divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/74466?ns=guardianpageName=Society%3A+Devastating+report+reveals+Baby+P+failingsch=Societyc3=The+Guardianc4=Baby+P%2CChild+protection+%28Society%29%2CLocal+government+%28Society%29%2CSociety%2CUK+newsc5=Society+Weekly%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CLocal+Government+Society%2CChildren+Societyc6=John+Carvelc7=2008_12_02c8=1127201c9=articlec10=GUc11=Societyc12=Baby+Pc13=c14=h2=GU%2FSociety%2FBaby+P" width="1" height="1" //divpThe head of children's services in the London borough where Baby P died after months of persistent injury and neglect was dismissed from her post yesterday as the government responded to a damning report into the council's failings./ppOn a day which saw two senior figures on Haringey council resign within hours of the report hitting ministers' desks, Ed Balls, the children's secretary, removed Sharon Shoesmith from control of the borough's children's department. He described the findings of the review as "devastating". /ppThe report, commissioned at the conclusion of the Old Bailey trial into the toddler's death, found nine fundamental defects, which continue to put children in danger despite the intense public scrutiny since Baby P was killed in August last year. They included failure to identify children and young people at risk of immediate harm, lack of coordination between agencies and poor sharing of information./ppGeorge Meehan, the council's leader, and Liz Santry, its cabinet member for children and young people, resigned within hours of reading the conclusions. It is understood that Shoesmith offered to follow suit and was astonished to see Balls announce her immediate dismissal on live television in the early afternoon. It also emerged that five other council employees have been suspended over their handling of the case. /ppBalls said he was using powers under the 1996 Education Act to remove Shoesmith and install John Coughlin, director of children's services in Hampshire, in her place. "I have powers to intervene and remove someone who is not fit for office," he told journalists./ppHe added: "Most people would look at this report - look at the clear evidence of management failures - and say that this kind of failure should not be rewarded with compensation or payoffs. That's a matter for Haringey." The council acknowledged that Balls had the authority to remove Shoesmith from her role as director of children services, but the status of her employment contract with Haringey was still a matter for the council to resolve./ppA spokesman said: "She has been suspended pending disciplinary proceedings, with two others: Cecilia Hitchen, deputy director, children and families; and Clive Preece, head of children in need and safeguarding services." Three other staff -Maria Ward, the social worker, Sylvia Henry, senior social worker and Gillie Christou, the team manager - had been removed from child protection duties pending further investigation."/ppThe council would be required to report monthly to the government on progress in reforming the children's department, with a further review by Ofsted by the end of June. Balls said he would then decide whether "further sanction" was needed, including a possible compulsory contracting out of children's services to another provider./ppBalls said the report by Ofsted, the Healthcare Commission and chief inspector of constabulary was "devastating and damning". On nearly every page, the document was littered with words such as "inadequate", "unacceptable", "poor" and "unreliable". /ppThe failings included:/pp· Failure to identify children and young people at immediate risk of harm and to act on evidence;/pp· Agencies working in isolation from one another and without effective coordination;/pp· Poor gathering, recording and sharing of information;/pp· Inconsistent quality of frontline procedures and insufficient evidence of supervision by senior management;/pp· Inconsistent management oversight of the assistant director of children's services by the director of children's services and the chief executive;/pp· Insufficient challenge by the local Safeguarding Children Board to council members and frontline staff;/pp· Poor child protection plans./ppBalls ordered the review after public outcry over the death of the 17-month-old boy, who suffered more than 50 injuries at the hands of his abusive mother, 27, her boyfriend, 32, and their lodger, Jason Owen, 36, despite 60 contacts with the authorities over eight months. They will be sentenced next year./ppBalls said he was particularly worried by a finding of the inspectors that child protection staff failed to talk directly to children. He added: "Where children were not seen alone, it worries me greatly that the inspectors found little evidence of management follow-up to ensure children suspected of being abused were properly heard and able to speak up without fear."/ppBalls urged investigations into 38 other abuse cases to be reopened after Ofsted criticised the quality of previous reviews. They include three cases in Cornwall, three in Northamptonshire and deaths and serious injuries to children in Bristol, Derbyshire and Hampshire./ppOfsted will also carry out annual unannounced inspections in England./ppThere will be a fresh independent review of the Baby P case, with an executive summary published in March. But the full report will remain confidential and Balls refused to order a full public inquiry./ppHe accepted advice from Lord Laming, head of the inquiry into the death of the abuse victim Victoria Climbieacute; in 2000, who said a public inquiry would set back progress on child protection made in many parts of England and divert effort from the actions needed to keep children safe in Haringey./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/baby-p"Baby P/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/childprotection"Child protection/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/localgovernment"Local government/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/_nSkxdNX5OGw82lnsfQqEtztgu4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/_nSkxdNX5OGw82lnsfQqEtztgu4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/24788?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Sons+of+Mafia+boss+plead+for+private+lifech=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Italy+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=John+Hooperc7=2008_12_02c8=1127124c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Italyc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FItaly" width="1" height="1" //divpThe sons of the Sicilian mafia's jailed "boss of all bosses", Bernardo Provenzano, yesterday made an emotional appeal for what one called "the right to live like any other member of the public"./pp"We have lived, and continue to live, as if we were Big Brother contestants," said Angelo Provenzano. "We have been actors in the biggest reality show on Cosa Nostra."/ppHe complained bitterly of police surveillance and media pressure. His younger brother, 26 year-old Francesco, said: "Every activity I get ready to set up is scotched because it is [defined by the law as] a 'product of the laundering of illicitly obtained assets'. I ask myself, when will I be able to have a life of my own."/ppAs a language and literature graduate, he said he had won a scholarship to teach Italian in a Germany university. But he added: "They took it away from me because someone said I could not represent Italy abroad. As if I were the ambassador."/ppHis elder brother, aged 33, added: "We always try to make ourselves known by our Christian names, and not by our surname. I always introduce myself as Angelo and only if it is necessary do I add the rest."/ppThe two young men denied they had been instructed by their father to give the interview, carried by two Italian dailies, La Repubblica and La Stampa. But police and prosecutors can be expected to pore over every word in a search for possible coded messages - all the more so since Angelo Provenzano used the interview to play down the crimes of the mafia. A spokesman for relatives of the mafia's victims said his declarations of love and respect for his father were "an insult"./ppBernardo Provenzano was arrested in 2006 after 43 years on the run. His elder son spent the first 16 years of his life also in hiding. "I was born and brought up in captivity," said Angelo, who refused to discuss his childhood on the run./ppIn 1992, the boys and their mother returned to their home town, Corleone, when "my growing-up began", he said. The son of the "capo di tutti i capi" (boss of all bosses) acknowledged he had found it "difficult" to integrate with society./ppAt least as difficult was the surveillance to which the family were subjected after 1992. "They monitored every setting, every space - the living room, the car, the bathroom, the windows," he said. "Whether they still monitor us, I don't know. We certainly behave as if we were [under surveillance]."/ppHe suggested that behind the mafia's operations lay manoeuvres by the authorities, and claimed two of the organisation's most famous victims, the investigating magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, had been sacrificed "on the altar of raison d'etat" (national interest)./ppBut he admitted that he had "curbed his curiosity" and had never asked his mother direct questions about his father. "I concede certain mitigating circumstances to my father", he said, "so I have nothing to admonish him for."/ppThe brother of a journalist murdered by the mob said in an open letter to the Provenzano sons: "There is no need to renounce your father, but [only] to disown his role and condemn decisively his criminal actions."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/italy"Italy/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/WEHbtUzjDeeYgnhXzjchOsUG0G4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/WEHbtUzjDeeYgnhXzjchOsUG0G4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/29653?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Israel+blocks+aid+ship+bound+for+Gazach=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Israel+and+the+Palestinian+territories+%28News%29%2CLibya+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Rory+McCarthyc7=2008_12_02c8=1127125c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Israel+and+the+Palestinian+territoriesc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FIsrael+and+the+Palestinian+territories" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Israeli navy yesterday prevented a Libyan ship carrying 3,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid for Palestinians from docking in Gaza./ppThe voyage of the Marwa, which carried food, blankets and powdered milk, was intended to challenge Israel's economic blockade on the Gaza Strip, which has tightened in recent weeks. But as the ship approached Gazan waters at dawn an Israeli naval ship ordered it to turn back. The Marwa reportedly docked at al-Arish, an Egyptian port in the northern Sinai just south of Gaza./ppAn Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Andy David, said: "This is a policy we have had for a long time: if somebody wants to bring in humanitarian aid they can do it through the border with Egypt or the Israeli passages into Gaza."/ppHowever, since the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas won parliamentary elections nearly three years ago Israel has imposed ever-tighter restrictions on Gaza. Since last summer, when Hamas took full control of Gaza, those restrictions have become an economic blockade, while Egypt has also kept its one crossing into Gaza at Rafah largely closed. As a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in Gaza has unravelled in the past month, so the blockade has again been tightened. Deliveries of food, aid and fuel have been prevented on most days and journalists have been barred from entering./ppPalestinians had gathered at the Gaza City harbour to meet the ship. Five trucks waited to offload the aid. "The civilian boat carrying only humanitarian supplies and food was turned away by an Israeli warship," said Jamal Khoudary, a Palestinian MP and head of Gaza's Popular Committee against the Siege./ppSome reports suggested the aid might be unloaded in Egypt and delivered by road, although until now Egypt has been reluctant to turn the Rafah crossing with Gaza into a regular route for deliveries to the impoverished territory./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israelandthepalestinians"Israel and the Palestinian territories/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/libya"Libya/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/27jJgSu6m48U-0SsWiTrlGIRXyQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/27jJgSu6m48U-0SsWiTrlGIRXyQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Here's a recipe for how to cover local elections. Take a bunch of bright and eager journalism students. Give them two weeks to fan out across the city and come back with multiplatform stories on issues as diverse as creating bike-only roads, spending almost $30 million on a dog pound and treating Vancouver's sewage.

