Google launched on Thursday a service that lets people create their own webpages hosted by the internet giant. Google Page Creator, which is in beta, has sample layouts and lets people type in content, upload images and publish their pages, without knowing HTML. People can create multiple linked pages and are allowed 100MB of storage on the service. The free service requires a Gmail account and supports either internet Explorer 6.0 or Firefox 1.0, or higher. With Page Creator, the company has drawn a distinction between websites and webpages, saying that a page is a ’single document with its own web address,’ whereas a site is a ‘collection of pages with a common subdomain,’ or the ‘xxxxxxx.com’ portion of the URL. ‘During this initial testing period,’ Google said, people can create only pages, not sites. Google already owns Blogger, a company that enables people to create blogs. The company also recently launched a service offering hosted e-mail accounts with an individual’s chosen domain, instead of Gmail. (CNet News,February 24, 2006)
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Reporters Without Borders notes the release of arts critic, Yu Dongyue, imprisoned after the June 1989 student demonstrations, who has left jail a broken man, driven mad after being tortured and held for long periods in solitary confinement. And in an act which the press freedom organisation described as ‘the last word in cynicism’ the authorities have just re-arrested his former student companion, Yu Zhijian, for ’subversion’. Yu Dongyue, now 38, left prison in Hunan southern China on 22 February. Yu has very serious mental problems after spending at least six months in a cell measuring less than 3 metres square, followed by two years in solitary confinement. He was regularly tortured. Journalist and art critic on Liuyang News, Yu was sentenced to 20 years in prison and five years loss of political rights on 11 July 1989 on charges of ’sabotage’ and ‘counter-revolutionary propaganda’. The authorities were also displeased by his articles in support of free expression and for his avant-garde opinions on artistic matters. His two friends, Lu Decheng and Yu Zhijian, who were with him on 23 May 1989, had already been freed earlier. But Yu Zhijian has just been rearrested for taking part in a rotating hunger strike in support of a human rights lawyer being threatened by the government. (Reporters Without Borders,February 24, 2006)
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The Bush administration said that journalists can be prosecuted under current espionage laws for receiving and publishing classified information but that such a step “would raise legitimate and serious issues and would not be undertaken lightly,” according to a court filing made public this week.
“There plainly is no exemption in the statutes for the press, let alone lobbyists like the defendants,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in response to a motion filed last month seeking to dismiss charges against Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Last August, the two men were accused of receiving classified information during conversations they had with government officials, one of whom warned Weissman that “the information he was about to receive was highly classified ‘Agency stuff,’ ” according to the government’s indictment. That official was Lawrence A. Franklin, who worked at the Pentagon. He recently pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act.
Source: Walter Pincus, The Washington Post
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The Council of Europe is seeking opinions from journalists and other citizens on the topic of freedom of expression in times of crisis. The body?s Media Division has posted a series of questions online in an effort to get input from anyone interested in the issue. The Media Division has published a report on ‘international standards of freedom of expression and information in times of crisis.’ The division is now seeking public feedback on the report and issues related to that theme. For example, it is welcoming any proposals or ideas on how to guarantee that freedom of expression is protected during crises that could include international or inter-ethnic conflict. The report and questions are available at http://www.coe.int/T/E/human_rights/media/Links/Events/MCSICPublicConsult_en.asp
(International Journalists Network,February 22, 2006)
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A joint Spanish-Turkish initiative backed by the United Nations is being mentioned as a possible forum for restoring calm between Europe and the Islamic world following the Mohammed cartoon debacle originally triggered by a Danish newspaper. This is the Alliance for Civilization, first mentioned in the context of the cartoon crisis by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan last week. The idea was further taken up Thursday at a European Union meeting in Vienna in which Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik brought together two senior Danish officials and three leading Muslim representatives to discuss ways of reducing the current wave of anti-European tension. At present, Austria holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. The Alliance’s ‘high level group’ - its 20-member multinational working body - is due to meet in Doha, capital of the Gulf state of Qatar, later this month. Its mandate is to hold four meetings and then recommend a series of specific initiatives by the end of 2006 under the title ‘Agenda for Peace’. The group’s report will cover four main areas - education, academia, media, and the internet. The Vienna meeting also referred to a planned conference of European Imams in Vienna in April, and a seminar on ‘Xenophobia and Racism in the Media’ in May also in the Austrian capital. (UPI,February 20, 2006)
