Regarding Brazier's BBFC Accountability bill, I actually emailed the BBFC about this, asking if they were going to respond and take up issue with him over this.

Whilst they didn't go into detail, saying they would be responding "in due course", I did get the impression that they didn't seem too worried. Letting slip that they didn't think the bill had much support (he has tried this once before after all).

The feelings I've been getting from other forums is that as the BBFC is already accountable to the government under the VRA, and that if the government really wanted to they could simply designate a different censorship body for home video and computer games other than the BBFC, then it is not likely this bill will get through as its unnecessary.

Chairperson of the Indian Central Board for Film Certification (CBFC) Sharmila Tagore feels that censorship should not be used for moral policing and preaching.

Though some kind of check was necessary, care should be taken not to stifle entertainment, Sharmila Tagore said.

She said Members of the Board while avoiding to be moral police, should, however, act with great care as they were responsible to the civil society.

India is a multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-ethnic country, and majority of the people want some kind of censorship, and the government has to take note of that, she said.

Welcome to the promise of the Internet at 10,000 metres - and the questions of etiquette, openness and free speech that airlines and service providers will have to grapple with as they bring Internet access to the skies in the coming months.

This gets into a ticklish area, said Vint Cerf, one of the Internet's chief inventors and generally a critic of network restrictions. Airlines have to be sensitive to the fact that customers are (seated) close together and may be able to see each other's PC screens. More to the point, young people are often aboard the plane.

Technology providers and airlines are already making decisions. Some will block services like Internet phone calls altogether while others will put limits and install filters on content. And traffic management tools that are frowned upon on terra firma could be commonplace in the air.

Panasonic Avionics Corp., a Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. unit testing airborne services on Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd., is designing its high-speed Internet services to block sites on "an objectionable list," including porn and violence, said David Bruner, executive director for corporate sales and marketing. He said airlines based in more restrictive countries could choose to expand the list.

The company also is recommending that airlines permit Internet-based phone calls only on handsets with wireless Wi-Fi capabilities. Bruner said the company believes Wi-Fi handsets use less bandwidth than telephone software that runs on laptops. Airlines, he said, also could block incoming calls - and the annoying ring tones they produce - or designate periods of quiet time.

U.S. airlines are largely taking the opposite approach. With possible exceptions for crew and federal air marshals, flights on American Airlines and Alaska Airlines won't have access to Internet-based phone services like Skype.

Virgin America is also considering a ban: An airborne environment is a confined environment, said Charles Ogilvie, Virgin's director of in-flight entertainment and partnerships: You don't want 22B yapping away or playing on a boom box.

Meanwhile, American, Alaska and Virgin have no plans to filter sites based on their content. At most, an airline may manage traffic and delay large downloads, or in Virgin's case give passengers the option of enabling controls for their kids.

We think decency and good sense and normal behaviour will prevail, said Jack Blumenstein, chief executive of Aircell which is launching service on some American and Virgin flights in 2008.

In many ways, airlines are facing issues similar to those encountered by Wi-Fi networks on the ground - at airports, coffee shops and other public places.

Glenn Fleishman, editor of the Wi-Fi Networking News site, said operators of public networks generally do not filter because users are conscious that others can see what they surf.

Airplanes, however, are different because customers are in closer quarters and are more likely to include kids.

Allowing porn could subject an airline to harassment complaints much like an employer that refuses to clamp down, said John Palfrey, a Harvard Law School professor: I think they have a right to (filter), but I come up short of saying they have the responsibility. I'd rather have the responsibility in the hands of passengers and require them to be accountable for what they do on laptops and airplanes.

Airborne Internet activities - such as hacking and piracy - could raise new questions about which country's laws apply.

A church and Christian newspaper in Malaysia are suing the government after it decreed that the word "Allah" can only be used by Muslims.

In the Malay language "Allah" is used to mean any god, and Christians say they have used the term for centuries.

A spokesman for the Herald, the newspaper of the Catholic Church in Malaysia, said a legal suit was filed after they received repeated official warnings that the newspaper could have its licence revoked if it continued to use the word.

We are of the view that we have the right to use the word 'Allah', said editor Rev Lawrence Andrew.

The Sabah Evangelical Church of Borneo has also taken legal action after a government ministry moved to ban the import of religious children's books containing the word.

In a statement given to Reuters news agency, the church said the translation of the bible in which the word Allah appears has been used by Christians since the earliest days of the church.

There has been no official government comment but parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said the decision to ban the word for non-Muslims on security grounds was "unlawful": The term 'Allah' was used to refer to God by Arabic-speaking Christians before Arabic-speaking Muslims existed.

The Australian censor has banned episodes 2,3,4 of the reality series, Faces of Death.

The distributors had picked up the videos after the first film of the Faces of Death series was passed R18+ earlier in the year (after previously being banned for 27 years).

In the UK, Faces of Death 1,2,3 were passed 18 after cuts and Faces of Death 4 was passed 18 uncut.

One of Germany's most popular television series drew loud protests from a Muslim group over what they consider an unfavourable portrayal in the show's most recent episode.

The Alevi Muslim Community AABF called on its members to hold peaceful protests against the "slander and disparagement" contained in the Dec. 23 broadcast of Tatort, the German word for crime scene.

A criminal complaint has been filed by the group against NDR, the network that produced the program, accusing it of incitement to racial hatred.