This is what the first-year students at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia did for their final big assignment of the semester. The stories were published a few days ahead of Vancouver's local elections on November 15 on our student publication, TheThunderbird.ca.

Following the Election

Election news is one of the main staples of journalism, so having a vote on our own doorstep provided a great learning opportunity for the class. For this assignment, the students each had to find, research, report and produce a news story.

But they also have to come up with a sidebar that would complement their main piece, and consider what format this should take. This reflects our multiplatform approach in training graduate students to work across different media while at the same time maintaining quality content. We all know what a challenge that can be, even in the newsroom.

Many of the students are comfortable with technology and eager to experiment. But this is not just about adding video or audio to a story because you can. Students are taught to consider how using multimedia can enhance their journalism, making critical decisions about why one form of media works better than another to tell a particular story.

When student Alexis Stoymenoff wrote about the mayoral candidates singing at an event, she also posted short clips of the performances. The videos enhanced the written piece by allowing readers to see what the story was all about.

Another, Brandi Cowen, looked at how students new to the city were excluded from the local poll, producing a map showing different voting rules across Canada. This provided an easy and intuitive way to examine what could have been a rather dry written piece.

Unraveling City Politics

Despite all the new ways to inform readers about civic issues, some basics remain. Students can't forget that, no matter what tools you use to tell a story, the most important thing is to do the legwork to make sure that the underlying story is accurate. The students still had to research the local political scene, a task especially daunting given that many of them are from outside Vancouver and have only been living in the city for a few months.

