Newspaperindex - the blog | Newspapers of the world, media and free speech

-Or put in another way: Logfiles shows that users of Newspaperindex.com do not have time for registration.

I get a lot of suggestions for newspapers to Newspaperindex.com. Most of the suggestions are very good and I am pleased to get mails, but mostly I do not include the suggested newspapers. Here is a typical suggestion - and my answer:

—–Original Message—–
From: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 30. marts 2005 16:13
To: ‘hh@newspaperindex.com’
Subject: De Gelderlander

Geachte heer Lichtenberg,

Via een collega werd ik geattendeerd op de site newspaperindex.com en kreeg ik de vraag waarom De Gelderlander niet bij de index stond.
Ik heb uw site bekeken en wellicht is De Gelderlander een plaats in de index waard?!
De Gelderlander heeft een oplage van ruim 184.000 exemplaren, heeft een duidelijke website (dagelijkse update) en is vrij toegankelijk.
De Gelderlander is een onderdeel van Wegener.

Mocht u geïnteresseerd zijn of meer informatie willen hebben over onze regionale krant dan hoor ik graag van u.

Met vriendelijke groet,
______

Hi again,

I have looked at www.gelderlander.nl it all looks very good. - But I have a problem:

Gelderlander.nl demands registration. I need to have very strict criteria for the index in order to be able to update it and give my users a good service. My user usually opens more newspapers from the same country (often all of them) because they want to see different views versions of main stories rather than reading only one newspaper in a country. When a newspaper requires registration my users are far away.

Thanks for your suggestion and please contact me again if your newspaper changes it policy.

Best regards
Hans Henrik Lichtenberg
Newspaperindex.com

More and more newspapers are beginning to demand registration and it is a huge problem for the online community - and for the newspapers. I visit at least forty online newspapers every day and every time I come to a registration site I leave immediately. I simply do not have time for filling in forms and receiving emails with passwords just to be in some consumer database in a foreign country.

I got another mail from Mike the other day:

I have been worrying, as Gilmore and others have, about the decreasing access to content.
The New Your Times is starting to move toward a subscription system and many others are, for what I consider totally stupid justifications, moving toward Registration systems.
If you could, it might help to try to rate the news sources based on their access conditions, e.g.
Subscription only (to current news, to archive) Registration (…) Open (…)
That way perhaps we could try to apply some pressure to them to at least open up access to their archives so that when we put them in the Blogs or Sites we could depend on having our readers see what the original source said, even after a while.

I could not agree more.

I have some ideas to how it is possible to apply pressure on the newspapers, more about this later this week. Stay tuned!

Today I cleaned up my office and I found some stamps I bought in a newly opened post office in Jericho back in 1994. I do not collect stamps and the only reason I bought them was to use them for some postcards. The problem was that they could not be used since Israel had rejected the first printed palestinian stamps which had the value in MILS and obliged the Palestinian Authority to overprint them with FILS. That meant that the stamps could be sold but not used and here they are. Of course the man in post office first told me that the stamps could not be used after I paid for them…

I later discovered that these two stamps are from the very first two series in the postal history of Palestine.

If you would like to see the stamps i high quality write me an email: hh@newspaperindex.com

See the news from both sides:
Newspapers in Israel
Newspapers in Palestine

Fifty people died on the island of Nias, near the epicenter of a massive earthquake off the coast of Indonesia. You heard the story and it is all over the world, but where are the local Indonesian newspapers?

The Jakarta Post´s online edition has this top story: “Female singer faces jail for refusing to marry manager”
Indonesian Post has a story about Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Laksamana.net informs its readers about “A clash between supporters and opponents of Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle”
Business Indonesia has this story: “Japanese scientist warns possible big quake in Sumatra” ! Yep, and they were rigth…

See all yesterdays news from Indonesia at Newspaper Index here.

Update 2005-03-29 15:26
All the above mentioned newspapers now have the story. - But it does not change the fact that regional newspapers all over Europe had the story many hours before the Indonesian papers.

Banned Books Online

This is a very interesting article about banned books. The article links to all the mentioned books in full text.

South Africa’s apartheid regime banned a number of classic books; in 1955, for instance, the New York Times reported that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was banned there as “indecent, objectionable, or obscene”. At one time, the regime also reportedly banned Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, a story about a horse.

Black Beuaty was banned in South Africa.

