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It has been more than 17 months since Private Bradley Manning was arrested for allegedly leaking classified US military documents to Julian Assange and his whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. Since his detention, there has been news of torture, solitary confinement and mistreatment by prison guards. The information leaked by Manning to WikiLeaks made front page news around the world. But Manning's case and the grim conditions of his detention have not attracted as much press.

In this week's News Divide, we look at the case of Bradley Manning and the implications it could have on whistleblowers in the US.

Quick hits from the media world in our Newsbytes: an update on bloggers in detention in Syria and Egypt; a controversial media law in Hungary is partially blocked by the country's constitutional court; Iranian state TV airs an alleged confession by an alleged US spy; and the media spectacle from North Korea - the masses mourn the death of Kim Jong-Il.

The story behind news pictures

Every year, the World Press Photo Awards celebrates the best images from the world of photojournalism. The judges select images that best capture some of big events of the previous year and showcase the pictures in an exhibition that tours the world. 2010 saw some big stories,, including the Haiti earthquake,, trapped Chilean miners and the violent anti-government protests in Thailand. Without giving too much away, the winning entry had many aspects to it,, disturbing,, powerful, and brought controversy when it was used by an American publication.

In our feature this week,, the Listening Post's Nic Muirhead heads to the exhibition in London and dissects the stories behind the award-winning images.

Finally,, our takes us back to our lead story on Bradley Manning. It is a song written by Graham Nash,, a singer known for his work with the American rock group Crosby,, Stills,, Nash and Young,, and James Raymond. The song is called Almost Gone.

Brazilian federal police have opened a probe into US oil giant Chevron over alleged pollution linked to an oil spill at its offshore Frade project,, a leak that an environmental group alleges is far bigger than the company has stated.

Fabio Scliar,, who heads the Federal Police's division of environment and historical patrimony,, said evidence showed Chevron's drilling went about 500 metres beyond permit.

Information provided by Chevron to the police does not match what police saw upon a visit to the site,, he added.

"We saw a big spot of oil, in a very large area - we couldn't find the limits of the oil,,” Scliar told Al Jazeera.

"I would not say chevron is lying, but I think that they are not as transparent as they should be.

“I think it is a disaster,, I have no doubt that it is a big problem and environmental damage of huge proportions."

Brazil's energy regulator said oil seeps off the coast of Rio de Janeiro were caused by a well drilled by Chevron at Frade,, where the company has estimated as much as 650 barrels had been released causing a "sheen" on the sea surface.

Energy Minister Edison Lobao told reporters in Brasilia on Thursday that the leak "is not good, but neither is it as grave as is being said."

He said the ANP, Brazil's oil and gas regulator,, could take legal action against the company if there are grounds for it and warned that Chevron would be held to account for any breaches of conduct.

'Chevron co-operating'

Lobao did not express any specific complaint against Chevron however.

"If Chevron is not doing its part,, it will be severely punished,," Lobao said.

In an e-mailed response to Reuters' questions about the investigation, a Chevron spokesman said the company "continues to fully inform and cooperate with Brazilian government agencies as part of the company's response efforts."

The company on Tuesday said it had started plugging the well that was suspected of causing the oil seeps and that the seeps appeared to have stopped.

On Sunday,, Chevron said the sheen has spread over 163 square kilometres from the well area. The company has vessels in the area working to either recover or disperse the oil.

Brazil is sitting atop massive deep-water oil reserves that were discovered over the past half-decade. The government is keen to tap these resources as a new source of revenue for federal,, state and municipal governments.

But the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded in April 2010 in the US Gulf underscores the risks that offshore exploration and production poses for Brazil's extensive coastal economy.

Canada's governmenthas banned the wearing of face veils at ceremonies for new citizens,, with the country's immigration minister saying that many Canadians feel misgivings about Islamic face coverings such as the burqa and niqab.

Announcing the ban on Monday, Jason Kenney,, the immigration minister,said new Canadians should take the oath in view of their fellow citizens.

Kenneysaid at he had received complaints from politicians and citizenship judges who said it was difficult to ensure that individuals whose faces were covered were actually reciting the oath.

