Media in Middle East & North Africa

"The public will of the population of the Swat region is at the center of all efforts, and it should be taken into account while debating the merits of this agreement." In legislative elections a year ago, the people of Swat, a region that is about the size of Delaware and has 1.3 million residents, voted overwhelmingly for the secular Awami National Party. Since then, the Taliban have singled out elected politicians with suicide bomb attacks and chased virtually all of them from the valley. Several hundred thousand residents have also fled the fighting.

the government is handicapped because of its failure to offer good governance, guarantee livelihoods, and restore people's faith in the frayed judicial system

This is not to say that Israeli Arabs have been completely happy with their treatment by Israel. In this regard, The Times explores whether Israeli government aid for the Arab population has been as generous as for the Jewish population. However, the editorial fails to consider ways in which Israeli Arabs benefit to the exclusion of Israeli Jews

Al Jazeera's English-language service is starting a website called IWantAJE.net, offering news the Qatar-based network produces and a list of "Hits and Myths" knocking down statements about the network that it says are untrue.

Catholics and Jews must stand together against the threat of Islamism

Islamist dictator.

Before the Islamic revolution in 1979, there were some quarter-million Catholics living in Iran. Now there are fewer than 15,000

The slain journalist was trying to get the details of the ongoing negotiations in Matta where the cleric Mohammad is trying to convince his son-in-law to join the peace deal he has signed with the regional government in NWFP to end the conflict in Swat.

A journalist in Swat who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Khankhel had repeatedly refused to “report what the army wanted him to report.”

in the killing of investigative journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya.

Politkovskaya's probing reports on atrocities in Chechnya and abuses by Russian authorities angered the Kremlin but won her international acclaim

"We're glad," said defense lawyer Murad Musayev. "This is something that happens rarely in Russia. This is what I call justice."

Five years ago, the United Nations published the Arab Human Development Report on Building a Knowledge Society. That widely read – and highly controversial – report found a "knowledge deficit" that threatens human development, economic growth, and the future potential of Arab societies. This week the Brookings Institution published a new study, in Arabic, that evaluates what has and has not changed since 2003.

Access to education has expanded markedly over the past five years

Arabs are embracing new technologies, such as the Internet and mobile phones.

This appears to be the most tragic of domestic violence incidents and, although statistics suggest that more than three fatal cases of domestic violence occur every day in the US, no one here could ever imagine that this may happen to our beloved colleague. Several times each day in America, a woman is abused or assaulted. Domestic violence is a behavior that knows no boundaries of religion, race, ethnicity, or social status, and occurs in every community.

Open Source Center of the USG

statements made by Nechirvan Barzani, Kurdistan Region prime minister, about a war breaking out between Arabs and Kurds after the American withdrawal from Iraq

Kamal Kirkuki, Kurdistan Region Parliament Deputy Speaker, has described Al-Maliki as a "dangerous man", and said that the Kurds are trying to stand up to him, adding: "Al-Maliki is a danger to Iraq and to democracy; he is a second Saddam."'

Note to mainstream media: Iran cannot construct nuclear bombs with uranium enriched only to less than 4%. It needs to be enriched to something like 90% to make a bomb. So all the silly articles on Friday about how iran now has enough enriched uranium to make a bomb are just illiterate.

Now, many here say that imagery, with its subverted content, addresses issues central to Korean identity

Later, while serving in the North Korean Army, Sun Mu was assigned to create propaganda paintings

The web opens up an array of options for teaching, learning, and connecting, but we need to remember that learning should be organized around the needs of the student/learner. The cost of joining a website should not be complete loss of control over your content, and as technology advocates we need to become more aware of the ramifications of data control and data portability within networked learning environments. In short, learners deserve better than the terms offered at StudyBlue, Facebook, Ning, etc. Why should a prerequisite of social learning be the loss of control over how your work is used/reused? By promoting sites that are predicated on an intellectual land grab of learner-created content, we perpetuate the lie that this is acceptable behavior.

The satirical comedy skits put on by Lior Klein concerning Jesus and Mary on Israel's Channel 10 last week have provoked rallies and protests by Palestinian-Israeli Christians, of whom there are about 120,000. They also drew condemnation from Muslim Palestinian-Israelis, of whom there are over a million. Klein said that since Christians were denying the Holocaust, he was denying Christianity. He and Channel 10 later apologized to a delegation of Israeli Christians, and pledged that the skits would not be rerun.

the pieces were viewed as racist and not just anti-religious but as ethnic bigotry. They were even called "anti-Semitic," since Arabs are Semites as are Jews

the show offended Israeli Muslims, as well. I saw them on Aljazeera speaking out against the skits and denouncing them as racist (`unsuri).

I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways -- all orchestrated by the United States government."

he was tortured and abused by Pakistani intelligence officers in the presence of a British intelligence agent.

Morocco on a CIA flight

Two senior editors of Red Pepper are wanted in court to answer charges of defaming Libyan leader Col. Muamar Gadaffi over the paper's report that he has a love affair with Toro Queen Mother Best Kemigisa.

accused of defaming a foreign dignitary with intent to disturb peace and friendship between Uganda and Libya.

The accused, the court added, committed similar offences on different dates. The stories were entitled "Toro Queen sex secrets revealed, Gadaffi asks Toro Queen for a baby boy, Gadaffi, Toro Queen first kiss, Gadaffi, Museveni clash over Toro Queen and Gadaffi buys Toro Queen a plane.

It's such a lovely turn of phrase, that. If you suspect it, report it. Don't wait for evidence. Or question your own prejudices. If someone's not a "normal everyday person" exactly like you, then they could well be a member of al-Qaida. What flawless logic that is. We're already described as "a surveillance state" by Privacy International, one in five of all CCTV cameras ever made are currently in Britain, and Smith is drawing up plans to intercept every phone call we make and every email we send. The Taplins weren't snitches - they were perfect citizens in her New Model Army.

a conformity of living, of beliefs, aspirations and behaviour that is rigorously policed by family, friends and neighbours

young people really are more open and older ones more set in their ways, according to a fascinating article in the Scientific American.

To bring this back to the Scientific American magazine’s observations about openness to new experiences tending to decline gradually in some, inclusiveness is a key to successful culture change. The challenge is to motivate people and get them engaged by helping them to participate, and some sizzle to sell the steak often really helps.