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The US is losing the propaganda war against al-Qaeda and other enemies, US defence chief Donald Rumsfeld has said. It must modernise its methods to win the minds of Muslims in the ‘war on terror’, as ‘enemies had skilfully adapted’ to the media age, he said. Washington and the army must respond faster to events and learn to exploit the internet and satellite TV, he said. Correspondents say that in recent months victory in the battle for public opinion has become a new front for the Bush administration. In a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations, Rumsfeld said some of the US’ most critical battles were now in the ‘newsrooms’. Rumsfeld said al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists were bombarding Muslims with negative images of the West, which had poisoned the public view of the US. The US must fight back by operating a more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine, or risk a ‘dangerous deficiency,’ he said. Government communications planning must be ‘a central component of every aspect of this struggle’, he added. ‘The longer it takes to put a strategic communications framework into place, the more we can be certain that the vacuum will be filled by the enemy.’ (BBC News,February 20, 2006)
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An Israeli cartoonist is organising a cartoon competition inviting Jews all over the world to lampoon themselves to ridicule a rival Iranian contest intended to belittle the Nazi Holocaust. ‘Our response to violence, bad taste and mediocrity is self-derision and black humour,’ said independent cartoonist Amitai Sandarovich, who is organising the competition that opened on Tuesday. ‘I believe Jews are best placed to laugh at themselves,’ he said, adding: ‘No Iranian can compete with us on that.’ The competition, for Jewish entrants only, remains open until March 3 on the Internet site www.boomka.org. The best entries will be exhibited in Tel Aviv and awarded prizes. Early submissions have already been applauded by avid fans who are ‘proud to belong to a people for whom humor is always a haven’, Sandarovich says . One entry shows Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with the 10 commandments. ‘Eleventh commandment: control the international media,’ says the caption. (Middle East Times,February 17, 2006)
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The news agency of the Islamic republic (IRNA) will benefit from an additional one million euros in the budget of the next Iranian year, starting on 20 March, to ‘combat propaganda strategies of foreign powers’ and halt the ‘cultural invasion of the West,’ reported Iran’s news agency Fars, which is very close to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ‘This fund should serve the purpose of strengthening Irna’s presence abroad and boost the ability of the state agency in the circulation of Iran’s position on national and international issues,’ said a statement published by Fars. Under the president’s budget bill, now before parliament, the state broadcasting monopoly and the Institute for Islamic Propagation, whose activities include the publishing of books and propaganda abroad, will also benefit from budget rises of 46 per cent and 96 per cent respectively. (AKI News,February 17, 2006)
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Russia clamps down on religious insults
After the recent Muslim caricature controversy, Russian media organisations have been ordered not to publish anything that could be construed as offensive to any religion or risk losing their licences. Russia’s media and culture watchdog, The Federal Service for the Oversight of Legislation in Mass Communications and the Protection of Cultural Heritage, has pledged to take a tough line against any organisation accused of ‘insulting religious feelings’. A spokesman said: ‘Measures envisaged in Russian legislation, including the cancellation of registration, will be taken if any Russian media issue materials insulting religious feelings.’ Today’s announcement was followed by the launch of an investigation by the Russian Prosecutor General’s office into a Volgograd newspaper that recently published a religious cartoon. The cartoon, which appeared in Gorodskiye Izvestia, depicted Jesus Christ, the prophet Muhammad, Moses and Buddha watching TV pictures of two groups of people preparing for a fight. The caption under read: ‘We did not teach them to do that…’ The paper’s editor, Tatyana Kaminskaya, objected to the investigation and said the cartoon was designed as a protest against religious and inter-ethnic intolerance. (Media Guardian,February 16, 2006)
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The Bush administration made an emergency request to Congress yesterday for a seven-fold increase in funding to mount the biggest ever propaganda campaign against the Tehran government, in a further sign of the worsening crisis between Iran and the west. Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said the USD 75m (EUR 63m) in extra funds, on top of USD 10m (EUR 8,3m) already allocated for later this year, would be used to broadcast US radio and television programmes into Iran, help pay for Iranians to study in America and support pro-democracy groups inside the country. Although US officials acknowledge the limitations of such a campaign, the state department is determined to press ahead with measures that include extending the government-run Voice of America’s Farsi service from a few hours a day to round-the-clock coverage. The sudden budget request, which follows an outlay of only USD 4m (EUR 3,3m) over the last two years, is to be accompanied by a diplomatic drive by Rice to discuss Tehran’s suspect nuclear weapons programme. She is to begin with a visit to Gulf states. (The Guardian,February 16, 2006)
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In an attempt to prevent Hamas from taking control over the media, the Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Monday decided to place the PA’s radio and television stations under his jurisdiction, PA officials in Ramallah said. The decision, which comes days before the new Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council is sworn in, drew sharp criticism from Hamas leaders, who called it ‘illegal.’ The Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, a body that consists of the official Voice of Palestine Radio and TV, has always functioned as a department inside the PA Information Ministry. According to the officials, the decision came in the form of a ‘presidential decree.’ The decree means that Abbas and his office, not the Information Ministry, will now be directly in charge of the electronic media. The decision also affects the PLO’s official news agency, Wafa, which will now report directly to Abbas’s office. (The Jerusalem Post,February 15, 2006)
Did you see my Palestinian stamps? Link
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Scores of angry Tibetans on Tuesday protested Google’s launch of a censored version of its search engine in China which adheres to that country’s government restrictions on free speech.
The protesters assembled in the central square of Dharmsala, the northern Indian headquarters of the exiled Tibetan government, carrying placards reading “Google, Don’t be Evil,” and “Gulag, Censoring Search by Search.”
The protesters also sent out 30,000 e-mails to people across the world urging them not to access Google on Tuesday.
Also, a popular Web site on Tibetan news and views run by exiled Tibetans in India shut itself down for one day, with the message: “We do not have any right to deny you our contents, but we commit this offense to help you realize a fact.”
Source: Ashwini Bhatia, The Associated Press via Breitbart.com
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One of the biggest and most influential Russian newspapers, Komsomolskaya Pravda, has lost its building on Pravda Street in Moscow. It was totally destroyed yesterday during a big fire. All the staff members were rescued except a waitress from the local restaurant who died.
Pravda Street is famous for its newspaper complex consisting of a range of buildings where a number of Russian national newspapers have their offices. The oldest building where Komsomolskaya Pravda and some other newspapers (Parlamentskaya Gazeta, Tribuna, Sovetskaya Russia) were situated was erected in the 1930s. All the floor structures were made of wood. Because of that, 50 fire engines could not stop a fire for many hours after a short-circuit at about 10:30 a.m.
All the newspaper archivesm including one of the biggest photo archives in Russia, and office equipment were burned. Today’s issue was published in a short version. But most of the editors hope that the newspapers sales will increase thanks to readers who purchase it to know about the tragedy or out of curiosity.
Source: Anastasia Alekseeva, The Editors Weblog
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Newspaper Index has the best online newspapers in every country. But what if you are looking for streaming news? Take a look at http://tv4all.com/ If you need a list of national searengines and directories try http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/
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The Iranian embassy in Germany has demanded a written apology from a Berlin newspaper that printed a cartoon of Iranian soccer players dressed as suicide bombers and threatened legal action if none is forthcoming. The sketch, published on Friday by Der Tagesspiegel, shows four moustachioed soccer players wearing Iran shirts with explosives strapped to their chests next to four German soldiers in a soccer stadium. A caption above read: ‘Why the German army should definitely be used during the soccer World Cup!’, referring to a debate in Germany about whether to use troops to help with security during the month-long tournament which begins June 9. Stephan-Andreas Casdorff, the daily’s managing editor, said on Monday he regretted the reaction to the drawing but did not consider an apology necessary. The cartoon’s artist had received three death threats and had been forced to leave his apartment, he said, adding that the police was investigating the threats. (Reuters,February 14, 2006)
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U.S. Internet giants will come under unprecedented grilling in Congress this week for joining hands with China to censor the Internet, despite the proud American tradition of free speech.
Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Cisco Systems have all agreed to appear on Wednesday before a House of Representatives human rights panel, which summoned them following public outcry over their compliance with Beijing.
By complying with China’s demand for censorship in order to enter the booming Chinese market, some of the top American Internet firms in essence have become “a megaphone for communist propaganda and a tool for controlling public opinion,” said Chris Smith, who will co-chair the hearing.
The Republican Representative from New Jersey, who heads the House subcommittee on global human rights and international operations, is drafting legislation imposing curbs on Internet companies seeking to expand into China.
Source: AFP via Yahoo! News
Link: Yahoo grapples with online rights; by Tom Zeller Jr., The New York Times
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Netherlands national news agency ANP and Dutch innovation centre TNO Information and Communication Technology on Thursday announced a three month pilot of the Farcast Reporter mobile application, enabling journalists to publish multimedia news from their mobile device to the news desk at the push of a button. During the pilot 15 of ANP’s reporters will use smart phones equipped with Farcast Reporter software from TNO. The smart phone enables reporters to create multimedia news items consisting of text, images, audio and video. Once the story materials are ready, the journalist simply presses ’send’ and the news items appear at the newsdesk ready for editing/release. Because all news items are location tagged they can also be presented at the newsdesk via a geographical interface. Farcast Reporter is one of a number of innovative content distribution applications that run on the Farcast platform, a next generation content repurposing platform for mobile. Other applications include Farcast NewsFacts, an application distributing regular bulletins with the latest news in text, images and audio files to mobile phones and Farcast Podcaster, an application that allows podcasters to create and edit material on their mobile devices. The Farcast platform will be officially launched at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona (13-16 February 2006). (PR Newswire, February 13, 2006)
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The following is parts of a PEN Canada article published in “The Toronto Star” newspaper:
“Whatever the intentions of those responsible for the creation and publication of these cartoons may have been, it is clear that great damage has been done. Good people have been badly hurt. Belief that the West is increasingly prepared to countenance disrespect of Islam has been fuelled. It is intensely worrying to see that some of those who defend the cartoons most vociferously under the banner of free speech have engaged in divisive, broadly anti-Muslim rhetoric. And Islamic extremists wanting to accelerate a “clash of civilizations” have taken full advantage of the situation. Other, far more insulting cartoons have been circulated in order to fuel anti-Western sentiment. Death threats have been issued, and embassies have been torched.
PEN Canada deplores violence, and we are united in our strong defence both of the right to free speech and of the responsibilities associated with “voluntary restraint” in the interest of civil society. We are deeply alarmed at the escalation of tensions, and with International PEN call on all sides of the dispute to refrain from taking any action that might inflame tensions further. The situation urgently requires a space for debate on these critical issues in which all may express their views without fear of censorship, imprisonment, or even threat to life.
PEN Canada often defends speech with which many of us strongly disagree. If we did not, the principle of free speech would be meaningless. Healthy debate has been the way of our society, within the bounds of decency and the law. PEN Canada supports the right of a free press to publish these cartoons, but also believes that a wise consideration of the principle of “voluntary restraint” would have led to better decisions. Finally, we urge all Canadians as they enter into dialogue on this matter to support two great principles on which our democracy depends: the right to free speech, and respect for the dignity and beliefs of others. Both must be upheld.”
Read the entire statement at IFEX
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Newspaperindex.com brings you the final truth about the Mohammed Cartoons, and it is all about money, power and yes - oil.
