Uncategorised

t seemed a mere coincidence that only two days after the airing of the CBS 60 Minutes on Abu Gharaib prison torture April 26, 2004, Margaret Tutweiler, the US undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, resigned to take a position in the New York Stock Exchange. Ms. Tutweiler's resignation was as low-key as that of her predecessor in the job, Charlotte Beers, who resigned in March of 2003 for "health...

Debate and discussion are at the cornerstone of any democracy. There have been many changes throughout the Middle East in the past year with the elections in Iraq, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia, as well as the demonstrations in Lebanon and the Mubarak Initiative. As the political landscape of the Middle East changes, so must the media that covers it. The media should report on these stories...

When Americans became aware that the prestige of the United States after 9/11 had declined seriously in the Arab world, many called for an intensified public diplomacy effort in the Middle East in order to reverse that decline. Reacting to that concern, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is responsible for US Government-sponsored international broadcasting, developed two new projects...

The nondescript redbrick building housing Alhurra's state-of-the-art television studios lies tucked between offices for Lockheed Martin and Boeing just outside Washington, DC. Although it boasts an arsenal far different from that of its neighbors, the location of the US-funded Arabic satellite channel, at the heart of the military industrial complex, is striking. After all, the $62 million effort...

Masked gunmen abducted a reporter on Monday in the troubled region of Waziristan in Pakistan bordering Afghanistan where a top al-Qaeda commander was killed in a blast last week, the man's brother and a government official told Reuters. ON THE EDGE: A Pakistan soldier stands guard near Pakistan-Afghanistan border at Kundi Gar post, some 80km southwest of Miranshah, the capital of Pakistan's semi

MOSCOW, December 6 (RIA Novosti) - A Moscow city court will select a jury December 29 in the trial of three suspects charged with murdering Forbes Russia Editor Paul Klebnikov. Preliminary closed hearings began Tuesday. The suspects are Fail Satretdinov, a notary from Moscow, and two Chechen residents Musa Vakhayev and Kazbek Dukuzov. Paul Klebnikov, 41, was murdered in Moscow on July 9, 2004. He...

According to a survey undertaken by the Jordanian Higher Media Council (HMC), national newspapers give more coverage to regional and international politics than they do to local issues. The seven newspapers studied were Al Anbat, Al Arab Al Youm, Al Diyar, Al Dustour, Al Ghad, The Jordan Times and Al Rai. According to the research, only one of them gave more space to local political news than...

6 December 2005 (RFE/RL) -- In an exclusive interview given to RFE/RL's Russian Service, Yelena Fedorova explained her reasons for submitting her resignation as information service editor at Russia's REN-TV. She told RFE/RL interviewer Anna Kachkaeva that her decision was motivated primarily by censorship on the part of the television station's management and its efforts to prevent her and fellow...

The US government released less information under the Freedom of Information Act in 2004 than in 2000, according to a newly released study by the Coalition of Journalists in Open Government (CJOG). Even though FOIA requests to federal agencies dropped by 13 per cent, their overall use of exemptions to screen information rose by 22 per cent, the report said. In refusing to release information far

CHICAGO -- There is something fundamentally wrong with the blanket notion being floated by some so-called experts that the only way to realize more value from media conglomerates is to dismantle them. Aside from being an overly simplistic, one-size-fits-all view, it smacks of an unproved knee-jerk response to the industry's complex and challenging digital broadband transition. It fails to address...