It is appalling to us that a public and legitimate broadcaster would revive these centuries' old prejudices, said Ali Ertan Toprak, the secretary general of the Alevi community in Germany.

Members of the Alevi community in Berlin tried to stop the broadcast of the episode but were unsuccessful.

To answer the complaints, the network reiterated in the opening credits that the program was a work of fiction and in no way intended to harm religious feelings or rekindle prejudices against the Alevi community.

About 300 people protested outside the studios of Germany's public broadcaster ARD on Thursday, Dec. 27.

The episode in question is entitled To Whom Honor is Due and dealt with incest and murder within an Alevi family living in Germany.

During the course of the program, investigators discover that a young Alevi girl was murdered by her father after she confronted him about impregnating her sister.

Vietnam needs to control blogs to prevent the spread of subversive and sexually explicit content, communist government officials said.

Weblogs have exploded in Vietnam in recent years, especially among youths, providing a forum for chatting about mostly societal and lifestyle issues and providing an alternative to the state-controlled media.

Recent anti-Chinese protests over the disputed Spratly and Paracel islands, which were halted following rebukes from Beijing, were organised and debated on the Internet but almost completely ignored by the official press.

The ministry responsible for culture and information, which controls traditional media, in July said it was drafting regulations that would fine bloggers who post subversive and sexually explicit content online.

Deputy Information and Communications Minister Do Quy Doan said: Once we have obvious regulations, I think no one will be able to supervise weblogs better than the bloggers themselves.

With little fanfare from local or foreign media, the Japanese government made major moves this month toward legislating extensive regulation over online communication and information exchange within its national borders.

In a series of little-publicized meetings attracting minimal mainstream coverage, two distinct government ministries, that of Internal Affairs and Communications (Somusho) and that of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbukagakusho), pushed ahead with regulation in three major areas of online communication: web content, mobile phone access, and file sharing.

The future of online communication within Japan hinges on attracting attention to these issues and on drawing as wide a range of voices into the debate as possible. While current activism by groups within Japan such as the recently formed Movements for Internet Active Users (MIAU) have made important first steps in this direction, international attention is needed to coordinate support and confront the many pressing issues facing open communication in the Japanese cyberspace.

Web content

Plans for regulation of web content are summarized in two primary documents drawn up by the “Study group on the legal system for communications and broadcasting” under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (Somusho). The first document is an interim report released on June 19th, setting down basic guidelines for regulating web content through application of the existing Broadcast Law to the sphere of the Internet. The final report, made public on December 6th, sets down steps to move ahead and submit a bill on the proposed regulations to the regular diet session in 2010.

One of the key points of both reports is their emphasis on the blurring line between "information transmission" and "broadcasting", a distinction that becomes less and less meaningful as content-transfer shifts from the realm of traditional media to that of ubiquitous digital communication. The reports deal with this difficult problem in part through the creation of a new category, that of "open communication", broadly described as covering communication content having openness such as homepages and so on.

Online content judged to be "harmful" according to standards set down by an independent body (specifics of which are unclear) will be subject to law-enforced removal and/or correction.

Mobile phone access

The push for protecting young users from potentially dangerous content, such as online dating services and so-called "mobile filth", has gained momentum in recent years within Japan. The government responded to such concerns on December 10th by demanding that mobile carriers NTT Docomo, KDDI, Softbank, and Willcom implement filtering on all mobile phones issued to users under the age of 18. While optional filtering currently exists and can be implemented at the request of the mobile phone owner, few users make use of or even know of this service. The proposed regulation would heavily strengthen earlier policy by making filtering on mobile phones the default setting for minors; only in the case of an explicit request by the user's parent or guardian could such filtering be turned off by the carrier.

According to the new policy proposal, sites would be categorized on two lists, a "blacklist" of sites that would be blocked from mobile access by minors and a "whitelist" of sites that would not. The categorization of sites into each list will reportedly be carried out together with carriers through investigations involving each company targeted. The Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) of Japan is indicating that the new policy will be enforced with respect to new users by the end of 2007 and applied to existing users by the summer of 2008.

While it is not yet entirely clear what content will be covered by the new policy, a look at existing filtering services promoted by NTT Docomo reveals the definition of "harmful" content to be very broad indeed. As noted by a number of Japanese bloggers, notably social activist Sakiyama Nobuo, current optional filtering services offered on NTT Docomo phones include categories as sweeping as "lifestyles" (gay, lesbian, etc.), "religion", and "political activity/party", as well as a category termed "communication" covering web forums, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and social networking services. The breadth of this last category in particular threatens to bankrupt youth-oriented services such as "Mobage", a social networking and gaming site for mobile phones, half of whose users are under the age of 18.

File sharing

In a meeting held on December 18th. Authorities and organizations pushed for a ban on the download of copyrighted content for personal use, a category of file transfer previously permitted under Article 30 of Japan's Copyright Law.

The recent arrest of leading human rights activist Hu Jia at his Beijing home is condemned "with the utmost firmness" by Reporters Without Borders. Hu is accused of "subverting state authority," a charge often used by the Chinese government against dissidents.

Reporters Without Borders added: Together with the Fondation de France, we had just awarded Hu and his wife, Zeng Jinyan, a special prize on 5 December for their courageous stance in defence of human rights in the approach to next year’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

We express our solidarity with Hu and Zeng and their six-week-old daughter and we urge the European Union and the rest of the international community to rally to Hu’s defence so that he does not become another victim of China’s pre-Olympics repression.