So you thought the Mohammed Cartoons were all about freedom of speech? You are so wrong. Or so at least the newest conspiracy theories from around the Internet indicates. I stress that this is not journalism, I do not believe a word about it, but the story is too good to be untold. Here it is:
Jyllands-Posten, the paper that ordered the drawings of Mohammed, has since 2003 been owned by an organization called JP/Politikens Hus. The CEO here Merete Eldrup is married to the CEO of DONG, Anders Eldrup, a leading danish energy supply company with interests in oilfields in the North sea, gas and electricity throughout Northern Europe. DONG is also working on pipelines in the North sea with companies like Shell and Texaco. Since 1980 DONG has imported oil from Saudi Arabia. Now the thing is that DONG is about to go public, and the IPO is expected in 2007. This raises a couple of questions:
What would be more convenient for DONG at this moment than an international oil crisis or reduced oil supplies from the Gulf?
What would be more convenient for Jyllands-Posten than a story that all newspapers, TV-stations, blogs and magazines would quote?
How could these two things be accomplished at the same time, and who could be the masterminds behind the plan?
Do the math and remember - you saw it first at blog.newspaperindex.com. Another conspiracy that is less far fetched says:
“In January of this year the most important Muslim religious festival took place in Saudi Arabia.
There were a number of stampedes that killed several hundred pilgrims. The Saudi government every year promises to improve security and facilitation of movement to avoid these. Over 251 pilgrims were killed during the 2004 Hajj alone in the same area as the one that killed 350 pilgrims in 2006. These were not unavoidable accidents, they were the results of poor planning by the Saudi government.
This was a huge story in the Muslim world. Even the most objective news stories were suddenly casting Saudi Arabia in a very bad light and they decided to do something about it.
Their plan was to go on a major offensive against the Danish cartoons (that had been published in egytian newspapers months before). The 350 pilgrims were killed on the 12th January and soon after, Saudi newspapers (which are all controlled by the state) began running up to 4 articles per day condemning the Danish cartoons (the Saudi rule might have been helped by their US based PR partner Qorvis Communications that brought you the pro-saudi campaings after 9/11)…. Link to more on this story“
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Plans for a European press charter committing the media to ‘prudence’ when reporting on Islam and other religions, were unveiled yesterday. Franco Frattini, the European Union commissioner for justice, freedom and security, revealed the idea for a code of conduct in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. Frattini, a former Italian foreign minister, appealed to European media to agree to ’self-regulate’. The code of conduct, as envisaged by Frattini, would acknowledge the importance of respecting religious sensibilities but would not offer a ‘privileged’ status to any one faith. Frattini said he was keen to move ahead with a voluntary code of conduct, to be drawn up by European media outlets with the assistance of the commission. The code would not have the status of an EU legal instrument and would not be enforceable by Union institutions. The interview took place one day after the IFJ posted a press release on its website strongly criticising reports that the European Union may be preparing an ethical code of conduct for the media. ‘We have already made it clear to Brussels officials that this will be unacceptable to everyone in media and they have agreed to encourage a professional dialogue but not to start drawing up codes or guidelines. That is the responsibility of media professionals alone,’ said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. (The Daily Telegraph, IFJ,February 09, 2006)
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Hackers have broken into about 600 Danish websites to post threats and protest against satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, an internet monitoring group said Wednesday. If pages outside Denmark, where the cartoons first appeared, are included, then the hack attacks numbered about 1,000, the Zone-H website, www.zone-h.org, said. Zone-H tracks attacks on websites and listed the sites which had been hacked. ‘Danish, you’r D3ad,’ one page said. The graffiti had been added to a website run by photographer Thomas Jorgensen and included a photo of a mannequin painted to resemble the Danish flag and hung from its neck. A website belonging to left-wing progressive publisher Informationsforlag was vandalised with a message in Arabic and a small English translation: ‘Everything except our prophet - Allahu Akbar - Jihad is our way.’ The websites appeared to have been randomly hacked and did not necessarily have anything to do with the cartoons that have enraged Muslims around the world. ‘What came out from the survey is what Zone-H very much expected: the use of the Internet as an instrument to spread out cyberprotests related to what happens in the worldwide context,’ Zone-H wrote. Several groups of hackers from different Muslim countries had united to produce the greatest amount of damage to Danish and, more generally, Western webservers, Zone-H claimed. (Reuters, CNet News,February 09, 2006)
Newspaperindex.com has also recieved mails from hackers and last week the newspaperindex forum was hacked. Today we recieved this emial:
We demand you take down those pictures posted on this link http://blog.newspaperindex.com/2005/12/10/un-to-investigate-jyllands-posten-racism/
Or we will hack the fuck out of your website. We have shutdown 600 websites in the past 3 days and are not afraid to retaliate against your site as well. If you want proof we shut down these sites, here is a direct link http://www.zone-h.org/en/news/read/id=205987/
You have been warned and have 24 hours to comply before we deface your website. It’s your choice, we are offering you the right to CHOOSE.
