From the BBC:

Hamas security forces in Gaza have detained members of the Palestinian militant group which claims to have abducted BBC reporter Alan Johnston.

Among the arrested was Khattab al-Maqdisi, a spokesman of the Army of Islam group, Hamas said.

"The arrests were carried out after all negotiation attempts... failed to free the abducted journalist," the Hamas-run interior ministry said in a statement.

Alan Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza on 12 March.

The BBC is holding a rally for Mr Johnston on Monday to mark the 16th week since his disappearance.

Read this post for worrisome context.

The key recommendations? Be bold and cut through the fog of spin.

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* Yes, it's intended to be a sarcastic headline.

From globeandmail.com:

The scene of Afghanistan's latest civilian bombing was still smoking, the injured still moaning in the dust, when villagers witnessed the Taliban's unnerving ability to exploit the carnage for propaganda.

Armed insurgents arrived almost immediately at the blasted patch of desert near Hyderabad in Helmand province, villagers say - speaking in grateful tones about the gunmen who helped them recover the bodies and ferry the injured to hospitals.

"All the people in this area will start jihad against the foreign troops," said Haji Nazar Mohammed, 50, a small-time farmer who claimed to have lost dozens of relatives. By declaring jihad, or holy war, against the soldiers, the villagers would commit themselves to helping the Taliban.

In the two days since the overnight bombing left an unknown number of people dead on Saturday morning, residents say the Taliban have been busy drumming up support in the affected area, offering rudimentary medical care, and even helping journalists arrange telephone interviews with relatives of the victims.

Dur Ali Shah, the government's district chief, says he cannot offer the victims any help of his own because the area remains too dangerous for him to visit.

Now, check this out from an accompanying article:

New Taliban tactics A group of doctors was drinking green tea at Mirwais hospital in Kandahar earlier this spring, chatting about the worsening security. Ordinary people in the city have reason to feel more relaxed this year, now that foreign troops have forced the Taliban far enough from the city limits that there's little chance of insurgents spilling through the gates. But anybody linked with the government, even doctors, have felt increasingly anxious about the Taliban's shift to terrorist tactics.

A mobile phone rang as they spoke, and a hospital administrator picked it up. All he could hear was screaming, at first, then the desperate voices became recognizable to the medical staff in the room. It was the sound of their colleagues crying for help. A man came on the line, identified himself as a Taliban fighter, and told the hospital workers that the insurgents had captured five outreach workers bringing medical care to refugees west of the city.

That kidnapping dragged on for weeks, and ended when the Taliban beheaded a doctor and released the others.

The International Committee for the Red Cross says health workers across the country are seeing greater numbers of people injured or displaced so far in 2007 compared with the same period last year, although the agency declined to release statistics.

So they'll provide first aid to civilian casualties of coalition artillery or air strikes, but they'll kill doctors who are working to help Afghans. Hmmm ...

The first article also noted this:

The number of civilian deaths inflicted by NATO and U.S. operations in Afghanistan has risen dramatically, with roughly 300 killed so far this year.

One of the major exceptions to this trend has been in Kandahar province, where Canadian commanders say they haven't heard any complaints of civilian casualties in 2007.

Here's a snippet from an Observer story:

Senior British soldiers have previously expressed concerns that (American General Dan) McNeill, who took command of the 32,000 Nato troops in Afghanistan only recently, was 'a fan' of the massive use of air power to defeat insurgents and that his favoured tactics could be counter-productive.

'Every civilian dead means five new Taliban,' said one British officer who has recently returned from Helmand. 'It's a tough call when the enemy are hiding in villages, but you have to be very, very careful,' he added.

The American general has been dubbed 'Bomber McNeill' by his critics.

Press TV will offer a 24/7 English-language satellite news service to compete with the worldview served up through the likes of CNN and the BBC.

Heres something from the Fars News Agency, and here's a June 26 Reuters story posted at washingtonpost.com. And here's a fresh BBC story.

Behold this a snapshot of the lead story from the Press TV home page:

Now, Press TV somehow missed the story about Iranian authorities asking journalists not to cover petrol-rationing-related unrest, but they did manage to write about this on Saturday:

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei has praised President Ahmadinejad for upholding the values of the Islamic Revolution.  ...

"The petrol rationing scheme is one of the dauntless moves made by the government which is to be continued by the officials."

Read WaPo reporter Joshua Partlow's amusing little yarn about getting stuck at a forward operating base in Iraq for almost two days waiting for a flight out.

From the NYT:

ONE of the most blogged-about sets at this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Southern California took place on a stage dominated by towering Marshall amplifier stacks and a huge illuminated cross. When the dark-clad musicians let loose with a familiar hammering riff, the fans erupted in roars, punching their fists in the air and barking out lyrics.

No, the group wasn’t a heavy-metal revival act — not exactly. Justice is a French D.J. duo at the forefront of a new school of electronic music far removed from the genteel soundtracks one commonly hears in W Hotel lobbies and design-conscious restaurants. The music is harder and hookier, as apt to inspire slam-dancing as hip shaking. It’s more like rock, which effectively dislodged dance music early this decade as the hipster soundtrack of choice.

“Our crowd is more a rock crowd,” said Gaspard Augé of Justice, who is still surprised that fans sometimes stage-dive at its gigs. Young audiences, he suggested, “just want more fun in electronic music, more hedonism.”

So in a year that has seen indie rockers like Bright Eyes and the Shins releasing conservatively tuneful CDs that parents might borrow from their kids, rowdy electronic music seems to be seeding a new underground. “People are dancing again,” said Tom Dunkley of GBH, the New York company behind Cheeky Bastards, a weekly club event that has embraced the new sound. When Justice and several like-minded D.J.’s performed at a Cheeky Bastards event in Manhattan in March, Mr. Dunkley said, the demand for tickets was “crazy, completely unusual.”

If you click through to the story, there's a pretty good podcast by reporter Will Hermes.

From the NYT:

With Americans seemingly developing a taste for news with a Fleet Street twist, British papers are stepping up their efforts to court American readers and advertisers, expanding their coverage of American politics and culture. And the biggest British media organization, the BBC, with a long-established international presence, is making a renewed push to crack the American market, with the Internet playing an important role.

“They got all these readers without even trying,” said Jeff Jarvis, a media blogger and journalism professor at the City University of New York who writes a column for The Guardian. “Now there’s this huge curiosity about America and how they can develop that audience.” ...

American media have been cutting back on international reporting, they said, at a time when audiences are looking for more coverage of the Middle East, for example. And Ms. Bell (Emily, editor of the Guardian Unlimited website) said American readers seem to like the fact that The Guardian is unabashed in its liberal leanings.

“We provide a level of debate and examination you might not get in the mainstream U.S. media,” she said.

Wikipedia is becoming such a rapid repository of knowledge that it's almost as much a news source now as an online encyclopedia. However, its collaboratory nature isn't well-suited to real-time news, and its accuracy rests on a core of volunteers.

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