Times Online – The Italian Parliament has approved a law that will shield Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, from criminal trials for the next year and a half. The decision led to vociferous protests from magistrates, judges and the centre-Left opposition. The law, passed last night, in effect undermines two trials in which Mr Berlusconi, 73, is accused of corruption. In one he is charged with giving David Mills, his former British tax lawyer and estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, a bribe to lie for him in court in corruption cases in the 1990s. In the second his television company Mediaset is accused of tax fraud over the purchase of Hollywood film rights. Read article
Telegraph – Google, the internet giant, is believed to be testing a new technology which will allow consumers to search programme listings on their own television sets. The new product, which utilises parts of Google’s Android mobile operating system, also lets users find and watch YouTube video clips on their televisions. The system, details of which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, is currently on trial in a small number of homes belonging to Google employees and their families. The exact trial size not currently known. Read Article
Yahoo – All-night gaming binges are harmless in moderation, but this week one married Korean couple discovered the awful consequences of letting virtual life overtake real responsibilities. Read Article
Washington Post – Children who throw too many tantrums could be diagnosed with “temper dysregulation with dysphoria.” Teenagers who are particularly eccentric might be candidates for treatment for “psychosis risk syndrome.” Men who are just way too interested in sex face being labeled as suffering from “hypersexual disorder.” These are among dozens of proposals being unveiled Wednesday by the American Psychiatric Association in the first complete revision since 1994 of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or “DSM” — the massive tome that has served as the bible for modern psychiatry for more than half a century. Read Article
Ed. – This flies in the face of commonsense, which desperately needs a ‘comeback’. Language is being manipulated here, labels create distance between people when they are used. “It influences [how] research. . . . It affects legal matters, industry and government programs.” In short – affects people’s perspectives and behaviours. “The process” hasn’t really EVER been shielded from pharmacuetical interests, it’s just more blatant now. “in maintaining the old diagnostic criteria”? – It seems to be introducing a whole lot of unnecessary new Criteria.
Telegraph – The Ministry of Defence has been accused of ordering a “truth blackout” over the war in Afghanistan amid warnings it is attempting to “bury bad news” during the election campaign. British journalists and TV crews are to be banned from the Afghan front line once a date for the election has been set, while senior officers will be prohibited from making public speeches and talking to reporters. MoD websites will also be “cleansed” of any “non-factual” material including anything containing troops’ opinions of the war, according to a memo leaked to The Daily Telegraph. Read article
RSF – Reporters Without Borders continues its weekly look at the state of free expression and self-censorship in Denmark by publishing an interview with a leading figure from the world of the Danish media and arts. This week’s interview is with Carsten Jensen, a writer and journalist who is very critical of the liberal-conservative coalition government. He has just been awarded the Olof Palme Prize for his “courageous, committed and determined” defence of human rights. Read Aricle
msnbc – Too much boob tube also makes you weaker, research shows. You’ve accepted the idea that TV makes you dumber. You know there are lots of more edifying things you could be doing with your time than cheering on the contestants on “Survivor.” And unless you’re working out to an exercise video, you know those hours sprawled out in front of the screen are going to make you fatter — not to mention the impact of all that junk food you’ve been tempted to scarf down during the commercial breaks. But you’ll be surprised to learn the host of other bad things TV can do to you. Read Article
PhysOrg.com — The quality of entries in the world’s largest open-access online encyclopedia depends on how authors collaborate, UA Eller College Professor Sudha Ram finds. The patterns of collaboration between Wikipedia contributors have a direct effect on the data quality of an article, according to a new paper co-authored by a University of Arizona professor and graduate student. Read Article
BBC – The authorities in Iran have closed down the country’s biggest-circulation reformist newspaper, Etemaad, accusing it of breaching media laws. They also suspended publication of a weekly reformist paper whose managing director is the son of one of Iran’s opposition leaders, Mehdi Karroubi. Read article
Deutsche Welle – After Apple banned thousands of iPhone applications containing sexually suggestive material, German publishers fear the computer giant will begin limiting their editorial freedoms. It’s been an institution for decades: Almost daily Germany’s Bild newspaper presents a naked woman on its front page. Sex sells for Germany’s best-selling tabloid and needless to say “Bild-Girls,” as they are known, are a main attraction of the paper’s new iPhone application. Read Article
The Independent – It could spell the end of the kiss and tell: public figures might, within 18 months, have the power to stifle bad news stories before they are published, a senior lawyer has warned. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is currently fast-tracking a landmark case, brought by Max Mosley, to tighten UK privacy laws. Mark Stephens, a lawyer acting for a group of media and free speech organisations opposing Mr Mosley in court, believes that the extraordinary pace with which it is proceeding suggests that the judges are about to rule in the former Formula One boss’s favour. That would mean a change in the law that would force the press to contact anyone that they are intending to run a story about to warn them if it could potentially breach their privacy, giving public figures a chance to gag newspapers before publication. Read Article
Ed – By a dark irony Mr Mosley’s father was Sir Oswald Mosley the British wannabe Hitler and leader of the British Union of Fascists in the 1930’s
Daily Mail – The BBC has faced fresh accusations of dumbing down over its extensive coverage of Tiger Woods’s apology last week.
Scores of viewers complained about the golfer being the top story on the day 1,600 workers lost their jobs as the North-East’s last steel plant was shut down. Read Article
The Palestine Telegraph – There has to be a point in our lives when we turn our backs on normal news and bring out the truth behind a gut wrenching story that nobody wants to talk about or who may not be permitted to talk about. We at the Palestine Telegraph always want to bring out topics that no one else is prepared to print. The case of Hollie Greig is one such story that will make you feel terribly sick inside whilst at the same time wanting to bring those responsible to justice. I did a radio show the other day and someone specifically asked me to investigate this sad story probably knowing that I would do an article on it. One must feel the intense pain of Hollie’s mum and the ongoing nightmare’s that must haunt Hollie, the innocent victim of a pedophile father and his ring of evil friends. Read Article
RSF – 19 February 2010 – Five released: Omid Mehregan, journalist on the opinion pages of several newspapers, was released yesterday while awaiting trial, after 15 days in custody. Mazyar Sameii, contributor to several literary magazines, including Naghad noo, was freed on 17 February while awaiting trial. Read More in article – LOTS MORE! (Ed.)