Getting a grounding in local politics was key to this assignment, as this West Coast city has its own peculiarities. National parties aren't represented on a local level. Instead there are Vancouver-only parties. And local councilors are not elected according to city district. Rather, the ten candidates with the most votes overall are elected.

Therefore it was important to have faculty on hand who could help guide the students. Fortunately, our Canwest Visiting Professor for this semester is Vancouver Sun columnist Miro Cernetig. As a regular commentator on city politics, he brought considerable knowledge and connections to the classroom.

He was instrumental in persuading the premier of British Columbia, Gordon Campbell, to talk to the students about the political issues in the province.

Still, it proved hard for students to gain, in just a few weeks, the sort of understanding of local politics that a city reporter develops over years. Our advice was simple: Keep asking questions. Sometimes the hardest part of being a journalist is admitting that they don't know something, or don't quite understand it.

As budding reporters, it is understandable that a student might be concerned about appearing ignorant. But there is nothing wrong in pressing for a clearer explanation and asking for more details. Curiosity and perseverance pay off in the end.

Less is More

In the end, the students learned that not every story needed a multiplatform approach. Learning how to use multimedia to successfully tell a story sometimes involves learning when not to use multimedia. It's not about adding audio or video just because you can.

One challenge the students faced was working on stories that were not going to be published for a couple of weeks. Many started their newsgathering by attending debates between candidates or election-related events in communities. But the spot news generated by these events would be woefully out of date by our publication deadline. Instead, we urged the students to look at the issues that can come out of these events, and find the stories that brought the topic to life in a topical and relevant fashion.

Our aim was for the students to produce local stories on issues that were largely absent from the day-to-day coverage of the campaign in the mainstream media.

As a result, we ended up with a wealth of content. For example, at one of the mayoral debates, neither candidate was willing to commit funds to the Outgames due to be held in Vancouver in 2011, at a time when the city was spending millions on the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Student Magally Zelaya used that as the starting point to look at the reaction from Vancouver's gay community, which prides itself on its economic and cultural significance to the city. For this story, we decided that the most effective way to enhance the main story was a Q&A on the Outgames, rather than try to use multimedia just for the sake of it.

Another, Brent Wittmeier, reported on the debate over building homes in church parking lots and also chose text for the sidebar. Even in a multimedia medium like the web, sometimes plain old text may be the best way to enhance a story.

For the students, the local elections offered an opportunity to take their skills out of the classroom and apply them in a professional setting. It gave them a grounding in the politics of the city and a way to showcase their multiplatform journalism. But it was also about making decisions about using multimedia and thinking critically about how best to tell the story.

Alfred Hermida is an online news pioneer and journalism educator. He is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Journalism, the University of British Columbia, where he leads the integrated journalism program. He was a founding news editor of the BBC News website. He blogs at Reportr.net.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Chris Snyder is an online journalist specializing in new media. He writes about the tech biz for Wired.com’s Epicenter blog.

It’s a long road to a victory in the browser wars. Just ask Firefox. The open source browser which launched in 2004 just cracked the 20 percent threshold of the market share for November, according to Net Applications, pushing it a step closer but still miles away from IE.

Recently a few new players have also thrown their hats in the ring, including Google with its much-hyped Chrome and the lesser known, Mozilla-based social web browser Flock, which released its 2.0 version this past October. But do these newcomers even stand a chance?

The Basics

Firefox is gaining ground for good reason: it’s simple, reliable and secure. Its tabbed browsing led to a similar remodel in IE and it has a slew of add-ons that give it a leg up over the competition. It’s slowly becoming the new standard with a steady audience, and that will be hard to beat anytime soon. And its open source platform leaves room for alternatives and experimental niche browsers like Flock.

Flock 2.0 is basically a Firefox with a lot of perks and pre-installed add-ons for those heavy into social networking.  Think of it as a FriendFeed of the browser world, which brings all of your friends from 23 various networks together in a sidebar. It is also one of the first browsers to incorporate media feeds for photos and videos.  Flock is all about sharing what you find on the web as you surf, and it allows you to accomplish this pretty easily by dragging and dropping them either into an email or onto a friend.

Chrome is the polar opposite of Flock, and its big advantage is that it’s even simpler than Firefox, or any other browser out there right now.  The search bar is also integrated into the address bar, which seems to be the wave of the future, at least for those who swear by Google search and don’t need any bells and whistles. Unfortunately, Chrome’s only available for PCs at the moment.

Usability

Chrome wins hands down on getting the job done.  It’s quick and painless with a clear focus of searching for information using Google’s engine.  Dynamic tabbed browsing is a staple now, and if anything crashes, only that tab will go down, not your entire session, which is nice. But if you want a richer web browsing experience stick with Firefox or Flock.  There’s also no easy way to subscribe to RSS feeds from the search bar as there is with Firefox.

Flock can feel a bit overwhelming at times with all of the sidebars of information, but once you get everything set up and get the hang of it, it’s pretty convenient and preferable to keeping a million tabs open for sites like Twitter and Facebook. The drag and drop interface is great.  When you just want to email a YouTube video or picture it’s much easier than copying any URLs, although it does also seem a bit too easy to share something that you might not want shared.

The only other problem with the social networks is that you can’t really fit all of that functionality into a sidebar.  It’s a good way of consolidating friends, but it’s more like a giant address book than anything else. Simple things like posting tweets are a bit confusing, with no clear box for entering in text. When a friend adds content, however, it will open up the profile in the main browser in full view, so you still need to go back to the source.

Speed

Despite the extra features, Flock is surprisingly just as fast as Chrome or Firefox, at least on a medium grade PC.  Looks like they’ve improved upon this concern in the latest release. And Chrome seems to have Firefox beat in this category but the difference isn’t anything drastic.

Privacy

Incognito — aka “porn mode” –  is the new way to surf, as every browser is picking up on this private surfing option that the new IE first initiated.

