The online generation thinks: If the news is that important, it will find me. My son who has never subscribed to a print newspaper, gets his news from Facebook, Twitter or from friends. He no longer treats traditional media as a magnet. People now get their messages by relying on other people they trust.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So what role, in your opinion, can newspapers still play?

arvis: They certainly no longer want to be in the paper business because that is dying out. The information business might be fine but there is no scarcity of information and news online. They could, however, be very effective in the collection business -- just find the best of the stuff that is out there online. They could also use their strong brands to compete in the business of elegant organization by creating information platforms or venturing into new markets. The New York Times has just started a new local program in New York enlisting my journalism students to collaborate online with them to report on their communities. That is the right approach. News outlets need to think distributed, they must collaborate with bloggers or social networking sites. On my blog, I have links to Google News or Google Maps. Innovative newspapers like the Guardian in Britain are equally open to cooperation. They make all their content available free online, they link to all sorts of sites, and in turn they receive more links in return.

Western powers are seeking to undermine Iran by spreading "anarchy and vandalism", the foreign ministry says.A spokesman said foreign media were "mouthpieces" of enemy governments seeking Iran's disintegration.

The BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, who is in Tehran, says this crisis has highlighted divisions within Iran's ruling elite.

At least 10 people were reported to have been killed in clashes between protesters and police and militia forces on Saturday.

on Monday afternoon, a 27-year-old State Department official, Jared Cohen, e-mailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran.

“This was just a call to say: ‘It appears Twitter is playing an important role at a crucial time in Iran. Could you keep it going?’ ” said P.J. Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs.

Twitter complied with the request, saying in a blog post on Monday that it put off the upgrade until late Tuesday afternoon — 1:30 a.m. Wednesday in Tehran — because its partners recognized “the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran.” The network was working normally again by Tuesday evening.

Hundreds of Egyptians took part Monday in the funeral of Marwa Sherbini, an Egyptian woman who was stabbed to death last week in the German city of Dresden in a crime believed to be racially motivated.

Sherbini, 33, was stabbed to death Wednesday in a courtroom as she prepared to give testimony against a German man of Russian descent whom she had sued for insult and abuse.

The man, identified in German media as Alex A., 28, was convicted of calling Sherbini, who wore a headscarf, "terrorist," "bitch" and "Islamist" when she asked him him to leave a swing for her 3-year-old son Mustafa during an August 2008 visit to a children's park.

An aide to Japanese opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa has been charged with violating a political funds law, Japanese media has reported.

Japanese media said the charges put more pressure on Mr Ozawa to decide whether or not to resign. Before the scandal broke, Mr Ozawa was considered a likely victor in national elections which must be held this year.

Analysts had predicted Mr Ozawa stood his best chance ever of unseating the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader, Prime Minister Taro Aso, in the coming elections. Such a victory would end almost 50 years of unbroken rule by the LDP, which is facing huge voter discontent amid worsening economic gloom.

When Charles W. Freeman Jr. stepped away Tuesday from an appointment to chair the National Intelligence Council -- which oversees the production of reports that represent the view of the nation's 16 intelligence agencies -- he decried in an e-mail "the barrage of libelous distortions of my record [that] would not cease upon my entry into office," and he was blunt about whom he considers responsible. "The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East," Freeman wrote. Referring to what he called "the Israel Lobby," he added: "The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views." One result of this, he said, is "the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics."

Only a few Jewish organizations came out publicly against Freeman's appointment, but a handful of pro-Israeli bloggers and employees of other organizations worked behind the scenes to raise concerns with members of Congress, their staffs and the media. For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), often described as the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington, "took no position on this matter and did not lobby the Hill on it," spokesman Josh Block said. But Block responded to reporters' questions and provided critical material about Freeman, albeit always on background, meaning his comments could not be attributed to him, according to three journalists who spoke to him. Asked about this yesterday, Block replied: "As is the case with many, many issues every day, when there is general media interest in a subject, I often provide publicly available information to journalists on background."

Yesterday, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, which tried to derail Freeman's appointment, applauded his withdrawal. But it added: "We think Israel and any presumed 'lobby' had far less effect on the outcome than the common-sensical belief that the person who is the gatekeeper of intelligence information for the President of the United States should be unencumbered by payments from foreign governments."

US President Barack Obama has lifted restrictions on federal funding for research on new stem cell lines. Mr Obama signed an executive order in a major reversal of US policy, pledging to "vigorously support" new research.

