The security situation in Iraq is becoming increasingly uncomfortable for media representatives: on Sunday, Mohan el Dhar, editor-in-chief of the independent daily newspaper El Mashreq, was gunned down by unknown assailants outside his home in Baghdad.  
The Secretary General of the Iraqi Journalists Association told SDA that El Dhar was the 190th journalist killed in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003. El Dhahr, a Shiite from the south of the country, was murdered in Jamia'a, a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad.

US-American Bruce Darnell is the catwalk coach on Heidi Klum's casting show Germany's Next Topmodel, the second season of which has just started on Pro Sieben. Bruce likes to shout at the girls: "Sexy, sexy, sexyyyyyyyy. You have to move your ass for me now." But that fails. Last Thursday, in front of 70,000 spectators, the contestants stalked across the center line of Dortmund's football stadium. Meanwhile, Bruce implores the girls with desperation in his voice: "Sexy, sexy, yeah, come on." But nothing was sexy at the start of the new season of the model show. One commentator from the Süddeutsche newspaper, for example, lost his sexy thoughts as soon as Heidi Klum squeaked her greeting, as if she was secretly dubbing the Mainzelmännchen in her spare time. Bruce is not sexy, but he is also squeaky when he demonstrates to the wannabe models how to walk the catwalk in a decidedly foxy manner. The man knows how to skillfully combine charm and boundless naivety. His sentences are great works of the German-American word community. "This isn't a vacation, this is a competition," he chides his protégés, not always to their enthusiasm. When a candidate returns from the jury, she is asked by a fellow contestant: "So, how was it?" The answer couldn't have been clearer: "It was crap." Thank God Bruce didn't hear that. He would hardly have found that sexy.

On Thursday, March 8, a new weekly Turkish program will start on Basel Radio. Every Thursday from 8 to 9 pm, "Xtanbul" reports on local, cultural and social issues.  
A cross-generational, predominantly female team with a wealth of experience in building bridges between cultures and editorial know-how is at the start. The topics are wide-ranging: local news, lifestyle and networking, education and literature are the focal points. Musically, a broad spectrum will be covered, from Turkish rock and pop to hip hop and oriental music.
 
Turkish and German are spoken in "Xtanbul". The aim is to inform not only compatriots about what is happening in the Basel region, but also Swiss people or people of other origins about Turkish culture and the concerns of the Turkish population. As the start of the broadcast falls on International Women's Rights Day, the first program is dedicated to moving and famous women, inventions by women and offers of help for women in need.
 
According to the broadcaster, "Xtanbul" is supported by GGG Basel-Stadt, Integration Basel, the canton of Basellandschaft and the Federal Commission for Foreigners.

The fashion house Vögele is joining forces with the car manufacturer Fiat: together, the two companies are giving away 222 Fiat Pandas in 5 European countries. 
With this competition, cR Kommunikation has been commissioned by Vögele to attract existing and new customers to 800 Vögele branches. Fiat revived the Panda in 2004 as a small, affordable model. The fashion house sees the "ultra-modern and likeable" Fiat Panda as a motorized counterpart to its fashion, as the company announced on Friday.
The competition is being held in Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, with 75 models being raffled off in this country.

Unlike in Switzerland, clear legal regulations against spammers are already in force in the EU area and in the USA. This will change when the revised Telecommunications Act comes into force: It is expected that from April 1, 2007, spamming via e-mail or SMS will also be punishable in this country. The most important points: In the future, anyone who sends mass advertising without the recipients' consent or gives a corresponding order will face a fine or imprisonment. In addition, a correct sender must be indicated and recipients must be given the opportunity to stop further mailings. Scattered advertising to existing customers is exempt, as long as the company's own goods or services are being advertised. Anyone who wants to defend themselves against unfair mass advertising in the future can request information about the sender's name and address from the provider or telephone company.
According to the SDA, the final enforcement ordinance will be passed in March. Whether the politically controversial ordinance will have a noticeable impact on the flood of advertising is doubtful: depending on the estimate, only just one percent of spam mails received in this country originate from Switzerland, most of them come from China and South Korea, and advertising SMS messages are also often sent from foreign cell phone networks.

From Thursday, March 1, 2007, users of the public transport network in the Lugano area will be offered a free 4-page tabloid edition of the Corriere del Ticino, the Corriere del Ticino-Buongionrno.  
The edition will be available on weekdays during the early morning hours in distribution boxes in the means of transportation. Corriere del Ticino-Buongiorno offers an overview of the most important topics of the day and refers readers to the paid edition of the daily newspaper for more detailed information. As the paper writes in a press release, the aim is to attract attention in the short time available at the start of the day in a quick and uncomplicated way, while at the same time providing an incentive for essential newspaper reading.

