From The Globe and Mail:

A controversial attempt to seize a Toronto freelance writer's notes was defused yesterday after a judge brokered a deal that limited damage to journalistic principle.

Journalist Lon Appleby agreed to answer questions in the witness box in connection with a first-degree murder case.

In return, a defence lawyer for the accused man said he would drop his attempt to subpoena notes and tape recordings that Mr. Appleby made while researching a 1998 Toronto Life magazine story.

"I am very happy with the result today," said Iain MacKinnon, Mr. Appleby's lawyer. "The questioning of Lon was narrowly tailored to establish some basic facts about his article and did not pose a threat to press freedom."

From globeandmail.com:

The Ontario Court of Appeal has ordered the National Post newspaper to hand over a document and envelope that could reveal the identity of an individual who tried to “undermine the authority” of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

The ruling came as a blow to several media organizations – including The Globe and Mail – who had argued that handing over the documents would put a chill into the relationship between journalists and their sources – regardless of whether the material in the National Post case was a forgery.

From the BBC:

Six years after being ousted in the US-led invasion, the Taleban have retaken about 10% of Afghanistan, US intelligence chief Mike McConnell says.

The government controlled just 30% of the country, and the rest was under tribal control, the director of national intelligence told senators.

But that assertion has been denied by the Afghan government as incorrect.

From the BBC:

With Russia's presidential election campaign entering its last day, the head of the electoral commission has admitted media coverage was unequal.

Vladimir Churov told the BBC not all candidates had enjoyed equal access to the media, but he still believed the coverage had been fair.

From Maureen Dowd's column in the NYT:

Hillary and her aides urged reporters to learn from the “Saturday Night Live” skit about journalists having crushes on Obama.

“Maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow,” she said tartly in the debate here Tuesday night. She peevishly and pointlessly complained about getting the first question too often, implying that the moderators of MSNBC -- a channel her campaign has complained has been sexist -- are giving Obama an easy ride.

Beating on the press is the lamest thing you can do. It is only because of the utter open-mindedness of the press that Hillary can lose 11 contests in a row and still be treated as a contender.

Turkish religious scholars are pouring over the Hadith -- a collection of sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, and the second-most sacred text in Islam after the Koran -- with an eye towards a radical modernization.

From the NYT:

For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults are behind bars, according to a new report.

Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million, after three decades of growth that has seen the prison population nearly triple. Another 723,000 people are in local jails.

The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 adult Hispanic men is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 adult black men is, too, as is one in nine black men ages 20 to 34.

China has 1.5 million people in prison -- and with 1.3 billion people, slightly more than four times the population of the U.S.

When you're out-incarcerating an authoritarian country like China, I can only say, "wow."

From The Globe and Mail:

An attempt to seize a Toronto freelance writer's notes has erupted into a court battle pitting journalistic principle against the fate of a man accused of first-degree murder.

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I was in St. Lawrence Market earlier this afternoon where I heard some 20-something woman tell her friend that she thought of Alberta as a separate country.

I shaketh my head.

CBC Radio's Mike Hornbrook reported this morning that the normally e-loquacious Conrad Black is not responding to e-mails these days.

And Black appears to be taking efforts to avoid being photographed in the waning days of his pre-incarceration freedom.

Black's lawyers were in court in Chicago on Wednesday. They are arguing for him to allow to remain free on bail awaiting his appeal rather than commence serving his sentence on Monday as scheduled. Black may hear the outcome of that application today.

Sadly, Black wasnt' successful, so the big house looms ever closer.

The Star's David Olive passed along this observation on Feb. 25:

And now, an irony within a paradox wrapped in an enigma:

Journalist Doug Bell, who blogged impartially on the Conrad Black trial last year for Toronto Life, has come upon a recent, resigned observation by Himself in the Irish press: "The place [prison] I have been assigned to is relatively good and if I do go there, they will ask me to teach, but I guess it's an elite occupation in a prison," Black said. "It's like back to boarding school, without, one dares to assume, the tedium and indignity of corporal punishment." As he made clear in his mid-1990s memoir, Black regarded many of his Upper Canada College instructors as kapos.

Not sure what's more retch-worthy here: that Black always places himself on the most elite plane that circumstances allow; or his implication that outside of prison, teaching – a vocation of more critical importance to a healthy society than, say, investment banking – is very much sub-elite. 

This has been the most popular story at CTV.ca pretty much all day: Five-metre python eats family dog in front of kids

This is the part that really had me wondering:

Stuart Douglas, owner of the Australian Venom Zoo in Kuranda, said  ... the snake had actively stalked the dog for a number of days, and the family that owned the dog had actually seen it in the dog's bed, which was a sign it was out to get it.

