Newsweek

Re "Do Riots Save Islam's Honor?" Commentary, May 17: There are more than a billion people worldwide who look at the Koran, the holy book of Islam, as a part of their identity. It is no surprise to hear that people across the globe were outraged by hearing that the words of God were literally being flushed down the toilet. So to read that Irshad Manji is attempting to speak on the behalf of all Muslims and call into question this legitimate reaction from the Muslim world is outrageous.

Newsweek should be held responsible for damage caused by violent anti-American demonstrations that followed its now-retracted report about U.S. interrogators desecrating the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison camp, an Afghan government spokesman said Tuesday. Pakistan's government spurned the magazine's apology as "not enough," and the White House called for Newsweek to do more to repair the damage to America's image in Muslim nations.

Newsweek on Monday retracted an article that said the U.S. military had confirmed that an interrogator at the Guantanamo Bay prison flushed a copy of the Koran down the toilet -- a report blamed for helping to trigger rioting in Afghanistan that killed at least 14 people.

Newsweek magazine acknowledged Sunday that there were errors in a story reporting that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Koran while attempting to extract intelligence from Muslim prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The report led to a series of violent anti-American protests and at least 14 deaths in Afghanistan. In its issue set to hit U.S.

Police opened fire Wednesday on protesters who were smashing windows, burning pictures of President Bush and shouting "Death to America!" in reaction to reports that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Koran. Officials reported that four demonstrators were killed and 71 injured. The protests in the eastern city of Jalalabad followed the publication of a Newsweek magazine article that said investigators looking into abuses at the U.S.

Authorities banned an issue of Newsweek magazine for publishing material they said was offensive to Islam, local media reported Friday. A government official in Islamabad ordered the "forfeiture of all copies of the weekly Newsweek of Nov. 22," the state-run agency Associated Press of Pakistan reported, quoting Tariq Mahmood Bajwa, a government official in the capital. The edition published "objectionable remarks ... tantamount to desecration of the Koran," the agency said.

Shares of mail-order DVD rental firm Netflix Inc. and digital recorder maker TiVo Inc. jumped Tuesday in the wake of a Newsweek report that said the companies were near an agreement to allow customers to download movies. Both companies downplayed the prospects. Netflix spokeswoman Lynn Brinton said there was no formal relationship between her company and TiVo, nor was there a timeline to form one.

A masked gunman shot and killed a journalist in front of his children and several witnesses on a busy street Tuesday, the latest attack against editors of a news magazine known for investigating drug trafficking and corruption. Francisco J. Ortiz Franco, a founding editor of the Zeta newsweekly, had just buckled Daniel, 10, and Andrea, 8, into the back seat of his Chevrolet sedan when a man approached the car and fired from close range.

Martha Stewart took shots from three sides Monday -- in court, in a news magazine and on television. In federal court in Manhattan, a U.S. judge declined to dismiss a lawsuit by shareholders of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., even as Newsweek reported Stewart may be indicted and NBC prepared to televise a less-than-flattering movie about her. Shares of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia fell more than 7% Monday, erasing most of last week's hefty gains.

For the last few months, Universal Pictures has been juggling a live grenade, hoping it won't go off. In the public eye, the studio's Ron Howard-directed film, "A Beautiful Mind," has been viewed as one of the favorites for this year's best picture Oscar. But behind the scenes, the studio has carefully been managing a campaign to prevent the movie from becoming a target of media attacks for the broad liberties it takes recounting the personal life of Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash.