While this page will no longer be updated, it will stay here for reference.

It is no secret that recent Arab uprisings have placed enormous burdens on the shoulders of BBC Arabic journalists responsible for reporting news from the region.

Covering the Arab world is not always an easy task - we need to mix sensible caution with a dose of courage in covering political issues that attract so many disputed views among Arabic-speaking audiences.

Our guiding principles are the BBC's values, its editorial guidelines, its ethical code, which are our reference points to maintain impartial, balanced and accurate reporting.

Across the Arab world - whether it's Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt or Libya, Bahrain, Syria and Iraq or the many other countries in the region - we know that audiences want access to objective and independent news, far removed from an agenda that favours one party, religion or sect against another. That is why audiences are turning to BBC Arabic.

Last year, our latest figures show that overall audiences to BBC Arabic have risen by more than 17% to a record high of 25.3 million adults weekly. That includes a big surge of 2.9 million in Saudi Arabia and 2.7 million in Egypt, where TV viewers in particular turned to the BBC to better understand the events happening in their own country. Our radio audiences are also holding up despite the reductions in transmission. Online is proving to be more of a challenge, but we are working hard to understand the needs of digital audiences and those for whom social media plays an increasingly important part in their lives.

In 2011, following the fall of the Mubarak leadership, we watched as ordinary Egyptians carried banners saying "Thank you, BBC!" But meeting the high expectation of audiences has a price and sometimes it's been a heavy one.

March 2011 brought a strong reminder of the risks that our staff face in covering the news - one of our reporters was arrested and tortured by Muammar Gaddafi's forces during the Libya uprising. In early 2012, our reporter in Yemen was beaten and received death threats from supporters of the outgoing president.

We are also challenged by those who disagree with our coverage. In countries such as Syria and Bahrain, BBC Arabic has been accused of bias.

The criticism comes from opposition and government alike. It may be a valid argument to say that getting criticism from both sides, in the case of Arab world certainly, is an indication of balanced coverage.

On Syria, for example, we had a series of documentaries looking at the civil war from a number of perspectives.

The first one, exploring what it's like to work for a Syrian television channel that's the mouthpiece of the government, was the butt of criticism and threats from Syrian opposition quarters. We followed it up with a programme charting a day in the lives of six Syrian women, five of whom were anti-government activists.

In our day-to-day news coverage, presenting a variety of voices from Syria is essential to us. And that is what distinguishes BBC Arabic from many media outlets in the Arab world which promote political views and agendas, and that is what we are determined to keep.

BBC Arabic marked its 75th anniversary in January. Arab politicians and ordinary people have expressed their appreciation of our track record of impartiality and trusted news. I am confident that the coming years will see further achievement on all our platforms - TV, radio and online.

The BBC has launched an independent review, led by former Head of Sky News Nick Pollard, to determine whether there were any failings in the BBC's management of the Newsnight investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of children by Jimmy Savile.

However, on the basis of material available now, it is apparent from information supplied by the Newsnight editor and programme team - that the explanation in a blog by the editor of his decision to drop the programme's investigation is inaccurate or incomplete in some respects.

By way of correction and clarification:

1.The blog says that Newsnight had no evidence that anyone from the Duncroft home could or should have known about the allegations. In fact some allegations were made (mostly in general terms) that some of the Duncroft staff knew or may have known about the abuse.

2. The blog says that Newsnight had no evidence against the BBC. No allegation was made to the programme that BBC staff were aware of Mr Savile's alleged activities, but there were some allegations of abusive conduct on BBC premises.

3. The blog says that all the women spoken to by the programme had contacted the police independently already and that Newsnight had no new evidence against any other person that would have helped the police. It appears that in some cases women had not spoken to the police and that the police were not aware of all the allegations.

The BBC regrets these errors and will work with the Pollard review to assemble all relevant evidence to enable the review to determine the full facts.

Update 23 October 2012: The BBC has published an additional statement which it issued to Panorama on 22 October 2012. You can read it here.

This was something I discussed at a panel session I was taking part in at yesterday's News:Rewired conference, organised by Journalism.co.uk, and I wanted to write briefly here about our ongoing efforts to improve the ways in which we link externally from our news articles.

Having asked for the figures from our research team for my presentation, it was great to hear that we appear to be well on track to achieve the goal set for us.

Looking back at the third quarter of 2010, we had an average of around 2.9m external click-throughs per month from UK users. That period - last year's July, August & September - was around the time of the redesign of the News website. That meant, among other changes, that the 'From other news sites' and 'Related internet links' sections moved from the right-hand side to the bottom of news stories. And we have also been doing more linking to external sources from within the text of story pages.

The figures for the third quarter of this year show that all this has had an effect, and it looks as though we've been getting something right. The monthly average is now around 6.1m click-throughs i.e. more than double what it was last year. One caveat is that there have been some big news stories over this period, including the August riots, Norway shootings and Amy Winehouse's death. Another caveat is that we are using a different method to measure the figures now, so whilst the comparison should be pretty accurate, there's a small margin for error.

