The Israeli government is defying a ruling by the Supreme Court and is still not allowing foreign correspondents to enter the Gaza Strip for reporting purposes. The Foreign Press Association (FPA) criticized this decision on Friday, as reported by SDA.
The court had previously ordered that reporters be allowed to enter the Gaza Strip whenever the Erez border crossing is opened for humanitarian reasons. The official statement by the Israeli authorities that there was not enough time for coordination on Friday was described by the FPA as unfounded. On Friday, Israel had allowed around 300 women and children with foreign passports to leave the Gaza Strip via the Erez border crossing.
The FPA also expressed concern that the current arrangement only allows for so-called "pool reporting", whereby reporters in Gaza have to share their information with other foreign colleagues accredited in Israel. "We believe that the Israeli government should allow the international media unhindered access to Gaza during this crisis," it added.
Israel did not allow any correspondents to enter the Gaza Strip for more than three weeks after November 5, 2008. After that, there were occasional opportunities. Since the beginning of the Israeli air attacks on the Gaza Strip, the border crossings have been closed again.

In Switzerland, more than 107 million New Year's wishes were sent via SMS or MMS on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day via cell phone. After years of rapid growth, the number of electronic greetings has stabilized for the first time.
Two of the three providers registered similar numbers of electronic New Year's wishes as a year ago: Swisscom subscribers sent around 47.6 million SMS and MMS on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, Swisscom spokeswoman Myriam Ziesack said on Friday in response to a query from the SDA news agency. That is about the same number as in the previous year.
At Orange, there were 28.8 million SMS and MMS, which, according to a spokeswoman, also roughly corresponds to the previous year's figures. Sunrise subscribers sent 29.1 million greetings via SMS, around 2 million more than last year. For MMS, only a provisional result of 1.6 million was available at midday on Friday.
Every resident of Switzerland thus sent an average of 14 SMS or MMS messages within two days. By Christmas, the Swiss had already sent around 65.6 million messages via cell phone, which was a record.

The US music market was unable to halt its decline last year. The increase in Internet downloads slowed compared to previous years. It was therefore once again unable to compensate for the massive slump in CD sales, as the market researchers at Nielsen Soundscan reported according to the US media. Overall, album sales fell by 14 percent to 428 million CDs and digital downloads last year, according to the data.
For the first time since market analyses began 17 years ago, the best-selling album of the year - in 2008 it was Tha Carter III by rapper Lil Wayne - sold fewer than three million copies. Wayne's album sold 2.9 million copies. The British band Coldplay and country singer Taylor Swift took the other two places on the podium.

The NZZ has to make savings and is laying off 29 of its almost 550 employees. This corresponds to 24 full-time positions, as the newspaper announced in its Wednesday edition. All areas of the company are affected by this cost-cutting measure. However, the NZZ will assume its responsibility and offer appropriate support to all those affected, write CEO Albert P. Stäheli and Head of Journalism Markus Spillmann in an article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
The traditional newspaper also wants to make savings by reducing its network of correspondents in Switzerland and abroad. In some cases, posts will be cut or staff numbers reduced. This will mainly take place in places where there were previously several representations, Stäheli continues.
France, the UK, the Benelux countries, southern Africa and south-eastern Europe are affected. The NZZ did not say which correspondent positions in Switzerland were affected by the cutbacks. According to SDA, those responsible could not be reached on Wednesday due to vacations. The NZZ emphasizes that the claim to adequate coverage of domestic and foreign events in politics, business and culture will in no way be abandoned.
Inserts are merged
In addition to employees, readers will also feel the effects of the cost-cutting measures. In future, the Mobil Digital and Travel and Leisure supplements will be merged and inserted on Fridays instead of Tuesdays and Thursdays as before.
The dossier previously included on Fridays will be discontinued. In future, key topics will be dealt with in the respective departments. The media page will now be part of the domestic section. The political literature supplement will be placed in the Saturday feuilleton and the economic literature in the business section. The NZZ kompakt page, which summarized the most important news of the day, will also be discontinued. The international edition of the NZZ will not undergo any further changes. The NZZ am Sonntag and the magazines Folio, Campus, Z and Fokus will also remain unchanged.
NZZ cites the turmoil on the international financial markets and the sharp economic slowdown as the reason for the cost-cutting measures. Although the company remains solidly financed, NZZ cannot escape the current market developments. Advertising revenues have fallen significantly in the last three months.