Link

Articles

Yesterday the Kingdom of Bhutan signed its first constitution. And they uploaded it as a pdf…

Download the constitution here.

See all newspapers in Bhutan here

Newspaper Index is now translated to danish, english, norwegian and Jarek is working on the polish section. It would be cool to have the index in more languages, so if you can translate to any language please contact me.

The texts that shoul be translated are:

All the countries at the frontpage and the four subpages: Newspaperindex | Why | How | The future.

In total it is about 2 A4 pages non-tech text.

I can not afford a translations bureau, but I can pay a tiny sum and give you a permanent sponsor link.

Contact me: hh@newspaperindex.com

The French media analyst Alain Neuville has published five rescue strategies that could stop the downward spiral of European newspaper circulation, writes editorsweblog.org:

First is to find fresh cash in order to initiate rescue strategies. This is the case in France with new shareholders for Liberation (Rothschild) and Le Monde (Lagardere, Saint Gobain, Prisa, La Stampa)

Second is to find new strategic alliances. In the Netherlands, the two major competitors, PCM and Wegener have decided to join in order to fight the dramatic situation of the regional press. PCM will replace De Volkskrant - which is the n?2 title in the market, behind De telegraaf ? with a merger between the Algemene Dagblad and five regional titles.

-Third: to improve the design, i.e. the emerging wave of tabloid format switchovers. The wave has become tidal.
From Switzerland to Norway the smallest local paper is now considering changing its shape. Also new layouts are flourishing. The latest improvement ? and certainly a very effective one, since it will directly involve advertisers ? is the switchover to full color. Just one example, Italian Il Giornale is now implementing all of these changes at the same time.

Fourth: Try to generate extra revenues from their web sites. New pay-for access is being tried again here and there (Le Parisien in France). But it might be too late.

Fifth: to develop new promotional and marketing operations. First, it was free gifts. Now discounted pay-for side products are in fashion. It started in Italy with discount classic novels. The wave has now reached Spain (El Pais). Now classic films DVDs (Le Figaro, El Mundo) look fairly successful. It has been reported than a good music CD promotion could increase sales by 10% to 20%. So successful indeed, that now music publishers, bookstores, video rental and sales stores are getting worried. The latest selling promotional item is encyclopedias, as we already mentioned here.

Right on…Looks like good ideas. On the other hand, the newspapers I know of have tried all of these five strategies during the last five years and their circulation is still going down.

Alain Neuville, founder and president of A.N.I.M.A., an institute specialized in the European media market intelligence providing information and research related to the advertising and media markets in Europe to the international communication community.

Apparently the government in Kyrgyzstan has hijacked opposition newspapers sites and are now pointing their URL to government friendly news sites.

It is still a mystery what is going on in Kyrgyzstan. The newspapers in the country are nearly all government controlled or friendly towards the government in such a way that they can not be trusted when covering the ongoing dispute between the opposition and the newly elected government.

The situation gets more blurred by the lack of foreign correspondents and public access to the Internet in Kyrgyzstan. This means no bloggers or eyewitness.

Looking in to this I found this press release written by the project Open Net Initiative in partnership Eurasian i-Policy Network

Kyrgyz Websites subject to unexplained failure and hacking during the Parliamentary Elections

Websites belonging to political parties, independent media and government information agencies were subject to unexplained technical failures and deliberate hacking during Kyrgyzstan’s recent Parliamentary elections. Researchers from the Open Net Initiative documented a pattern of failures that suggest a deliberate attempt to interfere with the functioning of the Internet during election period.

Attacks included flooding journalist e-mail accounts with large amounts of spam, and spoofing of e-mail from Kyrgyz websites located in the US. Several political websites were deliberately defaced.

It seems like the suspected online war is continuing. Some newspapers websites are completely down and some have closed their English language section.
The weirdest thing is that the only English speaking independent newspaper in Kyrgyzstan, WWW.GAZETA.KG, now is being redirected to http://www.internews.kg - The government controlled news agency that by the way has closed down its English section!!!

Nice that we have a google cached version of www.gazeta.kg. Link.

In the cached version that dates back to march 18. the editor writes:

…many American and European Internet users received two malicious spam messages spoofed from www.gazeta.kg and www.kyrgyz.us. Needless to state that their purpose was to discredit our good name and get our web-sites closed.

