By Amol Rajan
15 August 2008
The Independent

Policy exchange, the right-wing think-tank with close links to Conservative leader David Cameron's inner circle, is facing legal action for accusing British mosques of distributing extremist literature.

The Independent has learnt that the Al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre in west London has hired the law firm Carter Ruck to sue the think-tank for defamation. An initial complaint will be made "very soon", a source close to the case said.

Al-Manaar claims that Policy Exchange fabricated several receipts used as evidence of purchase. The North London Central Mosque in Finsbury Park, from which the jailed radical preacher Abu Hamza gave sermons, is also understood to be pursuing libel action against the think-tank through the solicitors' firm Dean and Dean.

Last October the BBC's Newsnight had been due to run an exclusive report on the findings of an article written for Policy Exchange by Denis MacEoin entitled The Hijacking of British Islam. Mr MacEoin argued that extremist literature was widely available in British mosques and shops adjoining them, that much of it was funded by the Saudi Arabian government, and that the Finsbury Park mosque was a major perpetrator of such distribution.

But when Richard Watson, the reporter covering the story, and Peter Barron, then editor of Newsnight, examined the report in detail, they found that five receipts used as incriminating evidence looked fake.

6 August 2008
Daily Telegraph

The White House ordered the CIA to forge a hand-written letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein fabricating a visit by an al-Qa'eda operative two months before the September 11th attacks, according to a new book.

By Mark Sweney
29 July 2008
The Guardian

A group of leading Shia Muslim scholars are threatening to take their grievances about a Channel 4 documentary on the Qur'an to Ofcom, unless the broadcaster apologises to viewers and commissions a second programme on their faith.

By Rory McCarthy
22 July 2008
The Guardian

Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, yesterday promised an inquiry after video footage showed an Israeli soldier shooting baton rounds at a Palestinian detainee who was blindfolded and cuffed.

By Adri Nieuwhof
17 July 2008
Electronic Intifada

Last year Palestinian artists, photographers and designers mapped "their" Palestine in the Subjective Atlas of Palestine. The atlas offers a picture of Palestine that differs from the images the public generally receives through the mass media. Dutch designer Annelys de Vet of the the International Academy of Arts in Palestine and the Dutch Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation, joined forces with a group of Palestinian artists to realize a moving, beautiful, poetic and at times heart-breaking book. On 26 June 2008 it was awarded the best designed book of 2007, beating out 465 others. There will be an exhibition of the 33 books nominated for the award in the famous Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam.

By Tim Reid
15 July 2008
The Times

A magazine cover showing Barack Obama in the Oval Office dressed as a Muslim and his wife as a terrorist was condemned by both the Democratic presidential candidate and his Republican rival yesterday.

Palestinian victims of violence by Israeli settlers have been given a valuable weapon to bring their attackers to justice, writes Sheera Frenkel

11 July 2008
The Times

GAZA CITY, Jun 28 (IPS) - Mohammed Omer, the Gaza correspondent of IPS, and joint winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, was strip-searched at gunpoint, assaulted and abused by Israeli security officials at the Allenby border crossing between Jordan and the West Bank on Thursday as he tried to return home to Gaza.

Omer, a resident of Rafah in the south of Gaza, and previous recipient of the New America Media's Best Youth Voice award several years ago, was returning from London where he had just collected his Gellhorn Prize, and from several European capitals where he had speaking engagements, including a meeting with Greek parliamentarians.