Hu was at home with his wife, Zeng, who is also a blogger and activist when 20 policemen burst in, disconnected their Internet connection and phone lines to prevent them from telling the outside world, and arrested Hu.

According to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, police officers remained in the house after Hu had been taken away in order to prevent Zeng from telling anyone what had happened. They showed her a warrant for his arrest for "subverting state authority". No one knows where he is now being held.

Both Hu and Zeng are human rights and environmental activists and bloggers. They had been under a form of house arrest in Beijing since 18 May.

Hu participated in a European parliamentary hearing in Brussels on 26 November on the human rights situation in China. He said at one point during the hearing: It is ironic that one of the people in charge of organising the Olympic Games is the head of the Bureau of Public Security, which is responsible for so many human rights violations. It is very serious that the official promises are not being kept before the games.

A European viewers’ survey from UPC has called upon broadcasters to curb the amount of sex and violence on TV.

The survey was carried out for cable giant UPC. Parents not only want to remain in the driving seat when it comes to what their children watch, but they also call for more supervision from the local Media Authority for example, on certain TV content, said the study.

Six thousand parents in thirteen countries were surveyed, and the study included youngsters in age groups of under five, six to 12 and over 12 years old.

When it comes to monitoring the TV habits of their children, 57% of the European parents want more supervision of the content of TV, said the survey. Only 3% of surveyed parents wanted less supervision. Of the parents who believe the supervision of content should be intensified, 79% says this is because there is too much violence on TV and 56% said there was too much sexual content on TV. Violent and sexual content are also the main reasons for forbidding children to watch certain programmes, which is done by two-third of the parents (67%) of those surveyed. The 57% of parents that want more supervision of the content can be found in particular in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Poland and Romania.

Zhang Hongsen, deputy director-general of China's Film Bureau and a censor himself, gave a rare briefing recently on the inner workings of the country's movie censorship process, which has come under fire from prominent Chinese filmmakers.

We're not only concerned about the political aspect of a movie, said Zhang. A movie's style may be problematic. For example, some movies may poorly portray the customs of ethnic minorities . . . some are problematic in their portrayal of the rights of women and children. There are different problems.

One of the films that required heavy editing this year was director Li Yu's Lost in Beijing (Ping Guo), a powerful story about the fallout after a Beijing foot massage parlour owner rapes one of his employees from the countryside.

Fang Li, the producer of Lost in Beijing, said earlier he was asked to cut scenes depicting sex, dirty streets, gambling, the Chinese national flag, and Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

In a recent interview, Fang accused the movie censorship committee of operating in a black box, saying it doesn't give reasons for the cuts it asks for.

Zhang said censors target sex and violence because China doesn't have a ratings system. All movies must be suitable for viewing by people of all ages.

He said China's movie censorship committee comprises 24 regular members - five Film Bureau officials, including Zhang, and 19 film professionals, including directors, script writers, cinematographers and movie critics and scholars.

The committee, whose two-year term ends in May, also includes 13 "special" members who are brought in on a case-by-case basis for specialized issues like minority affairs, religion, law, foreign relations, and women and children's affairs, he said. Zhang, who is 43, said the youngest censor is 40 and none are older than 65.

The Iranian Embassy in Bucharest criticized the translation into Romanian of the book Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie. The Iranian diplomats condemned the publishing as a 'blasphemy' and even demanded the banning of the volume in Romania.

Romanian Patriarchy earlier criticized the publishing of the volume, considering that it wrongs the spiritual values and religious symbols, regardless the official religion that uses it.

Ofcom will launch an inquiry into Catherine Tate’s comedy special after nutter complaints that it was the most offensive programme ever broadcast by the BBC on a Christmas Day.

Nutters complained of excessive use of the “fuck” by Tate’s foul-mouthed character Nan. A sketch depicting a Northern Irish family as terrorists prompted accusations of bigotry.

The sketch show attracted 6.4 million viewers to BBC One at 10:30pm on Christmas night. The BBC defended the show, describing Tate as a comedy genius.

Ofcom's inquiry will ask whether the programme was appropriate for Christmas night, when many children would be watching.

Viewers complained that the programme began with an avalanche of strong language from Nan Taylor. Kathy Burke, playing her daughter, embarked upon a swearing competition with Nan.

The representation of a family in Northern Ireland receiving Christmas presents attracted complaints that Tate was exploiting lazy stereotypes. The grandmother opens her present to find a balaclava, which she puts over her head. Her husband receives a knuckleduster which he excitedly uses to punch a chair. The mother’s gift is an apron with a balaclava-clad terrorist and the words Remember Everything, Forgive Nothing. A gay son is handed a chocolate penis.

Tate admitted that the language might have got out of hand. I don’t know how this Christmas special got so depraved because it isn’t what I set out to do, she told Radio Times. The sketch between Nan and her daughter required a climactic aspect when you’re topping each other with greater feats of swearing.

A spokesman for the BBC said: Catherine Tate creates characters who are so over the top as to be almost cartoon-like and this is where her genius lies. Her comedy is never meant to offend any viewer and is always based on satire and grotesque exaggeration. The Nan character’s foul language was fundamental to what makes her funny and the show was preceded by a warning that it contained strong language.

The BBC received about 100 complaints through telephone and internet message boards.

