91% of articles in newspapers about Muslims are negative

A “torrent” of negative stories has been revealed by a study of the portrayal of Muslims and Islam in the British media, according to a report today.Research into one week’s news coverage showed that 91% of articles in national newspapers about Muslims were negative.

London mayor Ken Livingstone, who commissioned the study, said the findings were a “damning indictment” on the media and he urged editors and programme makers to review the way they portray Muslims.

“The overall picture presented by the media is that Islam is profoundly different from and a threat to the West,” he said.

“There is a scale of imbalance which no fair-minded person would think is right.”

Only 4% of the 352 articles studied last year were positive, he said.

Mr Livingstone told his weekly news conference that the findings showed a “hostile and scaremongering attitude” among the national media towards Islam and likened the coverage to the way the Left was attacked by national newspapers in the early 1980s.

“The charge is that there are virtually no positive or balanced images of Islam being portrayed,” he said.

“I think there is a demonisation of Islam going on which damages community relations and creates alarm among Muslims.”

Among the examples highlighted in the study was a report which claimed that Christmas was being banned in one area because it offended Muslims, which researchers said was “inaccurate and alarmist”.

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U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran is likely keeping its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies “do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

Iran is continuing to produce enriched uranium, a program that the Tehran government has said is designed for civilian purposes. The new estimate says that enrichment program could still provide Iran with enough raw material to produce a nuclear weapon sometime by the middle of next decade, a timetable essentially unchanged from previous estimates.

But the new estimate declares with “high confidence” that a military-run Iranian program intended to transform that raw material into a nuclear weapon has been shut down since 2003, and also says with high confidence that the halt “was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure.”

The estimate does not say when American intelligence agencies learned that the weapons program had been halted, but a statement issued by Donald Kerr, the principal director of national intelligence, said the document was being made public “since our understanding of Iran’s capabilities has changed.”

Rather than painting Iran as a rogue, irrational nation determined to join the club of nations with the bomb, the estimate states Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.” The administration called new attention to the threat posed by Iran earlier this year when President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III” and Vice President Dick Cheney promised “serious consequences” if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.

>> NY Times