"Halliburton's KBR engineering and services unit has launched a strike against the documentary, 'Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers,' that filmmaker Robert Greenwald plans to release nationally during 'Patriotism over Profit Screening Week' set for Oct. 8-14," reports O'Dwyer's. A Halliburton statement called the movie, which accuses it of ripping off U.S. taxpayers, "nothing more than a theory in search of a conspiracy." The defense contractor also slammed Greenwald for not including information that it had provided him, "because the facts did not support their thesis for the film." Greenwald did request interviews with Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar several times. Cathy Mann, Halliburton's director of communications, did not respond to any of the requests. O'Dwyer's "emailed Mann, asking why she did not respond. ... She referred [O'Dwyer's] to Halliburton's statement." The Greenwald movie does include an interview with an ex-KBR procurement manager, who said, "I wouldn't run a local lawn service on the business practices that Halliburton has."

The U.S. State Department, which has been widely criticized for ineffectual public diplomacy, recently announced its new "Global Cultural Initiative." It's a joint effort "to educate Americans and participating nations about other cultures," reports PR Week. U.S. PR czar Karen Hughes explained, "Public diplomacy isn't just the work of government. ... Every American who travels abroad or welcomes a foreign visitor can be an ambassador for America." As part of the initiative, the Kennedy Center will send U.S. performance artists overseas, including to Pakistan. The American Film Institute will showcase U.S. and foreign filmmakers at festivals. The National Endowment for the Arts will organize literary exchanges between the U.S. and Pakistan, Russia and other countries. The National Endowment for the Humanities will recruit foreign teachers for U.S. seminars. The State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which leads the new initiative, has seen its budget triple since 2001, to $4.5 million for 2006.

Khongkran reporting (image via AP)

Thawinan Khongkran, a former beauty queen and public relations staffer at an army-owned television station, is the new spokesperson for the military officials who took power in Thailand recently. "I consider it an honor," she told AP. The move is part of a campaign by the junta to "soften its image," in response to international and domestic criticism of its restrictions of basic rights. The junta is also "assigning female troops to help keep the peace in Bangkok and telling its soldiers to smile." Activist Ji Ungpakorn countered, "The real issue is not having basic freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press. ... They can parade a hundred beauty queens but without those freedoms, we don't have anything." The Washington Post reports that the junta's international outreach includes "special English-language briefings for foreign media," inviting diplomats to "briefings with question-and-answer sessions," and assuring foreign investors of its "commitment to a free-market economy."

"Under a broad new set of laws criminalizing speech that ridicules the government or its officials, some resurrected verbatim from Saddam Hussein's penal code, roughly a dozen Iraqi journalists have been charged with offending public officials in the past year," reports Paul von Zielbauer. "Three journalists for a small newspaper in southeastern Iraq are being tried ... for articles last year that accused a provincial governor, local judges and police officials of corruption. ... On Sept. 7, the police sealed the offices of Al Arabiya, a Dubai-based satellite news channel, for what the government said was inflammatory reporting. And the Committee to Protect Journalists says that at least three Iraqi journalists have served time in prison for writing articles deemed criminally offensive. ... In May, a court in ... Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, sentenced two journalists ... to six-month suspended jail terms for an article claiming that a Kurdish official had two telephone company employees fired after they cut his phone service for failing to pay his bill."