A spokesman for Ofcom said: We have received complaints about offensive language and content in the Catherine Tate Christmas Show and we will look into the matter.

Update: Fucking MPs

6th January

Nadine Dorries, Member of Parliament for Mid Beds, says many children would have been subjected to foul language in comedian Catherine Tate's Christmas special.

She has lodged a formal complaint with the independent broadcasting regulators Ofcom which is investigating.

Nadine Dorries is unsurprisingly one of the nutter MPs supporting Julian Braziers BBFC Accountability bill.

The government is well on its way to criminalise possession of 'extreme pornography' without proper research into its effects.

Call me naïve but I am surprised and aghast: in particular, that this Bill will go through with no proper public debate. Tucked away in Section 6 is the nasty piece of legislation which will define many kinds of sexual behaviour as inherently deviant and criminal. You won't need to have actually indulged in these acts yourself to be brought within the ambit of the law - possessing an image of it will do, and could get you three years in jail.

The Justice Ministry claims that "increasing public concern about extreme pornography" makes this legislation necessary. But it seems that only a few members of the public actually know about or have seen the kinds of material that will fall under the legislation. A further claim is made, that were it not for the availability of "extreme pornography", Graham Coutts would not have murdered the schoolteacher Jane Longhurst -a claim that attempts to silence any objection to the Bill as evidence of not caring about the tragic death of a young woman.

There are a number of problems with this reactionary Bill. As Rabinder Singh QC concluded, the legislation is probably incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. But of particular concern to me is the enthusiastic pushing through of this Bill with no public debate and no examination of the government's central claim that merely looking at pornography causes aberrant behaviour.

It is in the promulgation of this particular claim that the ministry has effected a sleight of hand, first in refusing to engage with any of the objections to the original consultation document offered by researchers and academics whose careers and reputations have been built on the examination of taboo media forms and their audiences. Thus the Bill has no intellectual or evidential base for its claims.

Secondly, in order to present some semblance of substantiation rather than the rhetoric of the moral crusader, a "rapid evidence assessment" was commissioned. Again, academics with expertise in the study of media were overlooked in favour of three professors known for their anti-porn views and their PhD students who have produced an entirely one-sided account focusing on some of the most discredited lab-based studies as ad hoc justification for the legislation. As a colleague puts, it "You might as well ask Esso to investigate the role of the oil industry in global warming." Academic research which might undermine the central premise that pornography causes harm was completely ignored and now, in parliamentary debates, this document is quoted and used as if it represented a comprehensive review of the current state of research.

The government has no evidential base for the legislation and has been entirely careless in its drafting of the particular provisions relating to pornography - its definitions of what constitutes porn are so loose that there are real dangers that all kinds of material currently available will fall under the watchful gaze of the police and moral entrepreneurs. Indeed, this is precisely what supporters of the provisions hope for: that in succeeding against "extreme" materials, they will be able to move forward to ensure that no one has access to sexually explicit materials, hard or soft. The particular problem with this legislation is that it sows the tendentious belief that pornography does things to people, that it is a form of "heroin for the eyes", creating monsters of its viewers. Once it is enshrined in law, there will be no need to understand tastes and pleasures or to research people's use of porn, it will simply be identified as criminal behaviour. The government has not and cannot make a compelling case for this legislation; we should be calling the ministry to account.

Comment: A call for campaign support

From freeworld on the Melon Farmers Forum

Can I suggest as many people as possible write to the Ministry of Injustice, asking for the prompt release of the legal advice saying the measures are compatible with the Human Rights Act/European Convention of Human Rights

This in the light of HR barrister Rabinder Singh's conclusion that said measures give cause for real concerns about their compatibility.

Personally, I doubt the existence of any advice at all (or maybe they are hiding advice which says the measures aren't compatible?) Legal advice like this is probably only covered by a qualified exemption to its release-dependent on public interest. There is obviously a strong case for public interest over advice as to the compatibility of this proposed law, which the Ministry of Injustice themselves admit interferes with Article 8 (Private family life) and 10 (freedom of expression) of the HRA/ECHR .

Governments in the Middle East are stepping up a campaign of censorship and surveillance in order to block their citizens from viewing websites whose topics range from adult entertainment to human rights.

As a result, millions of Middle Easterners are being blocked from accessing news and entertainment sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr.

The prohibitions have led to an explosion in "circumventors," proxy servers that allow Internet users to bypass workplace or government filters. In cyber cafes throughout the Middle East, patrons still can browse blocked sites and swap web addresses for the latest "proxies."

Five of the Top 13 Internet censors worldwide are in the Middle East, according to Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based journalism advocacy group that lobbies against web censorship.

Only four Arab countries have little or no filtering: Lebanon, Morocco, Jordan and Egypt. On the other side of the web censorship gap are Saudi Arabia and Syria, which have consistently been described by human rights groups as the most hostile toward the Internet.

Authorities in Syria continue to ban websites, including Amazon.com last month. The government reportedly uses a filtering system called Thundercache to block content from sites such as Blogspot, Hotmail, Skype and YouTube, as well as any Arabic-language news sites.

In Iraq and the Palestinian territories, the Internet is policed mainly by the owners of Internet cafes and by Internet users themselves. Islamist militants have reportedly attacked Internet cafes in both places, accusing patrons of looking at adult material or chatting with members of the opposite sex.

Tunisian authorities block several sites, human rights workers said, but the authorities also have started holding the owners of Internet cafes liable if political activists use their establishments to post critical news about the government.