Chrome has faced some privacy concerns at launch with its Omnibox monitoring and recording too much information, but this can all be prevented by changing the default settings and going Incognito.

Expandability

Chrome doesn’t support any extensions or add-ons yet, so Firefox still dominates in this area.  But if you are looking for simple, you probably don’t want much more than Chrome already offers.

Final Thoughts

Firefox is here to stay, but there will always be a long tail of niche alternatives like Chrome and Flock.  When Chrome moves into Mac realm it could pick up some market share from Safari.  Flock will be there for social network junkies who want to try something new, but the first step to making Flock mainstream will be for more of the social networks themselves to go mainstream. Twitter is on track, but still has a long way to go before it’s a household name. If you’re only on Facebook or MySpace, you probably don’t need to worry about the extra sidebars and features.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Flock Gets a New Boss, Flock 1.0 Coming
Flock Public Beta Now Live
How Can Flock’s Social Browser Play Into the “Open” Movement?
Flock’s Social Browser 1.0 Has Finally Arrived
More is More: Flock 2.0
Flock CEO Jumps Ship
Anxious About Private Browsing in Firefox? Try the Latest Build

African bloggers are highlighting water related issues, from the politics in South Africa that led to suspension of a water quality expert, new devices for collecting and cleaning water, to the 'scramble for fish' the East African lake region.

CC licenced photo by Julien Harneis on flickr.

We start with South Africa where the blog Urbansprout highlights the suspension Dr. Anthony Turton . Dr Turton is a researcher who was set to deliver a presentation at the conference “Science Real and Relevant” in Pretoria. He was barred from delivering the presentation, and later suspended by The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
The blogger includes the presumed reason for his suspension as communicated by the CSIR, but also looks at the content of Dr. Turton's paper[pdf on environment.co.za], noting…

Taking a brief look at Dr Turton's paper, he argues that a lack of investment in science, engineering and technology (SET) since the early 1990's, the termination of important research projects and the shift to a contract driven income model has had a “catastrophic effect” on our national scientific capacity to deal with the technical challenges our water quality is facing.

There is also the question of academic freedom of scientists to present their findings. Urbansprout quotes a science journalist reacting to news of Dr. Turton's suspension.

Science journalist and former Journalism head of department of the University of Stellenbosch, Dr George Claassen asserted that the withdrawal of the presentation by the CSIR was an “absolute disgrace”. “This is a very serious encroachment on academic freedom and the right of scientists to announce their results, no matter how bad those results are for our view of things,” he commented. Claassen noted that academic and research freedom was protected under Section 16 of the constitution, which states that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.

Urbansprout provides the link for an online petition in support of Dr. Turton and concludes:

Turton's report highlighted that South Africa could be headed for a water supply and water quality crisis that could negatively impact on the economic growth and development of the country, as well as lead to social unrest. The findings conflicted starkly with recent government assurances that South Africa was not facing a water crisis similar to the one prevailing in the electricity-supply sector.

A previous post on Urbansprout gives more information about the water crisis in South Africa, which is characterized by sewage seeping from municipal treatment works to rivers. The water from the rivers feeds into the local tap water system.

A WaterMill is described on the BLDG blog as a device that “uses the electricity of about three light bulbs to condense moisture from the air and purify it into clean drinking water.” Rory of The Carbon Smart blog links to the BLDG post, and considers ‘micro devices' like the WaterMill, and whether this could be a source of clean drinking water for urban areas. He writes:

Discussion about the WaterMill — a small-scale dehumidifier that collects and cleans water from the air — leads to conjecture not only about how much of our drinking water could come from the air, but also about whether the urban microclimate could be significantly altered by installing thousands of these low-energy devices. Could we do away with a significant number of energy-sapping air conditioners by making our environment more comfortable through a combination of better building design, appropriate clothing, vegetating the landscape and reducing the ambient humidity with thousands of WaterMills?

In East Africa, the Kenyan blog Kenvironews highlights a piece by Namhla Matshanda of the African Security Analysis Programme. The piece looks at the conflict over Migingo island in Lake Victoria, which is claimed by both Uganda and Kenya. The piece warns:

The so-called ‘scramble for fish’ in Lake Victoria is turning out to be a source of conflict between nations bordering the lake and could potentially threaten regional stability. In the past month alone there have been several incidents around the lake that have heightened tensions between Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. It is now apparent that the main source of these incidents is the lack of a clearly delimited and demarcated border between the three countries sharing Lake Victoria.

Since 2003, a number of Kenyan fishermen have been arrested and their boats and equipment confiscated by either Tanzanian or Ugandan authorities for “illegally crossing the common borders.” The latest incident happened when about 400 Kenyan fishermen were kicked out of Migingo island by Ugandan authorities. Migingo is claimed by both Uganda and Kenya. This incident has exacerbated the already strained relations between the two countries. The Kenyan fishermen have appealed to their political leaders to intervene, some even threatening violence.

 

I was asked recently to speak at the Campaign/ APG Battle of Big Thinking. A few publisher types such as myself were tagged on at the end of a day of agency planners pontifications on life, the universe and everything (there was a lot of quantum physics, for some reason). Anyway, this was my contribution. It wasn’t quite in tune with the day - but it went down OK, I think..Some of the stats/info might be out of date. Also - I snaffled lots of the photos in a hurry not thinking about using them online. If anyone has a problem with their use - please contact me.

There is no shortage of reasons to be utterly miserable at the moment in the media world. But, I have been plagued with wreckless optimisim – so I’m here to give you something very rare - a good news story from a media owner..

I believe that if for one second we can look up from, the short term pain we are feeling, and take a broader look at the health of the media industry, we are in a golden era.

We are living in the era of the Great British Media Brand.

I believe this is happening because of a combination of British creativity, the opportunities thrown open by the internet, an increasingly global cultural marketplace – and, of course, the gift of the English language..

