"The Internet's promise as a new medium -- where text, audio, video and data can be freely exchanged -- is under attack by the corporations that control the public's access to the 'Net, as they see opportunities to monitor and charge for the content people seek and send," writes Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy. "The industry's vision is the online equivalent of seizing the taxpayer-owned airways, as radio and television conglomerates did over the course of the 20th century.

For insight into ways to promote better US-Arab relations, the Saudi Arabia-based Arab News interviewed Jim Cox of the Hill & Knowlton PR firm (which worked a decade ago to promote war in the Persian Gulf). "Saudi Arabia has a cadre of friends," says Cox, "who know, respect and value it in terms of business relationships and the culture of the Kingdom. The trouble is that cadre is very small.

"An Egyptian satellite television channel has begun teasers
for its blockbuster Ramadan series that its producers
acknowledge incorporates ideas from the infamous czarist
forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." That
document, a pillar of anti-Semitic hatred for about a
century, appears to be gaining a new foothold in parts of
the Arab world, some scholars and observers say."