2005-2014

The last time Kerry Packer died, 15 years ago, he quickly took the opportunity to denounce the existence of an afterlife. "I've been on the other side and let me tell you son, there's f---ing nothing there," he was fond of saying. It was a statement redolent of the media baron's forthright approach to life and his laconic sense of humour. Given he had been clinically dead for eight minutes after...

DUBAI - Arabic satellite television Al Arabiya accused Israel on Tuesday of violating press freedom and called on Israel to stop banning one of its journalists from travelling to the West Bank and Gaza. The Dubai-based channel said Israeli forces, which control all access to Palestinian-ruled areas except from Egypt, had stopped journalist Basim El Jamal from entering, citing "security reasons"...

BEIRUT: A Syrian suspect was formally arrested in Lebanon Tuesday for his alleged involvement in the assassination of anti-Syrian MP and journalist Gebran Tueni. In a move that increased suspicions of Syrian involvement in the string of assassinations targeting Lebanon for the past year, Military Investigating Magistrate Rashid Mezher issued an arrest warrant for Syrian national Abdel-Qader Abdel...

MEXICO CITY, Dec 27 (IPS) - Journalist and activist Lydia Cacho believes that the influence wielded by a powerful child prostitution and pornography ring is responsible for the death threats she has been receiving for months and her recent arrest on criminal libel charges. "Who wouldn't be afraid of these people? I'm afraid of them, and I have no doubt that the strings pulled by child...

Since this column was born again almost a year ago as a vantage point from which to observe the intersection of politics, culture and language, I resolve to continue stumbling along in Orwell's huge shoes with an aim toward simplifying English, so we ''are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy.'' I resolve to ''bring about some improvement'' with ''the present political chaosconnected (to) the...

NEW YORK: Les Goodstein, President and COO of the Daily News of New York, has joined News Corporation as Senior Vice President. Goodstein, a 28-year veteran of the News, will be responsible for new business development, News Corporation, and serve as an advisor to the New York Post and other News Corporation divisions. He will report to Paul Carlucci, Chairman and CEO of News America Marketing...

DUBLIN, December 27 (UNHCR) – As a prize for winning an asylum reporting competition among journalism schools in Ireland, UNHCR's Representation in Dublin sent a student journalist to Romania to witness developments in refugee protection on the borders of the European Union. In a joint initiative of the UNHCR offices in Ireland and Romania, the winner visited Bucharest to see developments in the...

As one would expect in a year when one of the underreported stories was our government's covert propaganda campaigns, there's plenty to unravel: stories that should never have been stories, stories whose reporting largely missed the point, and stories barely told at all in mainstream US media. The good news is that, more than ever, mainstream media is no longer the last word in journalism. Foreign...

(Japan Economic Newswire)TOKYO, Dec. 27_(Kyodo) _ Japan's two major media groups on Tuesday opposed a government decision the same day that allows police to decide whether to disclose names of crime victims, saying that anonymity would make news-gathering activities about victims very difficult and could help the police hide matters unfavorable to them. The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors...

PESHAWAR: A jirga in Hurmuz tribe has set a 48-hour deadline for the safe recovery of Hayatullah Khan, a journalist, who was kidnapped on December 5 from Mir Ali in North Waziristan. Ehsanullah Khan, brother of the kidnapped journalist, told Daily Times on Monday that the jirga, consisting of tribal clerics and chieftains, gave the deadline to the government. "If Hayatullah is not recovered within...