According to the rating system www.top.kg of Asianinfo, ISP provider in Kyrgyzstan, our web-sites rank first and second most visited in Kyrgyzstan. This fact obviously does not give peace of mind to the political PR advisors, hired by Akaev’s regimen, who keep creating “wonders” in the attempts to disrupt the activities of the oppositional and non-governmental organizations.

This was the last english words from Gazeta.kg before the site got hijacked. This must be the worst (first?) case of government hijacking of websites.

See newspaperindex´ selection of newspapers from Kyrgyzstan

Update
Nart from citizenlab.org writes:

The websites www.gazeta.kg, www.kyrgyz.us, www.ar-namys.org were all hosted on Everyones Internet, Inc. in Houston Texas are were reportedly defaced on several occasions and were subjected to Denial of Service attacks, as were several other opposition newspapers. However, it is not accurate to say that the government hijacked these sites. The government may be suspected in the involvement in these attacks but it is not true that gazeta.kg was hijacked by the government and internews.kg in not a government site.

Press Freedom Home Page

Seventy-one journalists and other media workers were killed because of their professional activities in 2004, with 23 of them killed in Iraq, the most dangerous place for journalists on the planet, the World Association of Newspapers said Tuesday. The toll was the highest for a single year since 1994, when 73 were killed.

Seventy-one journalists and other media workers were killed because of their professional activities in 2004, with 23 of them killed in Iraq, the most dangerous place for journalists on the planet, the World Association of Newspapers said Tuesday.

The toll was the highest for a single year since 1994, when 73 were killed.

Pentagon Won’t Reopen Probe into Possible Abuse of Iraqi Reporters
Four Iraqi freelancers — three working for Reuters, one for NBC — say they were detained by U.S. forces and subjected to Abu Ghraib-style abuse. After a preliminary investigation, the troops were exonerated, and Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told Reuters the inquiry won’t be reopened, even in wake of the Abu Ghraib revelations

editorsweblog.org
French Le Monde has been redesigned. The ten year old website now offers a more simple design and navigation plus RSS.

Breaking news and some selected stories are free.

See all major newspapers in France here

Agence France-Presse (AFP) has filed a lawsuit against Google News for allowing AFP copyright pictures headlines and stories to appear via Google News service.

Google does not spider material from the AFP site itself, but from the agency’s clients who pays for AFP for the content. This means that it will be hard for Google’s newsbot to automatically identify and ignore all AFP material.
The important thing to notice here is that Google News does not copy entire articles. Google takes one or two line excerpt and deep links to the content site. If the Google News users want to read the entire article he must go to the AFP client site.

Finding content and guiding users to it is what a search engine is all about and the core in searching the Internet is indexing of text. If every content provider down to every single blogger and journalist should be asked and give permission before spiders could have access to their site the entire Internet would be crippled.

I think that the french still are annoyed that www outperformed Minitel..

les jours vieux bons

editorsweblog.org: k. Newspapers launches and results Archives

It is seldom to see new newspapers being launched, but this is what the media organization Benne, Coleman & Company plans to do first of May 2005 in Mumbay, India.

In the future, Bennett, Coleman & Company hopes to launch editions outside of Mumbai, possibly in New Delhi. Times Independent will be the first new newspaper to hit the stands in Mumbai in recent years, though two or three other newspapers are scheduled to be launched in the city between July and December of this year, including New Delhi’s Hindustan Times, and the Kolkata-based ABP group’s The Telegraph. Mumbai currently has three general dailies, The Times of India; , The Indian Express and Asian Age, and an afternoon paper, Mid-Day. Claiming that The Times of India has become a paper for the youth, Bennett, Coleman says that the new paper is meant for serious readers in the 40 – plus age group.

Bennett, Coleman & Company is a progressive media organisation, still it is Indias oldest and largest media house. It is known for its “flotilla business theory”; when a warship is under attack, ensure another warship is around to distract the enemy.

Browse the major indian newspapers here

Dear readers, today nothing happened. The letters refused to be words and walked away…

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Arab press urges Lebanon unity

As Syria begins withdrawing some of its forces from Lebanon, papers in the Arab world advise the country’s political leaders to come together to find a collective way forward.

Prime Minister Omar Karami will make a huge mistake if he does not include all the colours of the Lebanese political spectrum when forming the new government.