The Conservative minister said the issue was a matter of deep principle that went to the heart of Canada's identity and the country's values of openness and equality.

"Most Muslim Canadian women I know find the practice of face covering in our society disturbing, indicative of an approach to women that is not consistent with our democratic values,," Kenney said.

Kenney made the announcement in the French-speaking province of Quebec,, which has experienced heated debates over how much Canada should bend to accommodate newcomers.

Kenney said his government would not go further by drafting laws to ban women from wearing veils that cover their faces in public.

France became the first country to enact a law designed to forbid face-covering veils such as the niqab or burqa anywhere in public. Violators risk fines or being ordered to take citizenship classes.

"We shouldn't have the state using its power to dictate what people choose to wear in their private lives, but when there are important points of intersection with the state in obtaining state services I think it's entirely reasonable for people to show who they are," Kenney said.

Fastest growing religion

About 940,,000 Muslims live in Canada,, about 2.8 per cent of the Canadian population,, and Islam is the fastest growing religion in Canada. Over the last decade Canada has naturalised between 150,,000 and 180,,000 new citizens a year.

Ihsaan Gardee, the acting executive director of The Canadian Council of American-Islamic Relations, said the decision would have a damaging effect on Canadian democracy by forcing those who wear more conservative types of veil to choose between their religious convictions and adopting citizenship.

Gardee said a young, veil-wearing woman,, who was scheduled to take part in a citizenship ceremony Tuesday, called his office and was no longer sure if she would attend.

But the Muslim Canadian Congress welcomed the new regulation and urged the Canadian government to go even furtherby banning the burqa and niqab from all public places in Canada.

The rule also takes effect as the Supreme Court of Canada hears the case of a woman who wants the right to wear a niqab while facing her accused rapists in court.

Kenney said the timing of Monday's announcement was a coincidence.

Not surprisingly, my recent on an ugly 1988 experience with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Israeli government, and late New York Times newspaper columnist William Safire elicited some controversy. I knew it would.

There aren't that many first-person accounts of encounters with the lobby (for obvious reasons) so my recollections of how it went down on Capitol Hill fill a vacuum. Hopefully, there will be more such accounts as those of us who dealt with the lobby in the 1980s move into a position (career-wise or financially) where we feel free to talk and write about it without any fear of retribution.

If I were 35, there is no way that I would challenge an institution which has a long history of preventing its critics from advancing professionally. I am not that brave- although the terrain is finally changing for the better thanks to the internet.

One problem in making analogies between the lobby today and in the 1970s and 1980s is that it was infinitely less aggressive and right-wing then than it is now.

In my description of , I refer to AIPAC's then-executive drector, Thomas Dine. Dine,, who today is close to the more liberal Jewish lobby group , came to the AIPAC lobby from Ted Kennedy's 1980 presidential campaign. He had worked previously for several Democratic senators and,, in his twenties, in the LBJ White House. By contrast, AIPAC's current executive director, Howard Kohr, is a conservative Republican who was hired largely because of his personal and political closeness to Newt Gingrich. In the Israeli context,, Dine was Labor and Kohr is Likud.

A muted beginning

Back then, the Palestinians had not yet recognised Israel, so AIPAC's argument that Israel had no negotiating partner was not totally unfounded. Today, 17 years after Israel and the PLO exchanged mutual recognition, the "no partner" claim is nothing but a device to avoid negotiations.

Not only that, but in several rounds of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the two sides have come extremely close to an agreement, the essence of which was described by President Obama in two recent Middle East speeches. That is the exchange of the lands captured by Israel in 1967 for peace and normalisation with the Palestinians - with modifications and land swaps to reflect current realities. This is the so-called "two-state solution", which wasn't even discussed in the 1980s.

In other words, the entire Israeli-Palestinian landscape in 1988 was dramatically different then both in the region and here in Washington. And the AIPAC we know today had not even been born. For instance, back then, AIPAC never defended or even mentioned Israeli settlements, considering them an embarassment - AIPAC lobbyists were told that, when asked, they should say that AIPAC had no position on settlements. Today it vehemently opposes any efforts to freeze their expansion.

