As part of the UN General Assembly-mandated Special Information Programme on the Question of Palestine, the UN Department of Public Information works in cooperation with a Member State each year to organize the International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East.

The 2014 seminar is co-hosted with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Sophia University. This is the second time for Japan to host the seminar since 2007. The event was held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2012, and in Istanbul, Turkey in 2013.The seminar will bring together approximately 100 participants from the Middle East and other parts of the world, including government officials, senior UN officials, academics, representatives of civil society, and journalists.

The two-day event will be opened by Mr. Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information and Coordinator for Multilingualism at the UN; representative of Government of Japan; Professor Takashi Hayashita, the President of Sophia University; Dr. David M. Malone, Rector, UN University, Tokyo; and senior official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Registration starts at 08:30 a.m. on Monday, 9 June. The opening session will start at 09:30 a.m. The seminar runs for two days, Monday and Tuesday, 9 and 10 June.

 

There will be expert presentations and panel discussions on the following subjects: 

DAY ONE – Monday, 9 June 2014, 9:30 – 18:15

Panel One: The status of peace efforts – what now?

Panel Two: Shifting narratives in media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Middle East peace efforts

Panel Three: Coverage and narratives surrounding Palestinian refugees – turning the spotlight on Yarmouk

 

DAY TWO – Tuesday, 10 June 2014, 9:30 – 13:00

Panel Four: Japanese media coverage of the Middle East, including how the Japanese media covers its Government’s support for Palestine

Panel Five: New tools for the media in covering the Middle East – Infographics: merging journalism with design

 

All sessions are open to the media.

For more information, please access: http://un-mediaseminar.tumblr.com/

 

Date: – Monday, 9 June  *Registration will start at 08:30.

             Sessions in the morning: 09:30 – 13:30/ Sessions in the afternoon: 15:00-18:15

           – Tuesday, 10 June  Sessions: 09:30-13:00

Venue: Sophia University / Yotsuya Campus, Conference Hall, 17^th floor of Bldg.No.2

             Address: 7-1 Kioicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

             Access map: http://www.sophia.ac.jp/eng/info/access/directions/access_yotsuya

             Campus map: http://www.sophia.ac.jp/eng/info/access/map/map_yotsuya

Organized by: UN Department of Public Information (DPI)

Co-hosts: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Sophia University

Language: Japanese & English  *Simultaneous interpretation will be provided.

Entry fee: free

Registration: Please register at http://bit.ly/1nqfTuN  by Tuesday 3 June.  Please inform us of your name, affiliation, total number of participants and contact information including phone number and e-mail address, as well as the date(s) you would like to participate.

 *We will contact you only when the requests for application exceed the capacity of the seats. Admission ticket will not be issued.

Inquiries: Ms. Yasuko Senoo, Information Officer, UNIC Tokyo

                (E-mail: unic.tokyo@unic.org  Tel: +81-3-5467-4451)

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