "scantily-clad," thank goodness he's not wearing a suit!

Photos of other torch lighters here, here and here. Folks, they're supposed to be dressed like that, really.

Related articles

• Hillary Clinton Photo Op Interrupted By Streaking, Torch-Carrying Hawaiian (thehollywoodgossip.com)
• Diplomatic Photobomb of the Day (thedailywh.at)
• Hillary Clinton Gets Photo-Bombed! (perezhilton.com)
• Hillary Clinton Gets A 'Hawai'i Surprise' (businessinsider.com)

Photo of the Day: If this is over $50, I'll have to file a gift report

The photo below is from the photostream of the U.S. Embassy Kabul in Flickr. I don't know how many folks have their hands on the embassy's social media platforms. But for a while now, the photos uploaded to Flickr either have no captions or includes one caption for all the photos in the set. Which kind of defeats the purpose of having a photo gallery up, because viewers need to have some context on what they're looking at. 

The photo below, as well as all the 67 photos included in the set has the following caption:

The Acting Minister of Higher Education Sarwar Danish, together with NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy Kolinda Grabar and U.S. Embassy Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy Eileen O'Connor, joined university chancellors and others at the Ministry of Higher Education in Kabul to celebrate the progress of the PAS-funded NATO SILK Afghanistan Program on Tuesday, Oct 11, 2011.(Department of State)

It does not matter that NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy Kolinda Grabar is not in this photo. You get the idea; these folks were all there according to the caption.  During a big do on Silk Afghanistan.  I have no idea if this is a dressmaker's program or a silkworm propagation program either, hard to know without context, see?  The Silk Road? I really don't know.  Some 68 photos of smiling people but no photos of silk dressmakers or silkworm, or the Silk Road, for that matter, which is rather confusing to tell you the truth. 

The photo above shows the U.S. Embassy Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy Eileen O'Connor receiving a gift. I imagine she's saying, "Thank you very much for this gift; if this is over $50, I'll have to file a gift report."

Of course, that's probably not what she said to the gifter, but without context, we're left to our own imagination.

US Embassy Thailand Braces for More Flooding In Central Bangkok

According to the US Ambassador to Thailand, Kristie Kenney, widespread flooding has now affected many of Thailand’s 76 provinces. More than 250 people have died and nearly 3 million people are affected. The Consulate in Chiang Mai was closed for several days last week also due to flooding.

The BBC reports that Thai military and civilian volunteers are continuing their efforts to try and stop Thailand's worst floods in decades from inundating the capital, Bangkok:

Canals have been drained to allow for excessive water flow and sandbags have been piled up around the city.

Officials say the next few days are critical as high tides and bad weather combine with the arrival of run-off water from northern Thailand.

North and central provinces have until now borne the brunt of the floods.

The United States has so far contributed 3 million baht to the Thai Red Cross for relief supplies. Through the US Embassy, it has also linked up Thai officials with US disaster management officials. And the US Marines sent a team of humanitarian experts to assess next steps in US assistance and brought thousands of sandbags for use by the Thai Government. USAID in the meantime, also has civilian disaster relief experts in Thailand to work with civilian authorities and NGOs on disaster assistance.

Ambassador Kenney greets U.S. Marines at Don Muang Airport.
The U.S. Marines are part of a Humanitarian Assistance Survey Team (HAST)
to determine how the U.S. might best provide assistance to
the people of Thailand with the current flooding
Photo from US Embassy Bangkok/FB

Aerial photo of flooded areas north of Bangkok.
Photo from US Embassy Bangkok/FB
More photos here

But more rain is reportedly expected with peak floods expected in central Bangkok between October 16-18. The US Embassy's American Citizen Services Unit has released the following message: 

The Bangkok Metropolitan area has experienced localized flooding in northern and eastern areas and most reports indicate that the flooding risk for the Bangkok area will peak between October 16 -18.  As a purely precautionary measure, U.S. citizens assigned to the Embassy who live approximately 12 kilometers north of central Bangkok in Nichida Thani have the option of relocating for a few days to central Bangkok until the anticipated peak flood period subsides, should they wish to do so.  Extensive flooding in Thailand, especially in Central Thailand between Bangkok and Sukhotai, has caused considerable damage and loss of life.  In many flooded areas, surface transportation has either been suspended or diverted around those areas.  Portions of highways are closed and bus and train services linking Bangkok with points to the north are suspended.