London’s Al-Sharq al-Awsat - commentary by Ahmad al-Rab’i

We were hoping that President Emile Lahoud would ask somebody other than Omar Karami to form a new government. This choice is tantamount to a provocation of the opposition, as well as a defiance of the opposition’s demand to form a government of national unity.

London’s Al-Quds Al-Arabi - editorial

Hundreds of thousands of combatants do not back this government … hundreds of thousands do not oppose this government’s leaders but neither do they support them either… every day it becomes crystal clear that the government’s leaders are not rising to their leadership challenges.

Lebanon’s Al-Anwar - commentary by Nadirah al-Sa’id

The rejection by several Lebanese opposition groups of the prime minister’s proposal to participate in a government of national unity… leaves the country on the brink of disaster… Lebanon today needs the… collective effort of both the loyalists and the opposition.

Jordan’s Al-Dustur - editorial

The glaring confusion among the opposition and the persistent disorder in the actions of the loyalists… confirms that the country is passing through a vacuum… it has never experienced before.

Lebanon’s Al-Safir - commentary by Sati Nur al-Din

Syria’s announcement that the complete withdrawal of its forces may come before May without doubt reduces the scope for argument… it is wise to transfer all the other demands by the loyalists and the opposition to the negotiating table … everyone must assume their historic nationalist responsibilities to overcome this crisis.

Saudi Al-Watan - editorial

While Syria must always remember that it cannot be suspected of assassinating Rafik Hariri, both it and the loyalist Lebanese authorities must shoulder the moral responsibility for what happened.

Kuwait’s Al-Ra’y Al-Am - commentary by Khayrallah Khayrallah

The real struggle is not for the government or its shape, nor over the number of seats in parliament or the names of the individuals in certain senior posts in Lebanon. What is happening is a struggle for the identity of Lebanon and its strategic options and national goals.

Lebanon’s Al-Intiqad - commentary by Husayn Rahhal

In order to avoid a new civil war in Lebanon, Washington should remove Hezbollah from the terrorist list and refrain from dealing with it in the same way it does with al-Qaeda… Washington should deal with Hezbollah the same way it deals with Iran, that is resort to the carrot, without the stick.

London’s Al-Hayat - commentary by Raghidah Dargham

Go to the index for more arabic news in english from local newspapers

As the UN Commission on Human Rights begins its annual session in Geneva this week, it faces growing criticism that its ability to take action against violating states is being weakened, writes the IFEX Communiqué.

“In recent years, the membership of the Commission has changed significantly, says Human Rights Watch. A growing number of countries with poor human rights records have gained seats on the body and used their votes to thwart resolutions that condemn their records.

Human Rights Watch says the Commission must rid its membership of the worst human rights violators and insist that countries wishing to join must make commitments to improve human rights (Read its report here: http://www.hrw.org/un/chr61.htm).

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) is calling attention to the fact that 70 of the 99 imprisoned journalists world-wide are located in countries that belong to the Commission. They include China, Cuba, Eritrea and Nepal. “The [Commission] continues to discredit itself. We do not understand how the UN’s leaders, tolerate this,” says RSF.”

Journalistm.org has just published the annual “The state of the News Media”. A very comprehensive report about content, audience, economics, investments, public attitudes in and around the news media industri.

It is free and online. Take a look:

Newsdesigner.com
World’s Best-Designed Newspapers:
Hartford Courant
01:40 AM, March 08, 2005

Society of newspaper design has recently recognized 5 newspapers as World’s Best-Designed Newspapers

The Hartford Courant is a 250,000-circulation daily in Hartford, Conn. It was also named one of the world’s best in 2000. The SND judges this year said:

This paper is a standout in the American newspaper market. The Hartford Courant distinguishes itself with an enduring elegance in design and typography. Though conservative in their approach, designers engage readers with the bold use of visuals. The contrast between their quiet, understated style and the gutsy photography and illustrations create a tension that captures the attention of readers.

The other winners are:
Die Zeit, Hamburg, Germany Very cool online edition. My #1..
Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin
Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm
The Hartford Courant
Marca, Madrid

See all the winners here and view the judges comments.

Now NewspaperIndex has been optimized for smartphones. This blog and the index of newspapers now stands crystal clear when browsing from your smartphone. Just disable pictures and the browsing will be fast as lightning.

CyberJournalist.net: Newspapers that charge for their sites
Newspapers that charge for their sites

Most of the 1,400 daily newspapers in the United States continue to offer their content on their Web sites for free. Here’s a list of the more than 35 newspapers that charge for access.