In Egypt the authorities do little or no filtering but police have rounded up at least three bloggers and harassed many more in recent years, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Iran's hard-line Shiite Muslim leadership also is a zealous censor of the Internet. The government boasts of filtering 10 million "immoral" websites, in addition to all the major social-networking outfits and dozens of pages about religion or politics.

Additionally, the ultraconservative Saudi government blocks thousands of adult websites

A group of nutter MPs has tabled an amendment designed to ensure that homophobic Christians can continue to express their views on gay people.

Devout Roman Catholics Ann Widdecombe and Jim Dobbin are among the MPs attempting to amend the government's proposal to make incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation a criminal offence.

Christian Concern for our Nation, a pressure group which attempts to stand up against a tide of unChristian legal and political changes in the United Kingdom, is urging its supporters to pressure MPs into supporting the new amendment.

Stonewall, the gay equality organisation, have been giving evidence to parliament's  scrutinising committee about the sort of incitement to homophobic murder and hatred that goes unchallenged. Chief executive Ben Summerskill quoted extensively from the homophobic lyrics of dancehall star Beenie Man and others to demonstrate the nature of their comments about gay men and lesbians.

Summerskill rejected concerns that a law banning incitement to religious hatred would be used to silence the voices of religious people who regard homosexuality as a sin: We are crystal clear that people are perfectly entitled to express their religious views. We are also crystal clear that the temperate expression of religious views should not be covered by the legislation. One might also want to look at the context in which any expression is made that people should be killed or put to death because they are homosexual.

The homophobic incitement provisions were later passed by the whole committee, and none of the Tory MPs voted against them.

The new amendment from Christian MPs reads:

Nothing in this part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion of, criticism of or expressions of antipathy towards, conduct relating to a particular sexual orientation, or urging persons of a particular sexual orientation to refrain from or modify conduct relating to that orientation.

Among the MPs asking for the right to show antipathy towards their gay constituents are: Lib Dems Colin Breed (South East Cornwall) and Alan Beith (Berwick Upon Tweed); Conservatives Philip Hollobone (Kettering) and Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and the Weald); and Labour MPs David Taylor (North West Leicestershire) and Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton).

Five candidates for the position of America's 44th president, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney, were recently quizzed on their feelings regarding violent gaming legislation.

Specifically, the candidates were asked: To date, nearly 10 states have considered legislation to keep violent video games out of kids' hands. Would you support this type of legislation at the federal level? What other strategies would you support to keep the video game industry and other media companies from marketing and selling inappropriate content to children?

Hillary Clinton cited her Family Entertainment Protection Act which would punish retailers with, a fine of $1,000 or 100 hours of community service for the first offense and $5,000 or 500 hours of community service for each subsequent offense.

John Edwards stated that while parents must ultimately decide what games their kids play, he thoroughly supports the efforts of industry associations such as the ESRB saying, The Entertainment Software Rating Board is a good example of industry responsibility.

Similarly, media-darling Barack Obama stated that parents must be the driving force behind what children see, but that it's up to the government and gaming industry to provide comprehensive tools to aid parents.

Bill Richardson's concurred with Edwards and Obama

On the other side of the aisle, Republican Mitt Romney feels that the true issue here is a lack of morality in society. His stated goal is, to restore values so children are protected from a societal cesspool of filth, pornography, violence, sex, and perversion.

The most striking thing about the entire Q&A is the similarity presented by each candidate. Even across party lines, the similarities presented in each candidate's arguments seem almost rehearsed.

Dutch government firework safety ads featuring a spoof Islamist terrorist group have been criticised as insensitive and depicting a negative stereotype of the Muslim community.

The online ads, made for the Dutch government's consumer safety institute, have been made to look like a video message filmed by an Islamist military organisation called the Liberation Army Against Freedom.

Featuring a group led by an Osama bin Laden lookalike figure at their camp, the viral ads are dubbed into Iraqi-accented Arabic and have versions with subtitles in Dutch and English.

The tone is intended to be humorous, with the terrorist group seen receiving a shipment of fireworks like an arms cache, wearing suicide vests made of firecrackers, and bungling efforts to demonstrate to you our true power by blowing themselves up.

However, the light treatment of such a serious issue has angered some industry insiders.

What is the campaign hoping to achieve by depicting a negative stereotype of the Muslim community in a fireworks advert? said Saad Saraf, the chief executive of multicultural marketing specialists Media Reach Advertising.

Saraf, an Iraqi, was particularly offended by images in one ad that show one person strap fireworks around him in a style similar to a suicide belt, which later explodes.

This is insensitive to society as a whole. Suicide bombings have destroyed many thousands of lives - using them in a humorous way is totally inappropriate. Are these adverts then for people who have not been affected by terrorism, suicide bombings and the invasion of Iraq in some way? said Saraf.

However, Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, did not think the ads were particularly offensive: I thought they were very humorous public safety films, he responded by email after being sent several links to the ads: Obviously there will always be some who find it to be in bad taste, but I thought it was done light-heartedly and funny and with clear educational value.

Brighton council is trying to ban anti-gay music in clubs yet is loaning CDs from its libraries of artists who have penned homophobic lyrics.

Pubs and clubs which play or allow artists to perform songs inciting homophobic acts face having their licence taken away in Brighton and Hove.