The family called Douglas after the dog had been killed and by the time he arrived there, he said, all that could be seen of the dog was its hind legs and tail.

The snake had stalked the dog for days?!?! The family sees the snake in the dog's bed?!?!?! They have young kids and a giant snake in their back yard, but they don't call anyone until after it kills and starts swallowing their dog?!?!?!?!

WTFF?!?!?!?!?!

TorStar Corp. is predicting a challenging 2008 for its newspaper holdings, but fortunately, there is a way to ease the bite into earnings taken by falling advertising revenue.

Some telemarketer just called offering 0.000001 per cent interest if only I'd ...

I exaggerate for effect, and truth be told, I didn't hear much of the spiel.

My standard tactic for some time has been to put the phone down when the person starts talking and then go on about my business.

I continue to be amazed when I return several minutes later and they're still there. "Hello?" this particular guy asked as I picked up the phone before quietly hanging up.

My question for these guys, should we ever speak on a non-commercial basis, would be, "at one point did you realize I wasn't listening to you at all, and why didn't you hang up when you clued in?"

I sympathize with people working for a living, but I place telemarketers and traffic cops on about the same low plane of existence.

In composing my post on the battle for the Korengal Valley and the fact that the insurgents were quite willing to put women and children at risk in their fights with U.S. troops, I remembered a relevant snippet of dialogue from Apocalypse Now Redux.

Both these stories are from the Independent, which has made the case of Afghan journalist Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, facing a possible death sentence for blasphemy, an institutional crusade.

From the NYT:

Of the many landmarks along a journalist’s career, two are among those that stand out: winning an award and making the government back down. Last week, Joshua Micah Marshall achieved both.

On Tuesday, it was announced that he had won a George Polk Award for legal reporting for coverage of the firing of eight United States attorneys, critics charged under political circumstances. The “tenacious investigative reporting sparked interest by the traditional news media and led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,” the citation read.

Also last week, the Justice Department put him back on its mailing list for reporters with credentials after removing him last year.

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Former Hollinger International executive David Radler began serving his prison term today.

Next up, Conrad Black, in exactly one week.

NYT Magazine contributing writer Elizabeth Rubin spent some time with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in the Korengal Valley, located in Afghanistan's Kunar province. She found a place where -- from my reading -- a My Lai-like situation could be just one more ambush away.

This is a must read.

In January, Vanity Fair published an article on fighting in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. To my mind, it buttresses another remarkable article on U.S. troops in that area by NYT Magazine contributing writer Elizabeth Rubin.

With Vladimir Putin about to shuffle titles, the NYT is looking at just how tightly he has controlled Russian public life. While life is freer than it was under Soviet times, it's still pretty restricted. This is the first part of a series.

The NYT published an article this week on Sen. John McCain's overwhelming confidence in his own sense of propriety.

The story came under considerable fire, particularly for its use of anonymous sources (more than 2,400 comments were attached to the story).

A key allegation is that some anonymous individuals -- sourced as former aides to McCain, who is currently the presumptive Republican nominee for president -- thought he was having an affair with a younger lobbyist whose clients had business before a committee McCain chaired.

Both McCain and the lobbyist deny they had an affair.

In response, the NYT's editors and reporters took questions from readers. More than 4,000 were sent in.

NYT public editor Clark Hoyt weighs in:

From AP via CTV.ca:

The Black Crowes are lashing out at Maxim magazine for reviewing the band's new album -- apparently without actually hearing it first.

The review, published in Maxim's March issue, gives the Crowes' "Warpaint" a rating of two-and-a-half stars out of five.

"The writer -- who has not heard the album since advance CDs were not made available -- wrote what appears to be a disparaging assessment anyway, citing, `it hasn't left Chris Robinson and the gang much room for growth,'" said a statement on the band's official Web site.

The band's manager, Pete Angelus, said the magazine explained that its review was an "educated guess."

From the BBC:

A Moroccan computer engineer has been sentenced to three years in jail for setting up a Facebook profile in the name of a member of the royal family.
 
Fouad Mourtada was arrested on 5 February on suspicion of stealing the identity of Prince Moulay Rachid, younger brother of King Mohammed VI.

The Casablanca court also ordered Mr Mourtada, 26, to pay a $1,300 fine.

The prosecution had urged the court to impose a sentence which set an example for others.

Mr Mourtada was convicted of "villainous practices linked to the alleged theft of the [prince's] identity".

In his defence, he said he admired the prince, and that the Facebook entry was just intended to be a bit of fun.