International

"The Senate confirmed longtime Republican spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs," PR Week reports. Tutwiler steps in to fill an eight-month vacancy left when ad queen Charlotte Beers resigned the post for health reasons. Tutwiler reportedly left her post as ambassador to Morocco only after "much cajoling by the Bush administration." During her confirmation hearing she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that America needs to do a better job of listening to foreign audiences.

When George W. Bush visits London next week, U.S. officials want to keep protesters out of sight, demanding a rolling "exclusion zone" around the President. "The Stop The War Coalition said yesterday that it had been told by the police that it would not be allowed to demonstrate in Parliament Square and Whitehall next Thursday - a ban it said it was determined to resist," the Independent reports.

"North American marketers are finding their closest service partners halfway around the world," writes Betsy Spethmann. Known as "business process outsourcing," the trend began in the 1990s, when U.S. software developers began hiring Indian programmers during the dot-com boom. Now the trend is affecting technical support and marketing, as companies realize that they get those jobs done cheaper by setting up call centers in places like India. "They're staffed by 20-something college grads who learn American accents and get daily briefings on U.S.

The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has published its second annual world press freedom ranking, criticizing Israel and the United States for unacceptable behavior toward journalists in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Iraq. RSF also criticized Arab countries for cracking down on media freedoms, but said standards were worst in Asia. Its worst ranking went to North Korea, followed by Cuba, which it said is "today the world's biggest prison for journalists."