Media in Middle East & North Africa

For Mr. Halbertal, like for the vast majority of Israelis, the army is an especially sensitive institution because it has always functioned as a social cauldron, throwing together people from all walks of life and scores of ethnic and national backgrounds, and helping form them into a cohesive society with social networks that carry on throughout their lives.

are we seeing the death of Journalism? I for one, hope so, as it will mean a more profound change may be upon us.

What if it is the underlying structure and values of not just the news institutions but also the entities they normally cover that are eroding? What if the value of objectivity and the faith in any opaque structures are dying?

Such a transformation, a reshaping of credibility from objectivity to transparency, would have profound implications for every organization – corporate, non-profit and governmental – in our society.

Cell phones are definitely in, but cable TV is not regarded as crucial

Rabbis affiliated with the Israeli army urged troops heading into Gaza to reclaim what they said was God-given land and "get rid of the gentiles" — effectively turning the 22-day Israeli intervention into a religious war, according to the testimony of a soldier who fought in Gaza.

Sarit Michaeli of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem thinks that the public release of the testimony helped spur the investigation. "There have been many cases where we have asked the advocate general to look into cases, and they drag their feet until it gets into the media."

The Magen Abraham Synagogue sits at center of this photograph taken on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008, surrounded by the gleaming new skyscrapers in Wadi Abou Jmil, Lebanon - formerly Beirut's main Jewish neighborhood. One of Lebanon's sole remaining synagogues, this building was set for a restoration that has the rare blessing of all the factions in this divided country - but the global financial crisis has scuttled the effort for now, leaving the Magen Abraham chained, padlocked, badly damaged and overgrown with weeds.

"All the software in Iran is copied. There is no copyright law, so everybody uses Microsoft software freely," said the secretary of Iran's High Informatics Council.

what’s truly embarrassing is that none of the public affairs staff at the academy had any idea who Borat was. Shouldn’t we expect public affairs officers to have at least a passing familiarity with popular culture?