Reporters on the Job

• Arab Attitudes : Staff writer Dan Murphy started to report today's story about shifting Arab attitudes toward insurgents in Iraq (page 1) last week, before the bombing in Egypt Saturday. For some, that event helped harden the shift. But Dan also found that there's a confusion among Egyptians who oppose the US troop presence in Iraq. "One activist, who belongs to an Islamic group, canceled our interview. He told me that he's been verbally attacked by his colleagues for publicly condemning insurgent attacks in Iraq because he failed to also condemn the overall US policies in the region," says Dan. "Many of those condemning the US role in Iraq today are just as unhappy with the insurgency."

• Folding the Hamas Banner: As correspondent Joshua Mitnick reported today's story about the tensions between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza (page 4), he noticed that a "cherry picker" truck was going along pulling down the green Hamas flags. "For the past two years, Hamas has had these fluttering banners lining the main boulevards of Gaza. The PA is taking them down as part of a move to unite Palestinians under a national, rather than a partisan, cause. But when I tried to take a picture, a security officer came over and asked me not to take a photo. He said it was too sensitive an issue."

David Clark Scott
World editor