Italian star photographer Oliviero Toscani has caused a stir in Sicily with a special kind of anti-mafia initiative: he has registered Mafia as a brand name, as the newspaper La Stampa reported on Saturday according to SDA. M.A.F.I.A. stands for Mediterranean Association For Internal Affair, it said.
This idea was not only met with approval. The president of the Association of Victims of the Mafia, for example, was outraged that not everyone realized that the word mafia stands for the spilled blood of victims.
The artist himself, who is a city councillor in the Sicilian town of Salemi near Palermo, defended his idea as a decision to demythologize the Mafia. Vittorio Sgarbi, ex-Minister of Culture, Mayor of Salemi and co-sponsor of the initiative, also sees nothing wrong with the new brand. The protests only testify to a lack of intelligence. Toscani wanted to use the M.A.F.I.A. brand to protest against the Cosa Nostra in his "own paradoxical and provocative way".
Whether for or against M.A.F.I.A., we can look forward to the photographer's next provocation. Because provoking seems to be in the 66-year-old's genes. Among other things, he is responsible for the newborn baby, the bare bottom stamped H.I.V. positive and the blood-soaked clothing of a killed Yugoslavian soldier - all of which can be seen on Benetton advertising posters. He last made a name for himself in 2007 with a shock campaign against anorexia. The posters showed nude photos of French model Isabelle Caro, who had suffered from anorexia since the age of 14.

Coop is continuing its fight against its high-price image with a new price offensive. With lower prices for branded products, the wholesaler wants to assert itself against the discounters Denner and Lidl. From Monday, more than 600 branded items will cost an average of 12 percent less in Coop stores, as the wholesaler announced on Sunday according to SDA. According to Coop, this is the biggest price reduction ever.
With this offensive, Coop is primarily preparing itself for competition in the discount sector. This is currently dominated by Denner in the branded goods segment. Denner took over its main competitor Pickpay in 2005 and has since been taken over by Migros itself. Denner will soon face competition in the discount business with branded goods from the German Lidl chain, which will enter the Swiss market in the spring.
Same low prices as Denner and Lidl
Coop's declared aim is to be able to keep up with Denner and Lidl in terms of price. According to Head of Marketing Jürg Peritz, the wholesaler wants to be able to offer at least the same low prices as the two discounters. With the Prix Garantie and Qualité & Prix product lines, Coop has already been able to achieve price parity with its main competitor Migros for low-price products and private labels, said Peritz. The same is now to happen with branded products.
The price reduction for over 600 branded articles will cost Coop around CHF 100 million per year. According to Group CEO Loosli, the drop in sales will initially be borne by Coop itself. Loosli explains the fact that Coop can afford the price reduction at all by, among other things, the continuous increase in Coop's productivity. Since the merger of the 15 Coop cooperatives at the turn of the millennium, distribution costs have been reduced thanks to centralized stock management, efficient logistics and simpler processes. This has repeatedly created scope for price reductions.

The NZZ Group is not only adopting a cost-cutting program, but also a new corporate structure. The previous structure with group and management boards will be replaced by a joint NZZ management board. According to SDA, this will be headed by Albert P. Stäheli, who has been CEO of the NZZ Group since October 1, 2008. Also represented on the management board are Markus Spillmann, Head of Journalism, and Daniel Hofer, Head of Publishing.
As part of this reorganization, the operational heads of the media houses in St. Gallen (St. Galler Tagblatt) and Lucerne (Neue Luzerner Zeitung) will also join the new management board from spring 2009. NZZ holds a majority stake in both newspapers.
According to the article in the NZZ, further personnel appointments are to be made in the coming weeks. In particular, the areas of corporate development, finance and central services are to be filled. The current Chairman of Group Management, Alfred Hümmerich, is leaving NZZ at his own request at the end of February 2009.