Newspapers in the US that charge for access
(Note: Some charge all readers and some only charge non-print subscribers)

1 Brighton-Pittsford Post, N.Y.
2 Brockport Post, N.Y.
3 Chanute Tribune of Chanute, Kansas (4,431)
4 Daily News, Newton, Iowa
5 East Rochester Post, N.Y.
6 Gates-Chili Post, N.Y.
7 Gazette, Schenectady, NY - (60,000)
8 Greece Post, N.Y.
9 Henrietta Post, N.Y
10 Hillsboro Star-Journal, Kansas
11 Irondequoit Post, N.Y.
12 Lewiston Tribune, Lewiston, Idaho (22,301)
13 Messenger Post, Canandaigua, N.Y.
14 News Advertiser, Creston, Iowa
15 Paducah Sun, Kentucky
16 Penfield Post, N.Y.
17 Perinton-Fairpor Post, N.Y.
18 Post Register, Idaho Falls, Idaho (23,829)
19 Standard, Aiken, S.C.
20 The Daily Hampshire Gazette - Northampton, MA (18,000)
21 The Emporia Gazette, Kansas
22 The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (63,000)
23 The Hays Daily News, Kansas
24 The joint website operated by The Dispatch (23,387) and Rock Island Argus (12,776), of Moline and Rock Island, Illinois
25 The Journal, Albuquerque, NM (110,531)
26 The Marion County Record, Kansas
27 The Messenger, Madisonville, Kentucky (8,864)
28 The Ottawa Herald, Kansas
29 Santa Barbara News-Press, Calif.
30 The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, WA (108,000)
31 The Standard-Times, New Bedford, Mass. (36,663)
32 The Telegram and Gazette, Worcester, MA (100,000)
33 The Telegraph, Nashua, N.H. (26,442)
34 The Wall Street Journal, N.Y., (1.9 million daily circulation)
35 Tulsa World, Tulsa, Okla. (143,582 circ.)
36 Webster Post, N.Y.

Some U.S. sites that charge for a portion for their material:

• Dallas Morning News.com - CowboysPlus.com
• Los Angeles Times - Calendarlive.com
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - PackerInsider.com
• New York Times - Crosswords and other services
• The News-Gazette, Champaign, Illinois, has charged for access to its college sports content since December 1996. The online version replaced a daily fax of such material.
• The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch charges for most stories. It’s free for print subscribers; 4.95 per month for others

Internet filtering is becoming a widespread pleasure among dictatorships all over the world. Lets take a look at some of them.

First of all here is the methods governments use to restrict access to the Internet:

1. High prize for internet connections or by allowing monopolies
2. Monitoring of user behavior, often real time
3. By law that demands operators to block a list of sites
4. By filtering all traffic in and out of the country on government controlled proxy servers

Singapore
Since 1996 the Singapore Broadcasting Authority have regulated the usage of the Internet by demanding that operators block sites with unwanted content.

North Korea
It is not legal to connect to the Internet at all in North Korea. The country has local networks and some “net cafés”.

China - and the great firewall
The most widely restricted Internet in the world. Thousands of people are employed in the internet surveillance business in China. Sites build on specific blog software are banned, search engine results are filtered and the actual individual surfing patterns are monitored real time. The filters block access to sites about Tibet, Taiwan, democratic movements and dissident groups. See how China hack Google and how Chinese users can defeat it here.

USA
Overseas Internet users have been blocked from a voter registration site, www.fvap.gov, during the 2004 election. Pentagons reason for the action was fear of hackers. Read more.

Cuba
“We cannot forget that the Internet can be aggressive. It can hurt you,” said Jesus Martinez, director of the Center for Interchange of Automated Information, or CENIAI, the country’s sole Internet provider.
At the cyber cafe in Havana’s International Business Center, patrons must show identification and sign a contract just to open an e-mail account. There is only access to local websites and sending emails and the price for 3 hours internet usage is equal to one-third of the average Cuban workers’ monthly wage.

Saudi Arabia
All Saudi Internet connections are routed through a government-controlled central farm of proxy servers, giving the government a direct filtering capability. Mainly censoring of sites critical of the royal family.

Denmark
The former state owned operator now called TeleDanmark is still the sole owner of all end users cables. This situation has led to extremely high prices on internet connections compared to the rest of Europe. The competition authorities are looking at the case, but they have done that for ages. And hey, isn’t the CEO of TeleDanmark a former minister from the same government that is in power now?