~NSnipERz TEam~!
HACK THE WORLD!
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The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum have protested to the Jordanian government against the prosecution of two editors who published the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that have caused a storm of Muslim protest around the world.
“While appreciating that the cartoons have caused offence to many Muslims in Jordan and elsewhere, we respectfully remind you that the decision as to whether or not to publish such material is an editorial decision and not one with which the state and in particular the criminal law should interfere,” the Paris-based WAN and the WEF said in a letter to Jordanian Interior Minister Awni Yerfas.
“The cartoons may have been in poor taste, but they were satirical in nature and did not incite violence,” said the letter, which called for the charges to be dropped and for the journalists to be released from prison, where they are being held after requests for bail were denied.
Editors Jihad Momani of the weekly Shihan, and Hisham Khalidi of al-Mehwar, were arrested and charged with blasphemy after publishing the cartoons that were first published in Denmark. Shihan printed three of the cartoons alongside an editorial questioning whether the angry reaction of Muslims was justified, while Al-Mehwar reproduced the cartoons to accompany an article on the condemnation they had sparked.
To read the full letter to the Interior Minister, go to http://www.wan-press.org/article9164.html
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Controversial Danish cartoons lampooning the Muslim prophet Mohammed, which have led to riots abroad, also have set off intense debates in U.S. newsrooms. Editorial calls to not run the cartoons are raising questions about whether mainstream media are practicing self-censorship out of fear of reprisals from a vocal religious group.
National TV networks such as NBC, CBS and CNN have not run the cartoons, nor did the Associated Press and most newspapers, including USA TODAY, The Washington Post or The New York Times.
But Fox News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Austin American-Statesman and New York Sun ran some of the 12 cartoons that were published in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September. LA Times considered last week to bring the cartoons in the weekend edition, but decided not to publish them.
“Fox News Sunday” aired one of the controversial cartoons, depicting the prophet Mohammed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb. “My feeling was, if we’re going to tell the story about people rioting and burning down embassies, it’s part of the story to know what it is that has caused such outrage,” anchor Chris Wallace said.
Source: Peter Johnson, USA Today
Link: New York Press editors resign over cartoons; by Tom Scocca, The New York Observer
Link: SPJ addresses cartoon controversy; by Editor & Publisher
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The leader of the world’s largest Muslim organisation has joined other world leaders in condemning violence over the publication of cartoon caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, head of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, joined with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, in calling for calm, saying they were ‘deeply alarmed at the repercussions’ the cartoons have caused. In Afghanistan, that nation’s top Islamic organisation called for an end to riots against the drawings, as police shot dead two protesters to stop hundreds of them from marching on a US military base in southern Afghanistan Wednesday, The Associated Press reported. At least 10 people were wounded, the AP reported, quoting officials. The latest deaths brings to 10 the number of people killed in Afghan protests over the cartoons in recent days, the BBC said. The incident happened as a French magazine became the latest publication to carry the controversial caricatures. The magazine, Charlie Hebdo, won the backing of a French court on Tuesday, after several Islamic organisations in France had complained that publication would amount to an insult to their religion.