Various communications officers in the Federal Parliament are changing posts. Former DDPS Head of Information Dominique Bugnon will become the new Head of Communications in Moritz Leuenberger's Uvek. He replaces the new Federal Council spokesperson André Simonazzi.
As the Uvek announced on Tuesday, the change will take place at the beginning of March. Bugnon will become Head of Communications and Press Spokesperson for French-speaking Switzerland. The 51-year-old from Jura has worked in Schmid's Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport since 2002. He initially worked as press spokesman, and from 2004 as head of information. Before that, the law graduate worked as a journalist for various media.
Following Schmid's resignation, his personal assistant Stefan Costa had already changed departments. He will work for Federal Councillor Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf in the Department of Justice and Police from the beginning of March. In contrast, the former head of DDPS communications Jean-Blaise Defago will work under the new Federal Councillor Ueli Maurer.
Former Uvek Head of Communications André Simonazzi will take up his post as Vice-Chancellor and Spokesman of the Federal Council at the beginning of April. He will replace Oswald Sigg, who is retiring.

Weber Harbeke, the advertising agency based on Zurich's Limmatquai, is becoming more international at the start of the new year. With the appointment of new Managing Partner Giovanni Pucci, the creative agency will become part of the globally active Armando Testa Network. Armando Testa is the largest advertising agency in Italy and has branches throughout Europe.

According to the organization Reporters Without Borders, at least 60 journalists have been killed this year because of their work. According to the report published in Berlin on Tuesday, 673 journalists were arrested during the year, 929 suffered violence or were threatened and 29 were kidnapped.
With 15 journalists killed, Iraq remains the most unsafe country for media workers for the sixth year in a row. It was followed by Pakistan with seven deaths and the Philippines, where six media workers were killed in political and criminal violence. The largest prisons for journalists remain China and Cuba, with 30 and 23 media people behind bars respectively.
In 2007, 86 journalists and 20 media assistants were killed. In 2008, there were fewer deaths or arrests among journalists working for traditional media. However, this does not mean that the situation of press freedom has improved, according to the report. With the growing importance of online media and blogs, many governments are focusing their repressive measures more on the Internet.

The German private broadcaster RTL II is parting ways with its program director. The separation of the Munich-based TV station with 40-year-old Axel Kühn is by mutual agreement, RTL II announced on Tuesday. Kühn had been responsible for the program since November 1. His duties will now be taken over on an interim basis by editor-in-chief Jürgen Ohls.
According to a report by the industry service DWDL, the poor viewing figures for the new "Big Brother" season have cost Kühn his head. The market share of RTL II's flagship show recently slipped below 5% percent on the previous evening, well below the station's usual average. Kühn was also unable to score with the audience with the US series "Californication" and "Dexter".
Political scientist Jürgen Ohls became head of news at RTL II in 1999 and has been the station's editor-in-chief since December 1, 2006. Under his leadership, "RTL II News" became the most successful primetime news program among young viewers between the ages of 14 and 29 in 2008, RTL II announced.

To honor the French president's wife Carla Bruni, the French village of Carlat in Auvergne wants to twinned with the Italian Bruni. The mayor of Carlat, Alain Cousin, said that he had suggested a partnership to the mayor of Bruni near Turin. Although he is a communist and therefore not necessarily always of the same opinion as President Nicolas Sarkozy, the "Carlat-Bruni" partnership is intended as a "wink to the Première Dame of France". The municipality had discovered places on the Internet with the name Bruni in Portugal, Austria, Switzerland and the USA, said Cousin. Because of Carla Bruni's Italian roots, the local council finally decided on the small Italian village. The answer from Bruni is not yet known.
In addition to the French village and the gossip magazines, the singing president's wife also provides inspiration for a German newspaper journalist. The column "The secret diary of Carla Bruni" published in the left-wing weekly newspaper Taz has helped its author Silke Burmester to achieve some notoriety. Her freely invented notes from the life of the 41-year-old Elysée resident have just been published in book form.