U.S. politicians are debating the effectiveness of the "propaganda front in the war on terrorism." Republicans say the White House is on the right track and "about to go into even higher gear," but Bill Press, former chairman of the California Democratic Party and author of the book, Spin This, says the Bush administration's propaganda has been inept and is "losing the spin war" in the Muslim world. The two sides can't even agree on how well the administration handled the bin Laden tape.

The United States faces an uphill battle in using the latest videotape of Osama bin Laden to influence public opinion in the Arab world, where Washington's support for Israel over the Palestinians dominates news coverage and the public tends to regard the fight to dismantle Al Qaeda as something of an American problem. Jamal Khashoggi, deputy managing editor of the Arab News daily in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, says he has no doubt that the tape is authentic.

"A study by the European Union completed earlier this year claimed that Japan was at high risk of an outbreak of the deadly mad-cow disease, but it was never published because of objections from Tokyo, a Japanese newspaper said yesterday," reports the Straits Times. The story broke just days after the Japanese government announced that a fourth cow was suspected to be infected with mad cow disease (BSE). The three other cases have been confirmed.