It's interesting too when looking at the figures, to see where the traffic goes - who are we linking to? Around one-third goes to other news sites via 'Moreover' - the technology behind the 'From Other News Sites' box which is included on many BBC News stories. The top destinations for external click-throughs in any month depends largely on what the top stories are for that period, for example in February this year there was news of the street-level crime maps being published (www.police.uk) , ITV footage of an elderly lady confronting armed robbers (www.itv.com) and stories about tickets for the Olympics in 2012 (www.london2012.com). Those sites all showed up high in our list of onward referrals.

And just to be clear, it’s not that we don’t want you to stay with us - we do, of course . There’s lots of great content around the BBC site, we're proud of it and want you to explore it, but helping you to find relevant and useful information , whether on other news sites or from non-news sources, is also a key part of what we should be doing as a news provider. From this latest snapshot of where we are with external linking it does look as though we are getting better at doing that, but there’s always room to do more, so if you have ideas on this, let us know.

Update, 10:49: Tuesday 11 October: Thanks for all the comments on this post, I wanted to reply to a few of them briefly:

Kit Green: No reciprocal agreements, we are assuming that by and large if we provide a good link, people will come back – at some stage.

Josh: You are quite right: The link should be www.police.uk to get the postcode search for local crime maps and data. Sorry about that.

Christina, Whitefall: Yes, point taken. We are acutely aware of the benefit and value of linking to source reports, and will continue to aim to do this whenever we can. There are sometimes practical issues which make this difficult such as when the report is under embargo at time of writing, or there is a paywall. But in principle I quite agree it is the right thing to do.

Horsenanny: Very glad you have found the site useful and informative.

Bluesberry: I don’t have a reply to hand on your South America query, but if you get in touch I can seek one.

Maddyn10, Shakygorilla1: We have been covering the US protests – for example here and on the related links to our other coverage from this story.

Eddy from Waring: Yes – quantity is a crude measure, but it is a start. Relevance and quality are clearly key. We measure clickthroughs, so the fact that someone has followed a link does at least imply some value.

Pratish: I have passed your correction on to WHYS.

David: On the reasons for the linking targets – there’s more here and in the link from that post to the Mark Thompson Strategy Review document.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

Jeremy Paxman sowed the seeds of the idea, though he didn't realise it at the time. "My hero: the BBC World Service", he declared to the Guardian earlier this year.

He went on: "I don't suppose there are many heroes who wear a cardigan and cords. But that's how I imagine the BBC World Service, an ageing uncle who's seen it all."

His heroes at Bush House wanted Jeremy to stop by and say hello - and see for himself that while we're not (all) fashionistas, the cardies and cords have long since been discarded. With a younger audience profile than, say, Radio 4 or Newsnight, we're more like the cutting edge cousin than a snoozing uncle.

And from that came the idea of getting Jeremy Paxman and other eminent news broadcasters to present our flagship programme. A statement of our ambition and success - an expression of the World Service's rude health in spite of Foreign Office cuts in our budget - and a bit of sparkle for our millions of listeners around the world.

Newshour has a fantastic team of regular presenters, of course. Two among them, Lyse Doucet and Owen Bennett Jones, have won Sony gold awards for news journalist of the year. Editor Lucy Walker's talented team of producers and anchors, along with the best studio managers in the business, have taken Newshour to two Sony radio gold awards for best news and current affairs programme in the past four years. An unrivalled achievement.

That's helped to deliver a growing global audience to the network. Last year, the English World Service gained a 10% jump in listeners to 43 million, with the biggest numbers in North America and West Africa. In Britain, a spate of big foreign stories and the increasing reach of DAB digital radio has led to even more rapid growth in audience - up to around 1.7 million weekly World Service listeners.

So our guest presenters could well be reaching a much bigger audience than they are accustomed to - they will have to find a tone and touch for live current affairs which works equally well in Lagos and Los Angeles - we are sure they will enjoy the experience, and convey that enjoyment.

And the line up, all live at 14:00 BST (13:00 GMT):

• Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman gets the ball rolling on Monday 26 September as our first guest presenter.
• On Tuesday 27 September, Christine Ockrent, one of France's most respected news broadcasters, will be in our Bush House studio.
• We come from Johannesburg on Wednesday 28 September, with Redi Tlhabi of Talk Radio 702.
• Christiane Amanpour, ABC's hugely experienced foreign correspondent, presents from New York on Thursday 29 September.
• And on Friday 30 September, Today's Evan Davis takes the helm.

As well as pursuing the day's news agenda, Newshour's guest presenters will be conducting interviews and exploring themes which reflect their own interests and expertise. And some are using their personal contacts book to get big name guests on to the programme.

Do tune in.

Andrew Whitehead is the editor of BBC World Service News.

You can read more and comment at the Radio 4 Blog.

You can watch the programme here.

Press Gazette: Article on Gordon Brown's exclusive interview with Andrew Marr over his election decision. (link)

The Times: Analysis of the current difficulties facing Mark Thompson. (link)

Metro: "Burma's military rulers have accused the BBC of provoking the anti-government demonstrations in the country." (link)

Daily Telegraph: Reports that leading BBC radio presenters have signed an open letter to the BBC Trust complaining about proposed job cuts. (link)

All papers: Report the news of anticipated job cuts at the BBC. (link, link, link and link)

Daily Telegraph: Leader article on the threat of strike action at the BBC. (link)