On Monday, March 5, the US business and finance channel CNBC will be reporting live from Vaduz for one day on the Principality of Liechtenstein as an industrial and financial center.  
The reporting will focus on the future opportunities and challenges of the dwarf state, as well as other facets of the country that are of interest to a global audience. Preparations for the special took more than two years, and there is a correspondingly high level of joy at its success: "This is a great opportunity for Liechtenstein and its representatives to present themselves to a top-class global audience," said Liechtenstein's public relations officer Gerlinde Manz-Christ. As Presseportal.ch reports, the program will be presented by Dan Scott, CNBC's Zurich-based correspondent.
 
CNBC is recognized as the world leader in business news, commenting on financial markets globally in real time and delivering business information to more than 340 million households worldwide. The viewers of CNBC's business programs are business executives and financial market professionals with considerable purchasing power. According to a study from July 2004, CNBC "Business Day" viewers have an average household income of over 1.2 million US dollars.

Literature gap in sight: the Federal Supreme Court has rebuffed the Booksellers and Publishers Association in the matter of fixed book prices. Now only the Federal Council can intervene to preserve fixed book prices.fixed book prices are not desirable, at least that's how the Federal Court sees it. However, the Booksellers and Publishers Association (SBVV) is eager to take its case to the Federal Council. After the National Council came out in favor of drafting a legal basis for fixed book prices in December 2006, the Federal Supreme Court's decision comes as something of a surprise.

Fixed book prices are a restriction of competition to which individual booksellers voluntarily commit themselves. The Federal Supreme Court has ruled on the admissibility of such a measure and not on its purpose. A political decision by the Federal Council could now overturn the validity of the Federal Supreme Court's ruling, because it may allow agreements on competition that are prohibited per se if it considers them necessary for cultural policy reasons.
If the SBVV is to be believed, the abolition of fixed book prices would result in a reduction in the number of bookshops and the literary diversity on offer. Urs Heinz Aerni, President of the Association of Independent Small Bookshops, says: "Books are not just any old commodity; they convey knowledge, education and imagination. You can't apply the same criteria as in the financial or textile sectors.

Former Sat-1 boss Roger Schawinski started his major series of interviews for Weltwoche this Thursday. He meets personalities of his choice from Switzerland and abroad.  
His first interlocutor was SVP Federal Councillor Christoph Blocher. The conversation revolves around the topics of power, money and the driving forces of life. The first major Schawinski interview appeared this Thursday in Weltwoche and was also published for the first time in its original video format, as the newspaper wrote in a press release on Friday. The video interview can be viewed via the link below.

Since March 1, the advertising agency has had a shrewd new art director in Donat Achermann, who has already received several awards from the ADC. The 32-year-old newcomer will oversee the budgets won by Teo Jakobs and Läser in 2007. He will also be able to put his skills to the test on Nokia commissions. The experienced creative mind is used to larger mandates, especially as he has already been able to count Migros and Swisscom among his clients.

Christophe Giovannini, Peter Schibli and Christian Schmid joined Swissinfo/Swiss Radio International at the beginning of the year. All three now hold management positions at the nine-language multimedia news platform, which informs Swiss citizens living abroad and an international audience about current events in Switzerland.  
Peter Schibli has been project manager and member of the editorial board since March 1. The 50-year-old, who holds a doctorate in law, was a member of the editorial board of the Basler Zeitung and as such was responsible for multimedia. He was previously the German and US correspondent for BaZ.
 
Since mid-February, 41-year-old Christophe Giovannini has been head of the English-language editorial team. After studying at the University of Neuchâtel, Giovannini worked in various positions at SDA, most recently as a correspondent and before that as a service manager for several years.
 
Christian Schmid joined the Swissinfo/SRI journalistic management team at the beginning of January as head of news and member of the editorial board. The 45-year-old lawyer previously worked as business editor, Switzerland and Swiss parliament correspondent for Radio DRS and was then project manager at Fondation Hirondelle.

One in three Swiss people eat too little fruit and vegetables. The Knorr Vie vegetable shot and the V-Team devised by Jung von Matt/Limmat aim to correct this shortcoming.  
The V-Team, an intrepid troupe of fruit and veg, is out to put an end to the Swiss's lack of health awareness by "fruiting" those who are unwilling to eat. And this is how it works: People who eat too little fruit and vegetables can be registered via the Knorr-vie.ch website. The V-Team then lies in wait for the "victims" - in the lecture hall, on the ice hockey pitch, on the way to work or in the office. They are then "fruited": pressed through the fruit and vegetable press. These assaults will be filmed and made available for voting on the homepage below from March 23. The film with the most votes will win a trip for two - to the Big Apple, of course. The campaign will be publicized with advertisements in 20 Minuten, editorial PR, placemats and wild posters.