Events

In Iraq, "Salam Shabab" is the very first peacebuilding television program depicting the real life story of Iraqi youth. The series showcases not only a population that is often marginalized, but also the powerful desire and capacity of Iraqi youth to bring peace to their communities. The afternoon featured an exclusive screening of one episode from Season 1 of Salam Shabab, which aired in full on Iraq on Al Iraqiya and throughout the region on Space Power. A Q&A session with the show's producers followed the screening. USIP then welcomed a panel of dynamic young cultural leaders and activists from across the Middle East to discuss the role of youth in peacebuilding in the region. The evening concluded with a live performance by Iraqi pop band UTN1.

The U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern California has produced a new documentary film, Assignment: China – The Week that Changed the World. Written and narrated by Mike Chinoy, formerly CNN’s senior Asia correspondent and Beijing bureau chief, the film uses previously unreleased footage and interviews with the reporters and officials who accompanied President Richard Nixon to tell the behind-the-scenes story of the media coverage of the trip that changed the course of U.S.-China relations. The United States Institute of Peace and the State Department’s East Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau hosted a screening of Assignment: China, followed by a conversation featuring some of those who traveled to China with Nixon.

The arts, media and culture offer peacebuilders a unique set of tools for transforming conflict, ranging from a variety of live theatre performances and the reinvention of cultural traditions to televised episodic drama. What are the implications of these trends on the field of peacebuilding in general? Where are these tools the most appropriate and how can peacebuilders better engage the arts, media and culture to our advantage?

This Blogs & Bullets meeting brought together the companies that sift through and sell this data with the activists that create it and the policy-makers who use it. The event looked at the cutting-edge of technologies for analysis with experts from around the world in an effort to expand our ability to harness these new platforms for conflict management and peacebuilding. 

Somalia's Transitional Federal Government is struggling to assert its authority in a country plagued by lawlessness and a ruthless insurgency waged by a rebel group affiliated with al Qaeda. Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed is a Somali American who is serving as prime minister of the Transitional Federal Government. In a presentation at the U.S. Institute of Peace he described the steps his government is taking to stabilize Somalia.