Read in full here.

ACS Bangkok is also on Twitter. Follow them here: http://twitter.com/#!/ACSBKK

Check out the embassy's flood information here:
http://bangkok.usembassy.gov/flood_information.html
http://www.facebook.com/usembassybkk?sk=app_139229522811253

More photos of the flooding can be viewed here; photos are in FB so I cannot embed them here.

Related articles

• Will Bangkok Floodwalls Hold? (abcnews.go.com)
• VIDEO: Bangkok bolsters flood defences (bbc.co.uk)
• Bangkok braces but safe so far from floods (msnbc.msn.com)
• Floods Recede North of Thailand's Capital (time.com)
• Thailand Protects Bangkok From Flooding, 10 Provinces 'Critical' (businessweek.com)
• US Marines arrive to assess Thailand's 'worst' flood (msnbc.msn.com)

US Embassy Kabul Returns to Regular Social Media Programming ....

Last week, I wrote about US Embassy Kabul's Facebook Diplomacy in Need of Search and Rescue.  Apparently, the day before I posted that entry, the embassy's Flickr account was magically resuscitated. Magical because it was not there when I posted but it is there now. Teh-heh! In any case, the embassy's photostream is on again and we're now seeing more than the Afghans enjoying the night entries in its Facebook page.

Below is CODEL Levin in Afghanistan on August 21, 2011:

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker hosts a dinner for U.S. Senators Carl Levin (D-MI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), General John Allen, Commander, ISAF, Mohammad Massoom Stanekzai, Secretary of the High Peace Council and Minister of Finance Omar Zakhilwal at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan on Sunday, August 21, 2011.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
Photos from US Embassy Kabul/Flickr

It also has Ambassador Crocker's visit to Herat here, and USAID Director Rajiv Shah's visit to Kajaki Dam here.  Enjoy!

Related articles

• Cdn diplomats in Kabul had plenty of booze: documents (ctv.ca)
• Two explosions rock British Council in Kabul (cnn.com)
• Kabul: a city of suicide bombs and terrorist spectaculars (telegraph.co.uk)
• US embassy in Kabul takes on new threat: stray cats (telegraph.co.uk)
• Documents show Canadian diplomats kept Kabul embassy bar well stocked (theglobeandmail.com)

 

 

 

US Embassy Kabul: Facebook Diplomacy Strategery in Need of Search and Rescue

I don't know if Ambassador Eikenberry included his social media adviser in his HHE when he packed out from the US Embassy in Kabul. See, ever since he left post, the embassy's social media outreach in Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube has not been the same at all.

The embassy's YouTube channel was never much to begin with. The most recent one posted five days ago was a 1.17 min video of  the U.S. Embassy in Kabul hosting an iftar in honor of Ramazan. But it only has three videos online. So I can't grouse too much about that.

It's Flickr page which used to have quite up-to-date postings has not been updated since August 13. One of the two photos posted on that date is of the "surrounding area at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan on Monday, February 7, 2011." LOL!

The other photo is an aerial view of "Parwan Province, Afghanistan, on Wednesday, June 15, 2011." Those barely visible blue thingies on the ground are called trucks.

It's Twitter page? I'm not sure you really need to clutter your follow option because even when there is breaking news and updates, http://twitter.com/#!/USEmbassyKabul is not/not on it.  See this one below sent to us by one of our tipsters, S in Kabul:

But the changes in US Embassy's Facebook diplomacy strategery is nowhere more apparent than in Facebook, of course.

