MUMBAI: The BBC expressed grave concern over the reports of one of its Gaza correspondents who went missing early this week.

The BBC is trying to locate the whereabouts of its Alan Johnston."We are working closely with the Palestinian authorities and others to establish the facts surrounding the situation," a BBC statement said.

According to published reports, Johnston?s car was found abandoned in Gaza City. While reports of what might have happened are sketchy, there has been unconfirmed speculation that Johnston was kidnapped after he left his office to go home. Reports emerging out of the region also talk about four armed gunmen who were seen in the vicinity of where his car was found.

While this has given rise to reports that he may be kidnapped,the BBC statement maintained that "We are currently unable to contact him and are concerned for his safety.We are trying to gather as much information as possible."
44-year-old Alan Johnston is currently the only foreign correspondent for a major media organization based in Gaza. 

He has been based there for three years, and reports indicate he was due to return to the U.K. in April.

Meanwhile a survey conducted by the International News Safety Institute (INSI) - a coalition of media organizations, press freedom groups, unions and humanitarian campaigners dedicated to the safety of journalists and media staff highlighted the situation of journalists and media persons in conflict torn countries.

The report ?Killing the Messenger? found that 1,000 news media personnel around the world have been killed trying to report the news over the past 10 years - that?s almost two deaths every week. The survey was conducted between January 1996 and June 2006.

MUMBAI: The British Broadcasting Corp. is seriously upping the ante in the digital domain. Coming close on the heels of the multi-year content deal it struck with YouTube, the BBC has forged a straOne of the first projects will focus on applying image/video search technologies to CBeebies and CBBC programmes. This IBM Research system, code-named "Marvel," has the ability to visually analyse images/video to categorise the content based on appearance and make it more searchable. The project will utilise Marvel to create a compelling set of multimedia interactive search experiences for accessing BBC children?s content online.

Ashley Highfield, BBC director of future media & technology, said: "This alliance with IBM will offer new and genuinely innovative services to our audiences. For example, combining the BBC?s massive TV and radio archive with IBM?s cutting-edge research into video and audio search technology should provide the means to unlocking huge latent value in our long tail of content."

In addition, IBM will work with the BBC?s official technology partner Siemens to deploy a pilot of their Media Hub technology in order to trial new business processes and ways of working amongst the BBC?s creative teams. The pilot follows the recent deployment by Siemens of IBM?s WebSphere products, which sit at the centre of the BBC?s service oriented architecture.

Steve Canepa, IBM?s vice president for media and entertainment, said: "We look forward to collaborating with the BBC on these exciting and innovative new areas. IBM?s combination of media and entertainment industry solution capability, R&D investment, services skills and technologies will help us to ensure that the BBC remains one of the most advanced media companies in the world."

IBM is also discussing potential collaboration projects with the BBC in areas including content distribution; customer relations management; joint research; and rights management. Siemens, the BBC?s technology partner, will work in conjunction with the BBC and IBM.

The BBC has a well-established relationship with IBM spanning many years in consultancy, training, development support, and results and analysis for major sporting events.

tegic alliance with IBM for several joint projects.