Analysts say Mr Obama's decision could also lead Congress to overturn a ban on spending tax dollars to create embryos.

Later in the evening, opposition leaders and supporters gathered outside parliament for a rally, as they have daily since 9 April.

The latest unrest comes as Georgia hosts a series of Nato training exercises amid angry condemnation from Russia. They are taking place close to areas where Russian troops are stationed in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia. Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev said the drills, involving more than 1,000 soldiers from 18 countries, were "an overt provocation".

Five out of nine local staff from the UK embassy detained in Tehran have been released, Iranian officials say.Iran's media earlier said local employees at the UK mission were held over their role in protests against June's disputed presidential election.

Separately, Iran's top legislative body began a partial recount of the poll - a move rejected by defeated opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

ran's Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hoseyn Mohseni-Ezhei on Sunday said "the British embassy played a crucial role in the recent unrest both through its local staff and via media", Iran's Irna news agency reported. "We have photos and videos of certain local employees of the British embassy, who collected news about the protests. "The embassy sent staff among the rioters to direct them in order to escalate the riots so that the rioters could file fabricated reports about the [rallies] to the world from various locations," the Iranian minister added.

But analysts said the crackdown now taking place across Iran suggested that Mr. Ahmadinejad had succeeded in creating a pervasive network of important officials in the military, security agencies, and major media outlets, a new elite made especially formidable by support from one important constituent, Iran’s supreme leader himself.

Mr. Ahmadinejad has filled crucial ministries and other top posts with close friends and allies who have spread ideological and operational support for him nationwide. These analysts estimate that he has replaced 10,000 government employees to cement his loyalists through the bureaucracies, so that his allies run the organizations responsible for both the contested election returns and the official organs that have endorsed them.

There is a pattern to the way Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has selected allies throughout his career, said Said A. Arjomand, a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook who has just finished a book analyzing the rule of the supreme leader. The ayatollah has repeatedly surrounded himself with men lacking an apparent social or political base of their own, men who would be dependent on him, Mr. Arjomand said.

The Chinese government appears to have backed down in the face of public opposition to its plans for mandatory installation of censorship software on all new computers.The Green Dam Youth Escort program, which restricts access to pornography and politically sensitive websites, was due to be compulsorily incorporated in the hard drives of all new machines sold after 1 July, but the state-run media announced today that it would instead be an optional package.

Secret documents published online and investigations by hackers have revealed an embedded blacklist of politically sensitive words in the program, a hole in the system that potentially allows remote users to take control of an individual's computer and a defective pornography algorithm.

Amid growing controversy over the apparent underhand censorship, the state media are now downplaying the compulsory aspect of the software. "PC makers are only required to save the set-up files of the program in the hard drives of the computers, or provide CD-Roms containing the program with their PC packages," the English-language China Daily quoted an official saying yesterday ."The users have the final say on the installation of the Green Dam Youth Escort, so it is misleading to say the government compels PC users to use the software … The government's role is limited to having the software developed and providing it free."

Violence in China's restive western region of Xinjiang has left at least 140 people dead and more than 800 people injured, state media say.Several hundred people were also arrested after a protest turned violent in the city of Urumqi on Sunday.

The protest was reportedly prompted by a deadly fight between Uighurs and Han Chinese in southern China last month. The BBC's Chris Hogg in Shanghai says that if the numbers of dead are to be believed - and state media say they may rise - this look like the bloodiest violence in China since Tiananmen Square 20 years ago.

Uighur exiles said police had fired indiscriminately on a peaceful protest in Urumqi.

Fears that an Iranian ban on imports from its arch foe Israel was flouted by the sale of Jaffa oranges have sparked an inquiry in Tehran, reports say. City authorities asked the judiciary to take action after the Israeli fruit was allegedly imported in boxes marked as Chinese, local media report.

City authorities asked the judiciary to take action after the Israeli fruit was allegedly imported in boxes marked as Chinese, local media report.

Senior members of the Bush administration today defended the physical abuse of prisoners by CIA operatives at Guantánamo and elsewhere round the world set out in graphic detail in secret memos released by president Barack Obama.

General Michael Hayden, head of the CIA under president George Bush, and Michael Mukasey, who was attorney-general, criticised Obama for releasing the memos. The two accused him of pandering to the media in creating "faux outrage", undermining the morale of the intelligence services and inviting the scorn of America's enemies.

the interrogation techniques outlined in the memos prompted a flood of calls from human rights groups and others for the prosecution of politicians, lawyers, doctors and CIA operatives involved.