Global Briefing, April 11, 2011: Muslim Cowboys, Twitter Stars and Clean Sweeps

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One Month On —Four weeks after disaster hit Japan’s northeast coast, the crisis continues and questions mount, reports Krista Mahr; In an essay for TIME, Hannah Beech reflects on the tug-of-war between the country’s technological heart and its natural soul.

Prisoners of Conscience — In the New Yorker, Henrik Hertzberg rebukes the Obama administration for its handling of Guantánamo Bay. “This relative handful of shackled, isolated prisoners has somehow been permitted to engender a miasma of popular fear and political cowardice,” he writes.

Meet the PressColumbia Journalism Review interviews Andy Carvin, the NPR digital strategist whose Twitter feed has become a ‘must-read’ for international news. Carvin is “breaking ground in curation and crowdsourced verification,” writes Craig Silverman, while “encountering new ethical conundrums that must be managed, as with everything else, in real-time.”

Clean Sweeps — “Nigeria’s parliamentary election was perhaps the cleanest in its history,” tweets Geoffry York of the Globe and Mail. “But that’s not saying much.” His full report, here.

Ambassadors Mother Jones profiles Kareem Salama, an Oklahoma-born, Muslim country singer who became part of America’s diplomatic efforts in the Middle East. Watch his his video for ‘Generous Peace,’ here.

Border Wars — In an interview with the Guardian Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, discusses how the war in Afghanistan has affected his country.

Let’s Talk — Is negotiating with Gaddafi the only way out of Libya? asks Aryn Baker in a dispatch from Tripoli.

In Pictures — Light Box features the work of TIME contract photographer Christopher Morris, who is on assignment in Libya documenting the Gaddafi regime’s attempts to stage-manage the theater of war.