And, I believe this is good for consumers. Good for advertisers. And good for the economy as a whole.

I want to start with Matt Damon. In the Bourne Ultimatum. Here he is on the Eurostar, and guess what, he’s reading a copy of the Guardian he bought at Gard Du Nord.

What is he reading you might ask? Is it Polly Toynbee on social policy? Is it Charlie Brooker on why Apple Macs are really Fisher Price computers? Or Hadley Freeman on the fashion pages on whether it’s ok for middle aged men to keep their shirts untucked? [quick answer – no because everyone knows what you’re trying to hide].

No – he is reading none of this. He is a ruthless assassin with a heart of gold and not much interest in fashion, gadgets or the state of the nation’s poorly paid. He’s readings  story about him, Jason Bourne.

Soon he’ll arrive in London and call a Guardian journalist. You’ll see a shot of our offices. You’ll see a bespectacled editor who looks spookily like Alan Rusbridger.

You’ll see our intrepid journalist go off to meet him at Waterloo. Unfortunately he gets killed, while Matt Damon gets away – which is a shame – and possibly not how our PR department might have written the script – but it makes for a much better film than if Matt Damon had got shot and you have to follow the exciting escapades of a Guardian journalist for the next two hours.

And the remarkable thing about this – is that the Guardian is featured at all. Ten years ago, for an American blockbuster, they would either have used the Times ‘Of London’; or created a fictional title – The Bugle, or The Daily Beast.

And why has this happened? Entirely because of the internet. It is only because of the internet that our brand means anything to anyone outside the UK – certainly anyone under 50 – and because of that, they can include the brand because it fits with the story. Even those who have never seen the paper, or perhaps even the website will be aware that this is just the sort of story the Guardian would break.

The truth is that in the national press, a set of titles forged in a phenomenally competitive domestic market, are finding themselves with significant international followings as they forge ahead online.

Over the last year, we have seen the Daily Mail dramatically increase it’s international audience – due perhaps to such insightful investigations as this gem I found on the site today :

“Has ex Blue peter presenter Zoe Salomon used sticky-back plastic to protect her modesty”. Which features no less than three photos just to help us get to grips with this tricky issue.

And by sparking off such comments as – and I quote directly: “ So what has she achieved by wearing such revealing clothes? Imagine her father looking at those pics…..? Will he be proud by looking at her assets? Of course not!” Tops, London, 5/11/2008 16:54

And..
“I think she looks gorgeous, but then here in Australia we can recognise class when we see it!” Bruce McDonald, Melbourne, Australia.

OK – so maybe I’m not the greatest fan of the Mail, but they, errr, certainly seem to know how to keep their audience happy.

But the global audiences of all the national press combined are dwarfed by the BBC, who now have a weekly global news audience – on TV as well as online - of 233 million.

Now, like many commercial media owners, I have plenty to complain about with the BBC – but, you cannot deny their global achievement around news in the last decade has been spectacular.

They are perhaps the greatest British Media Brand of all  - what’s important in this context, is that it didn’t have to be this way. They could have spent the last decade bumbling along in White City with their greatest innovation being a new version of the Generation game – instead, they have become a global creative powerhouse.

There is a similar revolution happening in Magazines – but here it’s more about licensing. Here is Caroline’s boss – Lord Heseltine on the Haymarket site, talking about the increasingly global reach of his brands. I will spare you the full video for the moment – but you can see..

Autotrader in South Korea. F1 Racing in Singapore. FourFourTwo in Nigeria. Stuff magazine in Morocco. [can you believe that – Stuff in Morocco?] WhatCar website in Latvia...

Conceived in Britain. Consumed around the world.

In a different medium, but a similar vein – we are world leaders in the TV formats. According to the latest estimates we have around 40% of the market – way ahead of our nearest rivals – the US and Holland.

Pop Idol, The Weakest Link and, unbelievably, Wife Swap have all been round the world – remade in dozens of countries.

The Office, as you’ll know has been both sold around the world – and remade. As you can see here – in Germany, France, Canada and the US.

I like to think that the internet played a role in the Office’s global success – as you know he holds the Guiness World Record for the most popular podcasts  – and these started initially with the Guardian. Ah yes – Ricky Gervais, he’d be nowhere without  us. But, strangely, you never hear him say thank you!

The current best seller – perhaps the fastest grower of all is the ‘Got Talent’ format – which is everywhere. This is the website of the Belgian version – which, I think you’ll agree, looks like a must-watch.

And even comparatively old formats continue to find new markets. You might have noticed earlier this month that Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is now being launched in Afghanistan – albeit with a total prize of around £12,000...

All of this points to one of our great strengths as a national media industry – we are a formidable creative hot house for media brands, and we are also very good at exploiting them...

We are helped by working in the English language – but, trust me, you couldn’t give the same presentation about Australia, Canada or New Zealand..

But this goes beyond simply licensing and redistributing. Like all great brands, Great British media brands are brilliant at evolving. This goes beyond simply chosing which platform to operate on.

If you were in LA last night, you could have gone to the weekly NME club night, which follows on from the NME Awards that were held in the same city in April.

The NME has broken out of a petty local scrap with other British music mags onto a broader stage – bringing in both the net, and live events.

And if you fancy a podcast – you will notice that the Economist now creates the sixth most popular podcast on iTunes US. That’s the sixth – in total. Ahead of everything. Bigger than BBC World News. Bigger even than Jamie Oliver. Who, while we’re at it is another Great British Media Brand!

The Economist has been a phenomenal flag-flier for the UK – a premium product that has continued to grow in the US, while Time and Newsweek get slimmer and slimmer.The production qualities on its podcast are frankly less then wonderful, but the core ideas and the quality of insight more than make up for it.

The internet too has enabled some of our more ambitious cultural brands to start to become real media brands. Tate is my favourite example.