PhysOrg.com – Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago Institute for Health Research and Policy have received a $2.2 million federal grant to determine whether or not TV food advertising affects children’s diet, physical activity and weight. The four-year project, funded by the National Cancer Institute, is unique because it will separate out the effect of food advertising from the amount of time that children watch TV. Read Article
CNN – Seven in 10 Americans believe that Iran currently has nuclear weapons, according to a new national poll. Friday’s release of the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey comes just hours after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the Islamic republic isn’t seeking and doesn’t believe in pursuing nuclear weapons. Khamenei was responding to a draft United Nations report that said that Iran may be working to develop a nuclear weapon. Read article
Daily Telegraph – Children are being sexualised from an increasingly early age by computer games, pornography and sex-related slogans, a government report will warn. Girls are feeling under pressure to please boys while boys believe they must sleep with several girls to fit in. The study was written by clinical psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos for the Home Office. Read Article
Ed. – The media is everywhere – in our faces, literally. It is important to limit the media influence whereever you can, particularly for children. We did not evolve with electronic media. Children need contact with other children and other adults to grow and develop. When appropriate, it is important that they know 1. THAT & then; 2. HOW they (and we) are being manipulated. Giving them this awareness, and some research skills, arms them against this constant bombardment.
SF Gate Chronicle – The recent privacy backlash over Google Buzz, the company’s new social-networking service, is the latest in a series of launch fumbles that some argue reveal troubling blind spots within the Internet giant. The huge amount of cash generated by the Mountain View company’s search business has enabled it to hop from product to product, moving into mobile, software, social networking, broadband and other areas. read article
RSF – Reporters Without Borders condemns the Zimbabwean authorities’ repeated harassment and intimidation of The Zimbabwean, a privately-owned newspaper that is edited in Britain and printed in South Africa. In the latest instance, criminal charges of “publishing falsehoods” have been brought against the directors of Adquest, the company that distributes it inside Zimbabwe. No date has yet been set for their trial. “This is all the more disturbing as the national unity government formed a year ago said it intended to guarantee press freedom.” Read article
A comprehensive and regularly updated list of all the apparent effects of Anthropogenic Climate Change according to the mainstream media over the last two decades. CLICK HERE TO READ
EDITORS WARNING: Do not read this analysis if you are of a nervous disposition, easily confused or easily scared.
Guardian – Message boasts of Israeli player’s ‘hit on Dubai target’ amid mounting row over Hamas chief’s killing. Amid the mounting diplomatic row over Mossad’s alleged assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai, the Israeli embassy has turned to Twitter to comment. A tweet issued by the embassy today read: “@israeluk You heard it here first: Israeli tennis player carries out hit on #Dubai target http://ow.ly/18A79″. It links to a story about the Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer, who beat the top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki yesterday to reach the quarter-finals of the Dubai Championship. Read article
AFP – Former top US officials staged a digital doomsday simulation on Tuesday in which a huge cyberattack crashes cellphone networks, slows Web traffic to a crawl and plunges major cities into darkness. Dubbed “Cyber ShockWave,” the elaborate exercise was held in a Washington hotel room transformed for the day into the White House Situation Room, where the president and his advisers typically meet to address national emergencies. Read article
Ed – why is the media playing war games? With so many former high profile government officials playing the part it gives it a sense of credibility that is freakishly scary. Despite the canned statements that it was a “believable” scenario, the fact remains that such a widespread debilitating attack is very unlikely to ensue from a smartphone application. Such a program would have very limited capability and almost no impact on any nation’s communications or energy networks. Ask any programmer.
The Guardian – Iceland intends to become a bastion for global press freedom under a package of laws proposed by opposition MPs to defend freedom of speech, and protect sources and fight libel tourism. With the help of Wikileaks, the online whistleblowing site, the MPs have launched the Icelandic Modern Media Intiative, with the goal of turning the country into a global haven for investigative journalism. Read article
Press TV = A Palestinian Authority court has sentenced a Palestinian journalist with the official Hamas-run television channel to 18 months in prison over affiliation to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). The court on Tuesday ruled that the 37-year-old reporter, Tariq Abu Zaid, who works for the official Hamas-run television network Al-Aqsa TV, must serve the term since acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas has forbidden Hamas and affiliated organizations from conducting any activities in the occupied West Bank. Read Article
Courier Mail – COMMUNICATIONS Minister Stephen Conroy went skiing with Channel 7 owner Kerry Stokes weeks before giving $250 million to our free-to-air TV networks. The Sunday Mail can reveal Senator Conroy – a skiing and snowboarding fanatic – met Mr Stokes in Vail, Colorado, last month while the Federal Government was considering pleas from the free-to-air industry to cut their licence fees. The meeting came a month before Senator Conroy cut licence fees paid by Seven, Ten and Nine for the next two years, depriving the Government of about $250 million. The decision was controversial because Senator Conroy said it was to protect Australian content, but included no binding requirement for the networks to spend the money on producing Australian content. Instead, it goes direct to their bottom line. Read Article
Ed – And, as can be inferred by our headline prefix, Australia’ media moguls (Packer, Stokes & Murdoch) have also much to gain by the same Minister’s plans to censor the internet in Australia.
