Media in Middle East & North Africa

It's not clear if the anonymous official is just letting off steam, trying to push back, or stating evolving policy.

And Israeli security officials have directed Israeli airlines not to fly to the Turkish resort city of Antalya because local authorities there aren't allowing armed Israeli security to enter. Antalya's tourism industry, which relies heavily on Israeli visitors, is trying to entice Israeli tourists by offering special deals.

"They are designed to pressurise our staff with the clear intention of stopping our cultural and educational work in the country."

young people in Iran and the UK have lost the chance to build links that can last a lifetime

they are keen to have a relationship, but they are not prepared to have a two-way street

how the Internet can lead to a greater firsthand understanding of Islam for policymakers, diplomats, and people worldwide, and to explore how the Internet allows people to experience the culture of Islam in a manner conducive to substantive dialog between cultures.

as part of a broader public diplomacy strategy, engaging and interacting with people in virtual worlds who self-identify as Muslim can contribute to a well-developed and inclusive perspective on religion, society, and democratic coexistence, which serves to undermine conditions that can lead to radical views and violent actions

communication paradigms have changed

Among the studies Greenfield analyzed was a classroom study showing that students who were given access to the Internet during class and were encouraged to use it during lectures did not process what the speaker said as well as students who did not have Internet access. When students were tested after class lectures, those who did not have Internet access performed better than those who did. "Wiring classrooms for Internet access does not enhance learning," Greenfield said. Restrain me, quick, before I break something. Because there’s a missing element in this bit of sloppy science that makes me want to throw my beloved laptop through the window. It’s this: the freaking teacher. So let me correct this: “CLUELESSLY wiring classrooms for internet access does not enhance learning.”

It’s totally schooly, and divorced from the authentic uses we put this stuff to in that non-school place called the real world.

More pointedly still: Creating an opposition between "critical thinking" and "reading and discussing," on the one hand, and electronic/social media on the other, is a logical false disjunctive (in plain talk, a false either/or). Any competent teacher can use the new literacy tools to create new possibilities in critical thinking, reading, discussing, and more, that were only dreamt of in pre-Internet philosophies.

Those who know Khatami say he believes the council wouldn't dare disqualify him.

city vs. village in Iran — city voters being better educated and tending toward the liberal side; village voters more conservative.

Many conservatives have come to be critical of the controversial Iranian president.

The unanimous decision was prompted by Al Quds faculty members, who said they were disappointed that their joint projects with Israeli colleagues had failed to produce any tangible results and had caused friction with other Palestinian universities.

“If the two-state solution is as far away today as it was 10 years ago, there is no justification for continued academic cooperation based on reaching that solution,”

pressuring Israel to abide by a solution that ends the occupation, a solution that has been needed for far too long and that the international community has stopped demanding.”

“Dear Iranian nation, your children have placed the first indigenous satellite into orbit,” Reuters quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying in a televised message.“With God’s help and the desire for justice and peace, the official presence of the Islamic Republic was registered in space,” he said.

So, the fundamental premise of the need to endow newspapers and preserve them at public expense is that false information exists on the Internet? Of course it does, as it does on TV, on the radio (should we also consider endowing Rush?) in magazines, and in many, many newspapers. Which media would the authors like to choose as being least likely to contain false information? And which medium do they think did the best job of  bringing the lies and corruption of the Bush Administration to light — hint, don’t look at newspapers, Josh Micah Marshall and his Talking Points Memo website would be a much better bet.