Tate Modern is the most visited museum of modern art in the world – with around 5m annual visitors, that is about twice the annual visitors of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Every week, hundreds of thousands of people pour into it -  engaging not just with the brilliant art inside, but also with Tate – which has had the foresight to build on this, and if you speak to their marketing director, Will Gompertz – he’ll you how they increasingly see themselves as a media company.

They create their own video – to further the knowledge and understanding of art – around the world. And they do rather nicely in sponsorship as a result.

I would put Tate near the the top of my ‘media brands to watch’ over the next five years.
I think the learning from Tate –and from my next example, is that we know how to keep pushing our media brands forward. To keep them evolving.

Enter Daniel Craig, and James Bond – perhaps the most valuable British media brand of all. Recently re-invented and revamped.

I can’t really add anything to the screeds that have been written about this – other than to point out, just how remarkable it is to have kept this franchise alive and relevant for over 30 years. It is the most formidable act of media brand management.

The ingenuity goes beyond the films to the books – where the originals have been reworked. On the left is the original cover for Casino Royale. In the middle is the 2006 retro edition, and on the right, it’s the Penguin Classics version – ideal for A Level English Literature. Or, more likely  media studies.

But this is mere re-packaging, much smarter has been the introduction of the young Bond books by Charlie Higson, and getting Sebastian Faulks to follow on from Ian Flemming with the release earlier this year of Devil May Care – in both cases, bringing Bond to new audiences..

As we broaden our cultural horizons again – we can see our cultural influence contining to grow. We have a pretty healthy crop of artists in the US top 50 – and fortunately, Simon Cowell is only responsible for one of them.

But, the real example of someone rising from being merely a star to a ‘brand’ has to be Amy Winehouse – the only living popstar (other than Michael Jackson in his Thriller outfit) who has become a staple for Halloween Fancy Dress.

So that is the end of my whistle stop tour. What, you might ask, makes a Great British Media Brand?

There are three things I think are often important.

Brand history helps. If only because it means that when people come to work at the BBC, or the Guardian or the Economist, or the NME – they have more than likely grown up with it; the understand it as a consumer and they are committed to taking it forward, and make it relevant for their word.

At the same time – I should add history can hold you back, if you allow it to. Tate could easily decide it was just a gallery. But it wouldn’t be the same organisation.

Being great on the web helps – not just in terms of distribution and publishing, but in using it as a tool to engage with your audience – and vitally to let them engage with each others.

I should stress that online is not the end game – but it is the easiest way for a media brand to realise it can be more than a local publication.

And finally – success breeds success. The more things people get right, the more they keep getting right. Simon Cowell (unfortunately some might say) is the perfect example of that. So is the BBC, but then so again is the Tate, Haymarket’s licensing programme and the Economist’s podcasts.

If this was just a bit of trumpet blowing – I could stop now.  But it’s a little bit more important that that.
This is not just some triumphal jingoisim And, if you this is not a rehashing of ‘Cool Britannia’ – because, let’s face it, there isn’t much that is cool about Belgium’s got talent.

Actually, this is just about survival.

The world is getting smaller – so we have a chance to get bigger. Not only that, but as our economy is slowing down – so we need to look overseas for growth.

To abuse a quote from Woody Allen –:  ‘Brands are like sharks, they need to keep moving in order to stay alive’ – and for media brands, that means the constant exploration of new platforms, new ideas and new territories.

Above all – thinking internationally, thinking globally, makes you better.

From our point of view, you pay much more attention to what you say about the world, when you know the world is watching you and more than willing to pick you up when you get something wrong.

I make this point repeatedly when people ask me if we’re making any money from our international audience. Or, if  they have a particularly poor grasp of the Englsh language if we’re ‘monetising those eyeballs’.

As important as our immediate revenue figures are – there is much more at stake in the long term.
Not everything is going to work – creatively or commercially. But the alternative – sticking to what you’ve always known, and what you’ve always done is perhaps the greatest failure of all. Fortunately, I think that is hard coded into the DNA of the media brands I’ve talked about today.

And if it is essential for us as media owners, it is also essential for advertisers.

Strong brands, with engaged audiences make the best advertising environment. None of us can claim exclusive access to an audience any more – there are too many alternatives. As a result, we have to compete not just on the scale of our audience, but the depth of our relationship with them – ideally on as many different levels as possible.

And, on a broader scale – the economy needs us. We hardly manufacture anything any more. And now that the financial services sector are either on their knees or   owned by the state – the creative industries are frankly the best hope any government has of a good news story.

So – I want to go back to where I started. I believe that right here, right now – it is time for us to get behind the Great British Media Brands in our midst.
The alternative is just too teeny to contemplate.