But it has emerged that work by Buju Banton, who recorded a song called Boom Bye Bye which advocates the shooting of gay men, and an album of songs by rapper Eminem, which includes homophobic lyrics, are available for loan at Brighton and Hove City Council libraries.

The CDs were initially withdrawn yesterday after The Argus contacted the council but tonight a spokesman for the authority said: We've not banned any acts from nightclubs and it's not our role to provide artistic taste police in our cultural facilities either.

The council last week voted to tackle so-called "murder music" with a new section to its licensing policy. Although the new council policy cannot legally ban any form of music, it was specifically designed to discourage murder music acts and allows licences to be reviewed if performances include incitement to violence.

The council spokesman said: A small section in the council's new licensing policy is aimed at preventing crime and antisocial behaviour in licensed premises. There is no ban or censorship on any particular artist or song and this section of the policy is not there to prevent people being offended - its sole purpose is to prevent crime and disorder.

This is a separate issue to the library service, which also does not aim to censor material which is legally available to the public. The library service sets out to maintain a balanced stock of material, offering a wide range of materials reflecting a broad spectrum of views and opinions. The Eminem Marshall Mathers LP was released over seven years ago, the lyrics are controversial and the CD is labelled with an explicit content warning."

11 websites have so far been blocked in Malaysia for having obscene materials and seditious messages, Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry parliamentary secretary Datuk Dr Mohd Ruddin Abdul Ghani said.

Besides blocking the websites and blogs, he said the ministry has also drawn up long-term programmes in collaboration with CyberSecurity Malaysia to boost awareness on cyber security.

Dr Mohd Ruddin said it was not difficult to block websites and blogs compared with emails featuring advertisements and pornography.

He said there was no proper mechanism to check such material spreading through e-mails, but the authorities could control and halt blogs.

However, the Cabinet will not obstruct the movement of information in the Internet because of the Bill of Guarantee, which promised free-flow of information when the Multimedia Super Corridor was first set up, he said. [...I think blocking websites is surely obstructing the movement of information]

A member of the House of Representatives has filed a bill seeking to impose stiffer penalties for perpetrators of highly scandalous crimes against decency.

Aside from longer jail sentences, House Bill 2856 filed by Cebu Representative Antonio Cuenco also seeks to increase the fines provided for in the Revised Penal Code for such offenses as grave scandal, indecency and pornography, among others, to between P100,000 to P2,000,000, among others. Currently, such offenses carry sentences of only six months or less.

The current law seems to be taken lightly by offenders since its penalties are minimal compared to the gravity of crime, Cuenco said There is no justice if we let the criminals responsible for the grim days ahead of these victims walk away unscathed -- only to be incarcerated be for a mere six months or less.

The lawmaker also said there is a need to amend some provisions in the law to curtail, if not totally eradicate the conduct of inappropriate and obscene behavior.

The Philippines censor board has provoked two militant lawmakers by banning three films for purportedly casting the Arroyo administration in a negative light.

Gabriela Representatives filed a resolution seeking a congressional inquiry into the ban. They alleged that the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) was being used “for political repression.”

The complaint referred to the short films Mendiola and A Day in the Life of Gloria Arrovo, and Rights, a compilation of public service announcements on human rights, extrajudicial killings and disappearances.

They said in a statement that The MTRCB, banning these movies  has proven itself to be an effective tool for the suppression of free speech and expression.

National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera, a founding member of the critics’ group, Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino, has joined the two legislators’ protest, along with filmmakers Carlitos Siguion Reyna, Anna Isabelle Matutina, Kiri Dalena, Chytz Jimenez and RJ Mabilin.

The group said they were disputing the censors’ ruling that Rights contained scenes that undermine faith and confidence [in] the government and duly constituted authorities.

It wasn’t true, either, that Mendiola had a tendency to incite rebellion and sedition, the protesters insisted.

Neither was the board’s claim, they said, that A Day in the Life of Gloria was libelous and defamatory to the good name and reputation of the President of the Philippines.

Meanwhile the ban of the film, Banal, has now been rescinded and it is now rated R-13

London Underground has banned an ad campaign by bookmaker Paddy Power that features a man who appears to be breastfeeding a baby.

The poster ad has been banned by LU operator Transport for London's compliance committee.

A spokesman for Paddy Power said that the poster, which uses the strapline Where have all the women gone?, was banned on the grounds that it had the "potential to offend public decency".

The Irish bookmaker said: We are completely astonished by the reaction of the London Underground to our advert. Fun is central to the Paddy Power brand and we strive to communicate this in all of our advertising.

Authorities in Malaysia have threatened not to renew the publishing license of a Catholic weekly newspaper if it continues to use the word "Allah" in its Malay language section, Catholic and government officials said.

The Herald, the organ of Malaysia's Catholic Church, has translated the word God as "Allah" but it is erroneous because Allah refers to the Muslim god, said Che Din Yusoff, a senior official at the Internal Security Ministry's publications control department, in remarks monitored by BosNewsLife. Christians cannot use the word Allah. It is only applicable to Muslims. Allah is only for the Muslim god. This is a design to confuse the Muslim people, Che Din added.

However church sources say the Malay-language Bible uses Allah for God. We follow the Bible. The Malay-language Bible uses Allah for God and Tuhan for Lord. In our prayers and in
church during Malay mass, we use the word Allah, Reverend Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Herald, told reporters.

