The U.S. State Department is upgrading "foreign policy to Web 2.0 interactivity for the new electronic information age," with its first-ever blog, "Dipnote." The department "has already vastly expanded its Web presence and ... has set up a State Department YouTube channel." Meanwhile, the department's Digital Outreach Team is monitoring Middle Eastern blogs and Internet forums, sometimes adding comments. "The team concentrates on about a dozen mainstream Web sites such as chat rooms set up by the BBC and Al Jazeera or charismatic Muslim figures like Amr Khaled, as well as Arab news sites like Elaph.com," reports the New York Times. The sites are chosen for "high traffic and a focus on United States policy." Members of the Digital Outreach Team, which includes two Arabic speakers, "always identify themselves as being from the State Department." Topics they frequently comment on include the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, President Bush's having called the fight against terrorism a "crusade," and anti-Muslim comments by "prominent Americans from talk-show hosts to politicians ... of the 'bomb Mecca' variety."

In early September, "major newspapers reported the alarming news that suicides among young people were on the rise because of a precipitous drop in the use of antidepressants," writes Alison Bass. The academic study the news articles were based on concluded that new safety warnings for young people using antidepressant drugs had discouraged doctors from writing prescriptions for depressed youths. But there's a hole in that argument: "while there was indeed an upturn in suicide rates among youths ... the number of prescriptions for antidepressants in the same age group remained basically unchanged." Bass points out that the pharmaceutical companies that make antidepressants might "benefit from the latest alarm about an apparent upturn in youth suicide rates. ... These companies have an enormous stake in reversing the current FDA warnings." Pfizer, which makes the antidepressant Zoloft, did provide $30,000 for the academic study, and the study's lead authors have ties to Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. "This isn't the first time that suicide rates have been trotted out as a public relations weapon," Bass adds. "Proponents of psychotropic drugs have long argued that suicide rates ... fell after" such drugs were introduced, though the decline began well before the drugs were widely prescribed.

"President Vaclav Klaus is getting help from a right-wing U.S. think tank ... to spread a message many see as anti-environmentalist and some Czechs say reflects badly on their country," reports the Prague Post. The Heartland Institute's new $1 million advertising campaign declares "Global Warming is Not a Crisis" and features pictures of Klaus and Al Gore. "Vaclav Klaus will debunk global warming myths at the UN Sept. 24," claims the ad, which ran in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Times. Klaus told the Czech News Agency that the UN conference on global warming "will be a gathering of Gore-ites, so they're going to be shocked that they invited me 'by mistake.' ... I'm going to give a very tough speech." Heartland PR director Thomas Swiss called Klaus "a great defender of freedom" and someone who "really gets the potential damage that big government regulations can cause." Czech environment minister Martin Bursik and other national politicians have criticized Klaus' stance on global warming.

Faced with opposition to increasing government secrecy by Australia's Right to Know, a coalition of Australian media companies and the journalists' union, the Australian Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, has announced a review of the freedom of information (FOI) laws. The review, to be undertaken by the Australian Law Reform Commission, prompted a scathing response from the country's leading expert on FOI laws, Professor Rick Snell. "We have had 11 years of inaction and now, on the eve of an election campaign, the Government announces an inquiry," he said. Matthew Moore and Jonathan Pearlman report in the Sydney Morning Herald that "in 1995, the law reform commission made 106 recommendations to improve the law," but "the Government has ignored those recommendations." Channel 7 FOI editor Michael McKinnon noted that Ruddock's announcement "contained no mention whatsoever about improving public access under FOI."