Burma
Myanmar Post and Telecommunications, has been forced to filter sites which are detrimental to government policies.

Vietnam
Same as above

Bahrain
Bans electronic versions of Playboy magazine and other home pages that the government says are pornographic.

Iran
Access to the Internet in Iran is presently subject to official censorship, although the precise scope and scale of the filtering is unclear. Khatami has informed the international press that only a couple of hundred sites are blocked. http://opennetinitiative.net/ has discovered that it is more than 10.000.

This is the message iranian internet users often see when browsing the Internet.

Syria
Filters websites

South Korea
Major internet service providers in South Korea are ordered by the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) to block domestic access to 31 websites considered being carrying propaganda favoring the North Korean regime.

India
India is blocking at least one site: HinduUnity.org. - Because of inflammatory anti-Islamic material contained on the website

IPI (International Press Institute)

On 4 March, journalist Giuliana Sgrena was wounded in the shoulder when US-led coalition forces fired on her. Nicola Calipari, an Italian secret service agent who was travelling in the same car as Sgrena, was killed in the incident.

The shooting apparently occurred close to a military checkpoint in Baghdad and came shortly after kidnappers had released the Italian journalist. Sgrena, a journalist with the Rome-based daily Il Manifesto, was abducted near Baghdad University on 4 February.

A U.S. military statement concerning the incident said soldiers opened fire because the vehicle approached them “at a high rate of speed.” Sgrena, however, disputed these claims saying the car was not speeding and there was no apparent checkpoint. Instead, it seemed to her that a patrol fired on the car after having shone a floodlight.

Commenting on the incident, IPI Director, Johann P. Fritz, said, “The injury of Sgrena and death of Calipari along Baghdad’s airport road highlight the real need for proper communication within the U.S.-led coalition forces about the whereabouts of journalists.”

“It is highly unlikely that the U.S.-led coalition forces were not aware that Sgrena had been freed and was travelling in a certain car and following a certain route. And yet, as with previous cases where journalists have been wounded and killed, there seems to have been no attempt to communicate this to soldiers on actual operations in Iraq.”

On the question of the actual shooting, Fritz said, “There is also a real need to review rules of engagement that appear no different from those first used during the Iraq war and which seem to recklessly endanger the lives of innocent civilians.”

Read Dave Harbottles excellent blog about this. North Sea Diaries - A weblog of European politics
Read the italian newspapers version of this story
More news from Iraq

- And bring their leaders to justice

1. North Korea
You know why. (don´t go for nukes if you can´t handle the paranoia)

2. Nepal
Prisons in Nepal are stuffed with journalists.

3. China
I am sorry Mr. President HU Jintao the National People’s Congress has passed the change to reform China.

4. Africa
…Ups - a continent… Never mind. Get the place back on the track. Get democracy, get an economy and get rid of those dictatorships. You can start with Zimbabwe or Libya.

5. Russia
This is difficult. I know you all ask yourself: “Shouldn’t Putin have another chance to bring this huge mess in the right direction?”
He had the chance and he used it to suppress the media, steal oil and play Vietnam in Chechnya. This disqualifies him from ruling a country of that size. Please correct me if I am wrong.

6. Turkey
This is the country that can´t decide whether it should join Bin Ladins gang og The European Union. How about general strikes and mass demonstrations next, say Monday? Ankara?

7. Iran
Bloggers go to jail, that’s why.

8. Cuba
The nation with most reporters in prison per citizen.

“Hey Hans,” you might cry now. “All these countries are poor or hostile against the US. Are you some kind of right wing activist”? No. I am not.

9. USA
The war crimes in Iraq says it all. A leadership who makes those episodes possible should not be in power. Being sorry just isn’t good enough.

10. Israel
Prime Minister Ariel SHARON is a war criminal isn’t he? If you don’t know, do some research, go for a walk, sit down, take a deep breath, close your eyes and ask yourself again: Isn´t he?

If we don’t take action now
We settle for nothing later
Rage against the machine 1992

In TV I just saw a gang of Turkish policemen brutally beating up a group of women in a peacefully protest.

