The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) announced today that 64 journalists were killed around the world with the most dangerous region being the middle east. Ten journalists were killed in Pakistan for the second year in the row making it the deadliest country for journalists.

The uprisings in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen cost the lives of 16 journalists, while Iraq remains dangerous with six journalists killed last year.

Mexico is the most dangerous country in the Western hemisphere with six deaths reported in the country due to the coverage of organized crime and corruption.

The deaths are down from previous years with the high being in 2006 where 110 journalists were killed. The full list of deaths from last year and those prior can be found on the WAN-IFRA Web site.

While journalists are killed in war zones, a lot of them are killed for merely investigated organized crime, drug trafficking, corruption and other crimes. Those who kill journalists are rarely brought to justice.

Journalists were killed in 27 countries in 2011. A lot of the countries are located in the Middle East, but a few of them are surprising such as Russia or Brazil.

The International Press Institute released their own numbers saying that the death count was at 103. They list Latin America as the most dangerous country for journalists.

The Committee to Protect Journalists released their own numbers in December pegging the death toll at 43.

Regardless of who has the right numbers, the point still stands. The Middle East and Latin America were both dangerous for journalists in 2011.

People took to Twitter to comment on the news while focusing mostly on the deaths in the Middle East.

The blackout came over the weekend after the president of Kazakhstan declared a state of emergency after the death of at least 10 people in a clash Friday involving police and protesters. TechieInsider describes the mayhem:

The Kazakhstan government has shut down cell towers and Internet access in the oil city of Zhanaozen as the president decreed a state of emergency after riots erupted in the southwest part of the country. The state of emergency allows authorities to issue a curfew, blackout radio, tv and other communications, which are said to have been down since Friday. A group of hackers is working hard to keep Internet connections open to citizens in areas that have been affected by the blackout.

Reuters has been following the unrest reporting on Friday that fired oil workers and protesters clashed with police during a Kazakh independence day celebration, which resulted in at least 12 deaths after police opened fire. Protests have now spread to other parts of the country including the nation’s capital.

Human Rights Watch has demanded that the Kazakh authorities “immediately restore communications with Zhanaozen and ensure an investigation into clashes there between police and civilians is independent.”

Meanwhile, according to activepolitic.com, hacktivist group telecomix has provided instructions for setting up a dial-up network so that people inside of Zhanaozen will at least have some Internet access, however limited it may be.

Given that this tactic of shutting off all communication has had a success rate of 0% so far, Kazakhstan’s authorities should probably use this thing called “the Internet” and do a little research before going on communications blackout like this. These sorts of things tend to piss people way off. Just ask Mubarak how well that ended for him.

The speech will stream live at whitehouse.gove\live, and after it’s completed Twitter users will be given a chance to participate and even shape the discussion that follows.

Here’s the form the discussion will take:

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes will be interviewed by Andy Carvin from NPR and Marc Lynch from Foreign Policy. Instead of formulating all the question themselves, they are inviting the Twitterverse to help craft the queries. From the NPR News blog:

If you’re on Twitter and want to submit a question, please post a tweet with your question and include the hashtag #MEspeech in the tweet. You can pose your question before or during the speech. We won’t be able to get to every question, of course, so we encourage everyone to follow the #MEspeech hashtag and join the broader conversation about the speech on Twitter.

Apparently, the White House themselves played a role in getting this live Twitter-chat off the ground:

The White House contacted Marc and me several days ago, asking if we would be interested in conducting a Twitter chat related to the speech. We agreed on the condition that the two of us would run the chat and any subsequent interviews ourselves, including choosing the questions and topics to be addressed in it.

The hashtag #MEspeech is already generating some tough questions on Twitter, as you can see:

It looks like the White House is truly trying to involve the world of social media in the debate. Policy debate via Twitter is just the beginning of the enormous role Social media is going to play in the upcoming 2012 elections. The White House is already integrating, and Republican contenders are going to have to do the same.

Sometimes things come in threes, but undersea cables being cut by anchors usually don’t. In this case, the cables – two in the Mediterranean, and one in the Persian Gulf –were cut in separate bodies of water, just days apart, supposedly by two different anchors. Three underwater cables in three days.

Or…an anchor from the same boat and the captain doesn’t know how to read his Internet cable map?

Stranger things have happened. But if there’s a fourth cable cut in the Indian Ocean we’re calling shenanigans. By whom?

Our best guess: terrorist sharks.

Dubai is in the same boat, so to speak, as Egypt, India, and much of the Middle East – no or slow Internet connections for some, but for most life moves on because of backup reroutes.

Stupid terrorist sharks.
 

Bush leaves today to visit Israel, the Palestinian territories, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman, said senior staff including Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Counselor to the President Ed Gillespie and Perino would post periodic updates on whitehouse.gov in a blog called "Trip Notes from the Middle East."

"This is new to us," Perino said at a press briefing. "We encourage you to log on and to check back often to read some of the updates that the staff will be posting throughout the trip. So it will be just a little bit of a blog."

Perino made the first post today, which includes Bush’s schedule, goals, background and introductory comments. Perino writes," This trip will reflect the President’s commitment to the Middle East region and his belief that the future of the region has a direct impact on the security of America."