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/22822?ns=guardianpageName=Politics%3A+Damian+Green+civil+servant+press+conference+-+livech=Politicsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Damian+Green%2CPolitics%2CWhitehall%2CPolice+%28politics%29%2CConservatives%2CUK+newsc5=Policy+Society%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CUnclassifed+Contributorsc6=Andrew+Sparrowc7=2008_12_01c8=1126980c9=articlec10=GUc11=Politicsc12=blogc13=c14=Politics+blogh2=GU%2FPolitics%2Fblog%2FPolitics+blog" width="1" height="1" //divpChristopher Galley, the civil servant at the centre of the leak inquiry that led to the arrest of Tory frontbencher Damian Green, will hold a press conference at 4.30pm, his lawyers said. More soon .../ppstrong3.45pm: /strongThe Home Office "mole" alleged to have leaked sensitive documents to Green is to speak publicly for the first time today. Galley will hold a press conference in central London at 4.30pm, his lawyers Bindmans said./ppGalley, 26, was arrested earlier this month by police investigating a series of leaks from the department./ppControversy erupted last Thursday when Green was also arrested in connection with the inquiry. The shadow immigration minister was questioned for nine hours, and had his Commons office and constituency home searched before being released./ppstrong3.50pm: /strongJust when everyone at Westminster was wondering where the Green story was heading, we heard that Galley would be giving a press conference. /ppApparently Galley won't be talking himself, but his lawyer, Neil O'May, head of the criminal department at Bindmans, will be making a statement and taking questions. We don't know yet what he's going to say./ppThis comes on a day when a href="http://www.guprod.gnl/politics/2008/dec/01/damian-green-jacqui-smith"the Tories have been stepping up their attack on Jacqui Smith/a over her handling of the affair./ppstrong4pm: /strongWhether by coincidence or not, the Tories have just been briefing journalists in the Commons about Green's relationship with Galley. They first met in May 2006, apparently, when Galley approached the Tories because he was concerned about aspects of the government's immigration policy. On that occasion the two men met in Westminster. It was not until several months later, towards the end of 2006, that Galley applied for a job with Green. He was turned down without an interview. That was before the first of the four leaks that the Tories have acknowledged took place./ppstrong4.10pm: /strong The Home Office has said that the investigation it ordered involves 20 leaks. The Tories say that figure is a "complete exaggeration"./ppIt seems that other Tories may have had dealings with Galley, but party sources say that Green was their "main contact" with the civil servant. We don't know yet the full extent of their involvement, but the Tories say that over two years the only hospitality that Galley has had from the party is one drink./ppstrong4.30pm:/strong O'May outlines Galley's dealing with Green. He says: "If ever there was a case of don't shoot the messenger", this was it./ppstrong4.35pm:/strong O'May also says he wants to address the allegations that have been aired in the press about Galley being used to entrap Green. It has been claimed that Galley called Green after Galley had been arrested (he was arrested, but released without charge) and that Green thought this was an attempt to implicate him. O'May says these allegations are untrue and malicious./ppThen he says he can't take any questions and that he and Galley have to leave. But he indicates that he's coming back later to speak to journalists. I'm monitoring from Sky and News 24, and they've moved on now, but a colleague is at Bindmans and I'll let you know as soon as I hear more./ppIn a moment I'll put up a more detailed account of O'May's statement./ppstrong4.40pm:/strong O'May is back. He says there were a series of contacts between Galley and Green. Asked if the release of information was "systematic", he declines to accept that word - but he says that information was handed over on a regular basis. Asked if Galley would plead guilty or not guilty if he were charged, he says it's too early to say. /ppAnd I'm afraid I've lost the live feed now. Sky and News 24 have decided that Haringey's press conference on Baby P is more important./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/damian-green"Damian Green/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/whitehall"Whitehall/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/police"Police/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/conservatives"Conservatives/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/iSAAVfes5-bF_kHkuCZwiwPHF9E/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/iSAAVfes5-bF_kHkuCZwiwPHF9E/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

The Huffington Post has raised 25 million dollars in funding from Oak Investment Partners, claims ATD.

According to ATD, this puts the valuation for The Huffington Post at 100 million dollar. It’s a big valuation, and the 25 million dollar round is bigger than the previously rumored 15 million. A question that inevitably still pops up after any news such as this is: “how does this make sense? It’s just a blog!” I, however, don’t see why not.

I’ve checked out Huffington Post - which I rarely normally do as I’m not interested in politics - and I don’t see any crucial differences between this site, and any big media publication on the web. They’ve got news, reports, features, they seem to be timely and thorough, and they produce a lot of content. On the internet, that’s pretty much all that matters: whether you’ve got a team of 100 people behind the site or it’s just a one man gig, all your readers care about is the content.

The only difference between a blog and any other media publication is that blogs scale very well. Traditionally, if you want to start a newspaper, you need editors, journalists, graphic designers, you need money for print, you need marketing, and a zillion other things just to start off. And it all costs a lot of money.

On a blog, starting out is not only cheap: it’s free. You just start writing. If you’re good, then you get audience, and you can add all those things mentioned above as you go along. However, this doesn’t at all mean that a blog cannot be bigger than the New York Times: there’s absolutely no reason why it couldn’t. And one day, it’ll happen. In fact, blogs usually understand the new media better than old giants. Valuating The Huffington Post at $100 million may be brave, but it’s definitely not insane; we’ll see if this particular bet pays off.