Turkey has a long record of systematic torture, suppression of minorities and medias. This image has followed the initial discussions about Turkish membership of the EU.
Personally I thought Turkeys misuse of power was history. I traveled Turkey two years ago and became convinced the country could be a great partner in the European Union. I was surprised how the warmth of the people contrasted the stories about a system neglecting human rights and I felt this was a matter that could be solved in the coming membership negotiations.

The news tonight showed that this was a misunderstanding.

EU - One of many torture methods in Turkey - From Independent Media Centre of the Netherlands

Let me mention a couple of reason more why Turkey is way behind the standards of the EU:

Daily suppresion of free speech and Kurdish media. BBC
Turkey is still torturing its citizens. Amensty International

What Turkey need now is not talks with EU. They have turned out to be false all along. Tyrkey does not need new leaders - the country needs a revolution and a new system.

Click here to read todays turkish newspapers online in full text:

Newspaperindex.com is all about finding the best newspapers in every country in the world and collect links to them. The problem is that some countries don’t have any newspapers with a website. Take a look at North Korea. The gTLD .kp has been reserved for North Korea, but it is not in use. They don’t have Internet at all. No blogs, no boingboing, no spam, nothing.

So where do we find news from Democratic People’s Republic of Korea? Well there is KCNA the state run news agency. Every day it brings 4-10 articles in both English, Russian and Spanish. The site is worth a bookmark, not because of the quality but for its weird combination of aggressive and eccentric views.

Today KCNA claims that the South Korean Authorities have a “sycophantic treacherous mentality”, it comfort us that the goal of North Korea is a total denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and there is a comment about the great friendship among North Korea and Libya. This is like reading news from another planet, but it provides an idea of what the North Korean newspapers offers their readers.

World leaders are praising Kim Jong II… See if you can find Kofi, Bush and Arafat :-)

Take a look at KCNA here

See more North Korean propaganda poster here

Going to North Korea? See this flash movie made by the government in North Korea to attract visitors..

UPDATE: The above link really pissed the Koreans of. They replace the flash movie with the most far out justification - but I had a copy and I send it to the kind folks at boingboing and here it is

Russians newspapers are facing unfaithfull readers, writes “Weekly bulletin of events in Russian mass media” published by the russian “Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.” -But some russian regions, like Chechnye, are printing newspapers like never before.
The national post service in Russia are providing statistics half yearly about the numbers printed newspapers in subscribtion. The second half of 2004, in comparison with the same period of 2003, the one-time subscription circulation of the printed editions went down by 2% and amounted to 33,3 million copies.
The most significant decrease in circulation in the Russian regions happened in Cheliabinsk region (decreased by 19%), Hanti-Mansiysk region (down by 16%), Astrahan region (down by 13%).

The leaders of the subscription circulation became the Chechen republic (increase of the circulation by 145%), Chukotka autonomous region (by 16%), Ingushetia (by 9%).

Chechnya is a new Klondyke for the newspaper industry

“We apologize to our readers for being unable to update our news services due to circumstances beyond our control. We sincerely hope that the recent developments will lead to peace and security in the country,” writes a group a of editors from Nepal on the newsportal nepalnews.com as they publish the reason for their apologies:

Tranlasted to english:
“Invoking Sub Clause 1 of Clause 15 of His Majesty’s Print and Publication Act, 2048, and considering the nation and national interest, His Majesty’s Government has banned for six months any interview, article, news, notice, view or personal opinion that goes against the letter and spirit of the Royal Proclamation on 1 Feb 2005 and that directly or indirectly supports destruction and terrorism. In line with the arrangement in the Print and Publication Act 2048, action will be taken against anyone violating this notice.”

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“Electricity is in the air,” writes Daily Star.

“Beirut is a sea of excitement, and activity and turmoil. The word “revolution” is on many lips.
As the light of dawn illuminated Martyrs’ Square and the surrounding precinct, an ocean of red and green flags could be seen ebbing and flowing and swelling. It was a momentous event, and it led to the resignation of the pro-Syrian government of Prime Minister Omar Karami.
What contributed to the historical nature of yesterday’s events was the fact the protesters demonstrated exemplary behavior. Thankfully reciprocating, the army also demonstrated exemplary behavior - a wise policy that undoubtedly preserved national stability and gave the Lebanese youth who were risking so much a taste of political responsibility.
-And Syria should consider what is happening in a sober manner and not thwart the ideals demonstrated by Lebanon’s youth: It is, indeed, the time for change.”

The Daily Star – Lebanon
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