Today, the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority forced all internet service providers in the country to block access to YouTube.com indefinitely because of the recent posting of blasphemous content that might offend strict Muslims.

Several reports cited the anti-Islamic and “viral” nature of some content as the motivation behind the mandate. Purportedly, users had become increasingly upset by the resurgence of the incendiary Danish Mohammad cartoons, as well as a Dutch legislator’s exclusive movie promising to smoke out the infiltration of Muslim values in Dutch culture.

But it was unclear whether the government response was meant to appease citizens threatening public backlash or whether it was taking ation to preempt the deterioration of their faith. There were, of course, no illuminating user-generated opinions broadcast on YouTube.

• BBC - Pakistan Blocks YouTube Website
• YouTube - Mohammad Cartoons

I’ll leave it to your comments. Should journalists be expected to act instead of just report on situations to which they have unique access? What actions are appropriate?

One of the Pulitzer-winners/AP

AP/Bilal Hussein

AP/Bilal Hussein - Terrorist assassination of an Iraqi election worker

AP/Bilal Hussein

The monks have been turning heads all over Burma, strutting up and down runways 1 km long in their savvy-but-simple garb. And they?ve had quite a showing ? 100,000 people came to celebrate the latest from the Alms Collection? in Yangon alone.

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The taste is something like the mushrooms her uncle used to her as a child:

On many early mornings in Tehran, my uncle Ali would bang on our door to deliver large heaps of mammoth mushrooms from the mountain of Shemiran. Every summer and early autumn when I saw thunderstorms gathering in the sky, I knew we would have giant bunches of wild, tasty mushrooms the following day. My uncle believed that the storms pushed the mushrooms up from beneath the mountain?s numerous stones. Mushroom hunters like Ali would wake up early the next morning to go after those fresh, juicy mushrooms and cut off their heads.

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All of this constituted as immoral behavior, in violation of Sharia law. The young, and mostly wealthy, concert-goers were exposed to “satanic” propaganda. But the Iranian government felt the youth had been coerced by modern technology and the internet, and “were not aware of the satanic nature of the concert.” If they were, they would certainly be punished. Everyone, prosecution included, wanted to believe most were just curious, eager to learn how devil worshipers perform their melodic rituals. They were released on bail over the weekend. The real culprits were elsewhere.

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He’s told them the nation is in crisis. The war between the hegemonic and the subversive is changing. And he’s not promising heaven or eternal peace on a swollen cloud cushioned by several soft and voluptuousness virgins.

The country’s intelligentsia has fallen into those confounded hegemons’ hands again. Four diplomats have been sold into American’s custody. Israeli jails are holding two of the country’s leading nuclear scientists. And the Ayatollah, along with the support of the Associated Union of Islamic Students (USIA) is calling on the youth for a “Special Operation.”

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