Much of the previous postings in its Facebook page were mission activities documented in photos posted in Flickr. But since the arrival of Ambassador Crocker, the photostream seems to have significantly dried up.  The embassy's Facebook page is now posting more virtual tours of some of the 50 states of the United States. There also seems to be more happy talk posted about the reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.

One post about local residents enjoying the nightlife, except the accompanying photo was taken in broad daylight.

In coordination with Uruzgan’s provincial governor and the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Tirin Kot, USAID funded the installation of 20 solar-powered street-lights in Tirin Kot. The lights were installed by Zularistan Ltd., an Afghan company, who also trained two local men selected by the mayor in how to operate and maintain them.
[...]
Local residents, shopkeepers, and security forces have all expressed their delight with the streetlights and say they have made them feel much safer. One community elder, Haji Abdul Raziq, whose home is located near one of the streetlights, said, “We are very happy about these kinds of projects. We used to be afraid at night because of the complete darkness. We hope such projects will be implemented in other parts of our province. Thanks a lot for supporting us.”

Another post about local residents enjoying the night, accompanying photo below also taken in broad daylight. Perhaps, Ambassador Eikenberry also packed out in his HHE the embassy's night photographer?

The remote district of Jani Kheyl in Paktika Province is home to approximately 35,000 people belonging mainly to the Molalzai, Jani Kheyl, and Malzai tribes. The Jani Kheyl bazaar, located in the district center, serves more than 500 people per day and includes four mosques, two schools, and approximately 215 shops. It has no connection to an electric grid.
[...]
Now that the new streetlights have been installed, the mood in the bazaar is much more positive. The new lights help the police patrol the area so that people feel safer and are staying out later at night, all of which has been a boon to business.
[...]
Khan Mohammad, a resident of Jani Kheyl bazaar, added: “Now everyone knows that the lights come on at night and they’re spending more time outside till late in the evening. The street-lights have helped the police a lot in patrolling the bazaar. They make the roads look nice too!”

Two is not a trend, of course, but we'll be watching how many more "Afghans enjoying the night" posts the embassy is able to come up with for our reading/viewing pleasure.

A couple of things that are particularly disturbing -- postings cited above were on the same week when the Brits suffered an attack of its British Council right in Kabul; there was no mention of that in FB. Not even a note of sympathy. I say disturbing because it's like the embassy is in a different universe; things are falling apart except inside the diplomatic compound.

In any case, the happy notes on the embassy's reconstruction efforts are written in English, not in Dari or Pashto.  So I'm also wondering which segment of the online population is the embassy trying to influence with these notes? Certainly not the Afghans!

Then there is this one post on Afghan women topping the judges class:

As a result of war and government instability, judicial training has been sporadic and largely inaccessible to women, with only 26 classes graduating over the 43-year history of the country’s Judicial Stage program. With USAID assistance, in May 2011, 140 students graduated from the Supreme Court’s Judicial Stage program, qualifying them to work as judges in courts throughout Afghanistan. As a whole, the 24 women in this year’s graduating class performed exceptionally well, taking nine of the top ten class positions.

One of its FB fans had the temerity to question the posting:

"So if 8% of the judges are female, where will these graduates of the Stage program go? Are there jobs for them in Afghanistan, or is this a program, that, with all of its good intentions, does not have the capacity to support actual judicial appointments upon graduation?"

 
So far no response from the embassy and it does not look like there is anyone there actually doing the engaging online besides the technical "engage," the Captain Picard kind.. 

I'm not sure how many more Afghans enjoying the night posts I can tolerate before I unfriend the embassy.  Of course, this could all be part of its new strategery of online "engagement" ...

And who knows what happened to the embassy's social media driver. What is clear is that Embassy Kabul needs to mount a search and rescue for its Facebook diplomacy. 

Related articles

• Maybe It's a Different Kabul? (findingmytribe.wordpress.com) (entry now deleted)
• Four Dead In Twin Suicide Bombing In Kabul (cbsnews.com)
• Twin explosions rock British council compound in Kabul (guardian.co.uk)
• Kabul: a city of suicide bombs and terrorist spectaculars (telegraph.co.uk)