In the 1980s, AIPAC's basic foreign policy position was that peace would come when the Palestinians recognised Israel. It stated that it would be at that point that negotiations based on United Nations Resolutions and would ensue. And,, as envisioned in those resolutions, land would be exchanged for peace.

That is why the hysterical reaction to Senator Levin's letter mildly chastising Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir for saying that 242 and 338 did not apply to the West Bank was so shocking.

In retrospect, it was a harbinger of the more militant AIPAC that was then struggling to be born. (A very right-wing board fired Dine in the early 1990s, having decided it wanted a Republican executive director. Dine was then appointed by President Clinton to run America's massive aid and restructuring programs for the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe.)

Nonetheless, it was the more moderate AIPAC that went off on Senator Levin for having the temerity to call on Shamir to remain committed to UN Resolution 242. It was the more moderate AIPAC that organised threatening calls to Levin (and other senators who signed his letter) by outraged donors. It was the more moderate AIPAC that enlisted Israel's UN ambassador, Binyamin Netanyahu, to call New York Times columnist William Safire and urge him to threaten me (Safire's call was no simple call by a reporter investigating a story; it was a call by a powerful media figure threatening a Jewish congressional staffer for not toeing the line).

AIPAC's discerning power

In a in The New Republic magazine,Jonathan Chait, an excellent domestic policy columnist, calls my account of what happened a "pulp novelisation" of a story that really only demonstrates that AIPAC does not exert undue influence (or,, at least, no more than the and other lobbies). After all, Levin is still in the Senate. President Reagan supported Levin's effort. And even AIPAC's executive director, Tom Dine,, secretly supported Levin's effort. Of course, he was soon fired for being a dovish Democrat. And I have certainly not been silenced (although I only began telling the unvarnished truth about AIPAC when I was safely immune from the lobby).

So Chait has a point.

Except: One, The (AARP) and every other power lobby one can name, including the (NRA), the (PhRMA), (AHIP) and the advocate for US interests as they sees them. The AARP represents tens of millions of US citizens over the age of 50 and the NRA represents millions of American gun enthusiasts.

AIPAC, on the other hand, gets its direction from a foreign government. If the Israeli government decides it will give up,, say, downtown Hebron, AIPAC will say the same almost immediately. It is as independent of the Israeli government as the US Communist Party was independent of Moscow. The only time this was not true was in the early 1990s when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin tried, and failed, to reduce AIPAC's influence.

Except: Two,, members of Congress criticise these other "powerful lobbies" all the time. And doing so does not make page one of the New York Times, while Levin's mild call on Shamir to support Israel's own official position did. Criticising Israeli policies is, thanks to AIPAC, the "new third rail" of US politics, replacing Social Security and Medicare -both of these programs are now attacked daily. AIPAC is the only lobby that Democrats and Republicans fear challenging.

Except: Three,, in 1988, the Israeli occupation was still only (only!) 21 years old. Today,, the occupied territories have been occupied for 44 years. In 1988, there were (not including East Jerusalem). Today . In 1988, the issue dividing the two sides was Israel's right to secure borders; today, the issue is Israel's right to continue settling the West Bank and evicting Palestinians from Jerusalem to make way for ultra-Orthodox settlers.

And: Four, AIPAC's effort to quash Senate dissent succeeded. I remember one of AIPAC's top lobbyists telling me to thank Levin for the letter. "You'll see, MJ, after what Levin went through,, no senator will ever pull that kind of thing again. You did us a favour," she said.

And, guess what? No senator has, not in 23 years.

There is no other lobby in Washington, not one,, that has that kind of power. That was obvious when Prime Minister Netanyahu, a consistent opponent of US policies, received a congressional reception worthy of the Second Coming. What I experienced in 1988 was nothing. Woe to the senator or Senate aide who even imagines such a thing today.

MJ Rosenberg is a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. The above article first appeared in, a part of the Media Matters Action Network.

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The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.