Yet, Che Din said there are four Malay words that must not be used by other religions, he said: Allah for God, "solat" for prayers, "kaabah" for the place of Muslim worship in Mecca and "baitula" the house of Allah. The weekly should instead, use the word "Tuhan" which is the general term for God, he reportedly said.

The Herald's permit will only be renewed in two weeks if they stop using Allah in their publication.

The rules are meant to protect children from online content, but what the Communications Legislation Amendment (Content Services) Act of 2007 actually does is put a serious burden on adults to self-police, while making it much harder for online publishers to freely share their work. Worse yet, it's another misguided attempt to make the Internet into a playground for children where they won't need supervision.

Beginning January 20, anyone who publishes commercial content online or for mobile phones in Australia will be required to make sure that adult-oriented content isn't seen by minors. This isn't just porn we're talking about, either: the new rules essentially port Australia's movie ratings over to online content.

Once the new rules are enforced, content producers in Australia as well as Australian web surfers will have to live by these categories:

• Sexually explicit content is prohibited (X18+, and Refused Classification content); this was already the case.
• Softcore R18+ content must be hidden behind a verification service that checks for ages 18 and up.
• So-called "mature audience" (MA15+) content must also be hidden behind a verification service that checks for ages 15 and up.
• The ACMA will use "take down," "service cessation" and "link deletion" notices to force publishers to remove content or access to content that is the subject of a complaint.

One reader who contacted Ars lamented the fact that adults will have to give up a little privacy to be in compliance, too. Users will prove their age by supplying their full names and either a credit card or digital signature approved for online use. Content publishers are even required by law to keep records of who accessed R18+ content and with what credentials for a period of two years.

While the law targets commercial content providers, the rules also apply to "live content" services, aka, IRC services and chatrooms. It's also not clear what counts as commercial content: bloggers who turn a buck would seem to qualify. According to documents from the ACMA, the rules apply to hosting service providers, live content service providers, links service providers and commercial content service providers who provide a content service that has an Australian connection.

One wonders if the rules aren't a complete waste of time, however. Australia cannot enforce the rules in other countries, which in the long run seems to only give Australians an incentive to hosting their businesses somewhere else.

A Khartoum court has sentenced two Egyptians to six months in prison for marketing a book that is deemed offensive to Aisha, one of Prophet Mohammed’s wives.

Abdel Fattah Abdel Raouf and Mahrous Mohammed Abdel Aziz were sentenced under article 125 of Sudan’s penal code, the same section under which U.K. teacher Gillian Gibbons was convicted after allowing her class to name a teddy bear Mohammed.

Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardhi said Dec. 11 following the pair’s arrest that they were guilty of bringing over the book entitled Aisha, mother of believers, devoured her sons from bookseller and publisher Madbouli in Egypt and selling it in Sudan.

The book contains blasphemous passages and particularly despicable offenses to the prophet and to the mother of believers, as Aisha is often called, Mardhi said at the time.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo) said the book was titled Aisha: The Wife of Prophet Mohamed and that: The arrest is a flagrant violation of freedom of opinion and expression.

HRinfo said the Egyptians found themselves in danger when a radical islamist had bought the book and in turn informed the authorities about its contents.

Madbouly had already received permission from the Sudanese censorship authoritie s to distribute the book, written by London-based Syrian writer Nabil Fayyad, before arriving in Khartoum for the festival.

Another book confiscated at the book fair was about the Shiites, a book called Darfur, the history of war and genocide, published by Horizons House.

Egypt requested an explanation from the Sudanese authorities.

Sky Sports News has escaped censure from Ofcom after it broadcast strong language during a live press conference with boxers Ricky Hatton and Floyd Mayweather.

The BSkyB channel aired live coverage of the conference, which was held in Manchester in September as part of a world tour to promote last week's welterweight title fight.

During the press conference, Hatton said his American rival Mayweather had fucking no chance. He later told his opponent to: Stop touching my dick, you poof.

Ofcom received one complaint about the broadcast, which aired at 11 o'clock on a Thursday morning..

Responding to the complaint, BSkyB said previous Hatton press conferences in New York, Los Angeles and London had been broadcast without any offensive language, and the boxer had conducted 20 live interviews with the channel in the past without incident.

The transmission of live sports programming brings with it particular difficulties, Ofcom said. The broadcaster did its best to limit offence. Ofcom said it considered the complaint resolved.

Iranian police have closed down 24 Internet cafes and other coffee shops in as many hours, detaining 23 people, as part of a broad crackdown on immoral behavior in the Islamic state.

The action in Tehran province was the latest move in a campaign against fashion and other practices deemed incompatible with Islamic values, including women wearing high boots and barber shops offering men Western hair styles.

Using immoral computer games, storing obscene photos ... and the presence of women wearing improper hijab were among the reasons why they have been closed down, Colonel Nader Sarkari, a provincial police commander, said.

Sarkari told the official IRNA news agency that police had inspected 435 coffee shops in the past 24 hours, and 170 had been warned.

Many young Iranians are avid users of the Internet, some using chat rooms to socialise with the opposite sex. Mingling between sexes outside marriage is banned and many Web sites considered unIslamic are blocked by the authorities.

In a separate campaign, IRNA said police had inspected 275 restaurants in the capital to check compliance with a new ban on smoking in public places. The ban includes water pipes, known in Iran as qalyan, offered in some outlets. Of those, 138 received a warning and 17 were shut down, police official Mohammad Reza Alipour said.

