Al Jazeera

Advanced Micro Devices says it will split into two companies to remain competitive.

Nearly three-quarters of Palestinians want the newly elected Hamas movement to drop its call for the destruction of Israel. This came in an opinion poll released by the Ramallah-based Near East Consulting Institute on Monday.

Source: Al-Jazeera.net

Doha - Nearly three-quarters of Palestinians want the newly elected Hamas movement to drop its call for the destruction of Israel.

Last week's revelation in the Daily Mirror of the existence of a UK government memo recording an April 2004 conversation between Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George Bush, in which Bush reportedly proposed to bomb Al Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar, only to be talked out of it by Blair, has caused universal shock. Until recently, most people still believed that the sanctity of journalism and media would be somehow respected, no matter how far any disagreement had reached.

by Hasan Abu Nimah

It has always been a problem for journalists: how to carry on the profession of journalism without being accused of sympathizing with the person you are covering. But when journalists are imprisoned based on the people whom they interview, the government has clearly overstepped its bounds.

by Daoud Kuttab

by James J. Zogby

Should the truth matter in politics? And should we be concerned about the rancour that characterises our political discourse? The answer to both is decidedly, yes. But as demonstrated by the recent hate frenzy whipped up by some conservatives in response to Senator Richard Durbin's comments about the mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, we have a long way to go.

I have written about the attacks on Senator Durbin, but there are troubling aspects of this story that require revisiting the matter. Of special concern is the degree to which one of the principal lines of attack used against Durbin was based on fabrication and exaggeration, and was intended primarily to incite anger for partisan political gain.

As delivered by top White House adviser, Karl Rove, to a cheering audience of New York conservatives, the case was framed as: "Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year? Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."

by George S. Hishmeh

In the din of the presidential campaign here, cheap shots at Arab and Muslim concerns are regularly taken by all, but it is most shocking when these are fired by widely read commentators who sometimes write perceptively and sympathetically, but at times their otherwise discordant views are hardly challenged.

Take the case of Thomas L. Friedman's piece last Sunday in The New York Times. He said he found "a steadily rising perception across the Arab-Muslim world that the great enemy of Islam is JIA - `Jews, Israel and America' - lumped together in a single threat."

Here, he too participates willingly in bashing the favourite American punching bag - the Arab media, particularly television networks and especially Al Jazeera, the most popular station in the Arab world, which at one time won American admiration. Friedman charged that this anti-JIA "trend has been fanned by Arab satellite TV stations, which deliberately [emphasis added] show split-screen images of Israelis bashing Palestinians and US forces bashing the Iraqi insurgents".

By Delinda C. Hanley

JOURNALISTS FROM around the world gathered at the Intercontinental Hotel in Doha, Qatar on July 13 and 14 for the first world forum hosted by Al Jazeera Channel. The Doha forum, on "Changing Media Perceptions: Professionalism and Cultural Diversity," opened with a provocative discussion of the ethics involved in live telecasts of armed conflicts. This topic was vital for the network, which has been both criticized and lauded for transmitting pictures of human suffering and death from conflict areas. Attendees also examined the peculiar relationship between media and governments, particularly in regard to war coverage in Iraq.

Ironically, three weeks later, Iraq's interim government ordered Al Jazeera's Baghdad office closed for a month, charging that by showing images of hostages in Iraq, the TV network incites violence and hatred. Conference participants spent much of their time discussing this same issue, trying to delineate where freedom of information turns into incitement, and where omission becomes censorship. Unfortunately, there was no representative from Iraq's interim government to hear the views offered by journalists from many nations.