---
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pimg class="float_right" src="/~~/f?id=48454b3414b9b9400027139amaxX=370maxY=278" border="0" alt="betsymorgan.jpg" title="betsymorgan.jpg" width="370" height="278" /Huffington Post a href="http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081201/huffington-post-nabs-25-million-in-funding-heres-an-exclusive-boomtown-interview-with-oak-investments-fred-harman/"raises $25 million from Oak,/a $10 million more than previously reported. Kara Swisher puts the valuation at just south of $100 million (presumably post-money)./p pThis is a lot of money and a good (if not great) valuation. The company is smart to raise this much now, given the collapse of the global economy. The New York Times could use a similar infusion./p pKara's quote from Oak's Fred Harman:/p p style="padding-left: 30px;""There is an inevitable shift from offline to online with people increasingly getting their news media online, and this election proved how powerful the Huffington Post could be,' said Harman (pictured here), in an interview with BoomTown. 'And I think the post-election perception of the Huffington Post has changed in the eyes of advertisers to being a key mainstream news site.'/p pemThe Huffington Post Announces $25 Million In Funding From Oak Investment Partners/em/p pemNew York, NY (December 1, 2008)-The Huffington Post, a leading news and opinion site, today announced that it has secured $25 million in funding from Oak Investment Partners, a venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. The Huffington Post ('HuffPost') will use the proceeds to invest in the growth of the company and for select and focused acquisitions. The company said it would invest in its technology and infrastructure, increase its in-house advertising capabilities, and continue to expand its content offerings-including a new investigative journalism initiative and a rollout of local versions of The Huffington Post in select cities. The announcement was made by Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer, co-founders of The Huffington Post./em/p pem'This commitment from Oak Investment Partners will allow us to accelerate our growth, with more verticals, more video, more citizen journalism initiatives, more cities for our local editions, and a fund for investigative journalism,' said Arianna Huffington. 'We are particularly excited to have Fred Harman of Oak join our board; his deep knowledge of the new media landscape will help us to take HuffPost to the next level.'/em/p pemSaid Kenneth Lerer: 'We are thrilled to bring on board a partner like Oak to work with Softbank Capital and Greycroft as we move forward. Since launching the site three and half years ago, the company has built a strong brand and an audience of millions who rely on the site for its mix of smart news and opinion. The additional capital from Oak will enable us to go full-steam ahead with operations and select acquisitions.'/em/p pemFred Harman, general partner at Oak Investment Partners, said, 'Much of the news media business needs to be reassembled online around an ad-supported model and the timetable for this has been accelerated, not slowed, by this economic down cycle. We believe that The Huffington Post has built a platform and business model to be among the leaders in aggregating this audience online. Our financing will provide the resources necessary to scale the company, both organically as well as through acquisitions of additional talent and new media companies. We are also very excited to have the opportunity to back Arianna and the company's strong entrepreneurial team.'/em/p pemBetsy Morgan, CEO of The Huffington Post, said, 'With funding from Oak, The Huffington Post is perfectly positioned to build on its incredible growth. Oak brings to the table a team with enormous experience and insight, and we look forward to working with them to seize the opportunities ahead of us.'/em/p pemThe Series C financing round comes as The Huffington Post continues to experience significant growth following the expansion of the site in 2007, when HuffPost began rolling out a variety of new sections, including entertainment, politics, media, living, style and green. The site also started its first local version, HuffPost Chicago. This year, The Huffington Post received widespread attention for its original reporting on the 2008 presidential race, including the coverage provided by its OffTheBus team of citizen journalists. HuffPost currently has 46 employees./em/p pemHarman joins The Huffington Post board of directors, whose members include: Eric Hippeau, Managing Partner of Softbank Capital, Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer and Betsy Morgan./em/p pstrongSee Also: /stronga href="../../2008/11/huffington-post-raises-15-million"br /Huffington Post Hasn't Yet Raised $15 Million*/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/QULLtjVgaUuiCyJR7b-kZbKLhx4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/QULLtjVgaUuiCyJR7b-kZbKLhx4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=csV7M1cv"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=csV7M1cv" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=oJ3QQfVj"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=SgphfU8p"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=80" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=WecCMWPQ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=WecCMWPQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=W5bvZ3fA"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=131" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=b4GBLfzv"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=336" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=lcYOFx3M"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=tCgn2OzM"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=50" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~4/DvM5DOQ6MlA" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/21713?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Israeli+navy+blocks+Gaza+aid+shipch=World+newsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Israel+and+the+Palestinian+territories+%28News%29%2CLibya+%28News%29%2CMiddle+East+%28News%29%2CAid+and+development+%28Society%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Policy+Society%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=Rory+McCarthyc7=2008_12_01c8=1126877c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Israel+and+the+Palestinian+territoriesc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FIsrael+and+the+Palestinian+territories" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Israeli navy today prevented a Libyan ship carrying 3,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid for Palestinians from docking in Gaza./ppThe al-Marwa, carrying food, blankets and powdered milk, attempted to challenge a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israelandthepalestinians"Israel/a's tight economic blockade on the Gaza Strip, which has worsened in recent weeks. /ppBut as the ship approached Gazan water at dawn, an Israeli naval ship ordered it to turn back. The al-Marwa headed south and has reportedly docked at al-Arish, an Egyptian port in the northern Sinai just south of Gaza./ppAn Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said there was no physical contact with the ship but it was ordered back by radio. "This is a policy we have had for a long time: if somebody wants to bring in humanitarian aid they can do it through the border with Egypt or the Israeli passages into Gaza," said the spokesman, Andy David./ppHowever, since the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas won parliamentary elections nearly three years ago, Israel has imposed a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/13/israel-gaza-blockade"ever tighter restrictions/a on Gaza. /ppWhen Hamas took full control of Gaza last summer those restrictions became an economic blockade, while Egypt has also kept its one crossing into Gaza at Rafah largely closed./ppAs a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in Gaza has unravelled in the past month, so the blockade has again been tightened. Deliveries of food, aid and fuel have been prevented on most days and a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/20/israelandthepalestinians-pressandpublishing"journalists/a have been barred from entering./ppThree smaller boats carrying activists and some aid successfully crossed into Gaza from Cyprus without being stopped by the Israeli navy. However, the Israelis moved quickly to prevent the Libyan ship, which carried a much larger cargo, from entering./ppA crowd of Palestinians had gathered at the Gaza City harbour from early in the morning ready to meet the ship. Five trucks waited to offload the aid. /pp"The civilian boat carrying only humanitarian supplies and food was turned away by an Israeli warship," said Jamal Khoudary, a Palestinian MP and head of Gaza's Popular Committee against the Siege./ppSome reports suggested the aid might now be unloaded in Egypt and delivered by road, although until now Egypt has been reluctant to turn the Rafah crossing with Gaza into a regular route for deliveries. Egypt does not want to assume responsibility for the strip and is also wary of the influence of Hamas./ppConcern is mounting about the humanitarian conditions inside Gaza. Its sole power plant, which relies on fuel deliveries from Israel, paid for by the European Union, was closed for two weeks in November and only restarted last Thursday./ppIsrael says the crossings are being closed because of rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel and because of reported security threats on the crossings themselves. /ppEvery few days a shipment of food or fuel is allowed in but figures from the UN show in the past month an average of less than five truckloads a day have been allowed in, compared to 123 in October and 475 in May last year, just before Hama