Fudoh: The Next Generation is 1996 Japanese martial arts/Yakuza film by Takashi Miike

Cut when submitted in 2002 by Artsmagic with the BBFC comment: Compulsory cut required to remove elements of sadistic violence and humiliation in scene where woman is brutally beaten by man.

The uncut region 1 DVD is available at US Amazon

From a review on US Amazon:

A Takashi Miike is always worth looking out for, and this one was highly anticipated. It's one of his earlier Yakuza movies, but still very Miike in approach.

Riki (Shosuke Tanihara) is the smartest, best-looking kid in his high school. He also runs the place with the aid of his own gang comprised of fellow students. With the aid of eight-year-old hit men and schoolgirl strippers and assassins, it looks like Riki could have his revenge on the 10th anniversary of his brother's death.

Shock value and native Japanese weirdness aside, this is a great movie. It looks great. Whatever the content, each shot is carefully composed and the action is often so manic it can be had to keep up with.

As unemotional as the Japanese can be, Fudoh turns into the nastiest family squabble since Medea. Just when you think the film can't get any weirder, it's just getting started. Murders are often accompanied by rivers of blood. The scenes in the children's assassin training camp are hysterical. I lost count on the number of decapitations.

The latest campaign to clean up cyberspace has been launched by the Chinese government.

According to a notice jointly released by 12 ministries taking part in the scheme, the campaign aims to curb the growing number of illegal advertisements for sex-related health supplements, STD drugs and clinics, and sex toys.

It is scheduled to run through to next February.

Tough punishments will be meted out to medical institutions and clinics for advertising unapproved or unlicensed cures for STDs

Companies that use sexually suggestive advertisements to promote sex drugs face having their businesses suspended, the notice said.

In addition, agencies that design, make and release "vulgar" advertisements will be dealt with in accordance with the law on advertising, it said.

Those that are found to have seriously violated the law or the new regulation could be stripped of their right to operate in the advertising business, the notice said.

Websites that host illegal advertisements must remove them immediately once they are told to do so by the authorities. Those that do not do so will be closed down, the notice said.

The Toronto Sun reports that an advocate for sex workers believes that pop culture influences, including the popular Grand Theft Auto series, help legitimize violence against prostitutes. Anastasia Kuzyk of the Sex Workers’ Alliance of Toronto told the newspaper:

Sex work is a job, and violence isn’t in the job description… There’s a video game out there where you can run down prostitutes and kill them and beat them up and take their money. It feeds into the whole subculture of allowing the violence to continue. Violence against sex workers should not be normalized, but it is.

Casualty
BBC1, 8 September 2007, 20:25

Casualty is a long-running hospital drama. In this episode, a junior doctor is confronted by the effects of a bomb explosion at a coach station on his first day at work. The doctor gives medical attention to several badly injured people, including a man whose stomach has been ripped open exposing his intestines, and another requiring an arm amputation.

Four viewers complained about the graphic and repeated imagery of the injuries sustained by the victims in view of the programme’s pre-watershed start.

Three complainants noted there was no specific warning about this content in advance of the programme.

The BBC responded that Casualty has been a staple of the BBC1 schedule for some time and has covered major incidents causing severe injuries in the past.

It considered that the pre-transmission announcement and clear build up to the scenes would have sufficiently prepared viewers for such images. In particular, it pointed out that the process of the arm amputation was explained to the junior doctor before it began, so giving the audience an opportunity to look away if they wished.

The broadcaster argued that the storyline warranted showing these injuries, as they were repeated in a series of flashbacks illustrating how the self-belief of the junior doctor had nearly collapsed.

Decision

Rule 1.3 requires that children must be protected by appropriate scheduling from material that is unsuitable for them.

Rule 1.11 states that violence, its after-effects and descriptions of violence...must be appropriately limited in programmes before the watershed…and must also be justified by the context.

Ofcom was concerned by the graphic nature of the images broadcast of two particular injuries (the exposed intestines and arm amputation), given that children may have been watching at this time on a Saturday evening. We recognise that Casualty is a well-established drama regularly shown before the watershed and that it often contains scenes of surgery. However, even taking into account these expectations of the audience, Ofcom considered this material to be unsuitable for children.

While appreciating the experiences of the junior doctor were integral to the storyline, Ofcom does not accept that the repeated images of injury were sufficiently brief and limited. Images were shown of the intestinal injuries of one victim in four separate shots all within one minute, with one shot depicting the injuries in close-up. In view of the duration and graphic nature of the injuries shown, the information provided before the programme was not, in Ofcom’s opinion, adequate to warn viewers about the images of the aftereffects of violence broadcast in the programme.

Breach of Rules 1.3 and 1.11

Die Hard with a Vengeance is a 1995 US film by John McTiernan (Released by Buena Vista)

12s of cuts are down to the BBFC but the film was also pre-cut by 20th Century Fox in America before it's release on DVD and VHS, and it was this cut that was released worldwide.

Thanks to Andrew

Here is a very detailed an very extensive list of cuts, compiled by Gav Salkeld, to Die Hard with a Vengeance. I knew it had suffered from cuts to violent content, but never thought it was this bad though.

If you are  considering buying it, may I recommend the Aussie region 4 2007 release, it might not be the 2 disk, but its a PAL format, digitally re-mastered sound and visual, and uncut. stay away from the region 1, I implore you, which has problems.