(CNN, BBC News,February 08, 2006)
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Newsweek has an interesting interview with Flemming Rose, the editor of the Danish paper that published cartoon depictions of Muhammad.
This comment was particularly insightful:
When I go to a mosque, I behave by the rules that exist in that holy house. I will not stand up and make a cartoon of the holy prophet in a mosque. But I think if any religion insists that I, as a non-Muslim, should submit to their taboos, then I don’t think they’re showing me respect. I think they’re asking for my submission. This is a key issue in this debate.
Thanks to Jay Weimer
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Protests in the Muslim world at the newspaper cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad escalated further on Monday. Two people were killed in Afghanistan in a shootout with the police near a US base north of the capital Kabul; a third was killed in the city of Mihtarlam when protestors began throwing stones. A boy was killed in Somalia when protesters attacked police. Angry Muslims in Iran threw stones and petrol bombs at the Austrian embassy. Austria is the current holder of the rotating presidency of the European Union. Last weekend, demonstrators in Syria and Lebanon attacked and set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies there. Protesters in the Iranian capital Tehran on Monday night managed to get into the Danish embassy, ransacking the building before being removed by police. The Iranian government has announced it is cutting all trade links with Denmark. (Radio Netherlands,February 07, 2006)
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Muslim protesters infuriated by cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad raised the diplomatic stakes last night as Iran’s best-selling newspaper announced it would retaliate by running images satirising the Holocaust. The decision by the rightwing Hamshari daily to launch an international competition to find the most suitable caricatures came as demonstrators hurled firebombs and stones at the Danish embassy in Tehran and the Iranian government imposed a formal trade ban on Danish imports. Hamshari is owned by Tehran city council. Farid Mortazavi, the paper’s graphics editor, said the cartoons would be published to test the argument of western newspapers which have cited freedom of expression in printing the prophet Muhammad images. (The Guardian,February 07, 2006)
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Twelve Danish cartoonists whose pictures sparked such outcry have gone into hiding under round-the-clock protection, fearing for their lives. The cartoonists, many of whom had reservations about the pictures, have been shocked by how the affair has escalated into a global ‘clash of civilisations’. The cartoonists? names were originally printed in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten. Flemming Rose, the paper?s cultural editor, invited 25 newspaper cartoonists to draw a picture of Muhammad ‘how they saw him’, after a children?s author complained that cartoonists would only dare illustrate a book he was writing on the life of Muhammad if they could be anonymous. Twelve cartoonists responded, had their pictures printed in September, and were paid DKK 800 (EUR 107) each. Having failed to stop the cartoons being reprinted across Europe, the cartoonists have now decided to use all the money raised from the sales of the pictures to set up a foundation which will award an annual international prize for press freedom. (The Times,February 07, 2006)
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Bringing you the Mohammed cartoons caused a lot of trouble. First the forum was attacked (it is still down and I am working on it) Then this blog got attacked and went down too. Unfortunately thousands of visitors never found what they were looking. - But here it is again - the Mohammed drawings are back. Link.
I will follow up on the situation very soon.
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The World Association of Newspapers has provided a “reality check” to investors who have heard nothing but negative news about newspaper companies in recent months, providing a rare insight into what is really happening in the newspaper industry and in the broader media matrix and “dispelling the rather tired, conventional wisdom that our industry is a deadwood industry”.
- Over 1 billion people read a newspaper every day.
- Newspaper circulations worldwide continue to grow
- Newspaper advertising continues to grow — and remains more effective than TV.
- Newspapers are competing far more effectively against the rise of digital media than broadcast.
-In the last 24 months, more new, innovative newspaper products have been launched than over the prior 30 years.
-Newspaper companies continue to invest heavily in their businesses.
-Contrary to conventional wisdom, increasing broadband penetration is not adversely impacting underlying circulation volumes or advertising. “Yet one still hears continually the unfounded suggestion that the Internet is damaging newspaper circulations — yet the one irony is that where newspapers are strong, so too is the Internet.”
The full presentation can be found at
http://www.wan-press.org/article9051.html
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