2005-2014

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen replied to harsh criticisms derived from his supportive attitude to the insulting cartoons that the newspaper Jyllands Posten published about the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). Rasmussen, despite criticisms and calls, repeated he will not meet with the ambassadors of 11 Muslim countries, including Turkey, in Copenhagen. The ambassadors asked for an appointment...

SUKKUR: Three unidentified armed men attacked the office of a Sindhi daily, Khabroon, on Friday. Three motorcyclists stormed the newspaper’s office in the Golimar area. They ransacked its property, held the guards hostage for some time and fired in the air before fleeing. No one was reported injured. The men also fired at the door of the paper’s newsroom. They also set fire to the reception...

Roland Buerk, the son of the BBC journalist Michael Buerk, yesterday married the woman he believes saved him from death in the Asian tsunami a year ago. Buerk, who is also a journalist, and his girlfriend Anna Moore deliberately chose to marry on the eve of the anniversary of a disaster that almost claimed both their lives. "It seemed appropriate," he said. "We both know how fortunate we are and...

THE debate over Wikipedia has hit a fever pitch in recent weeks. Supporters of Wikipedia, the user-edited online encyclopedia, are pitted against traditionalists who call the site inaccurate and irresponsible. The latest salvo came this week thanks to Rogers Cadenhead, who did a bit of cybersleuthing and reported on Workbench that the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, had altered his own...

The 1960s was the “anything goes” decade; a time when LSD, hippies, rock ‘n’ roll and free love were youth’s reactions to the assassinations of its leaders and a war in Vietnam. It was a time when a few journalists wanted to be hip and cover the cultural revolution from the inside. They believed that the standard method of reporting — “get the facts, get both sides, and keep your opinions to...

THE fantasy land of Narnia, the subject of C. S. Lewis' stories and a just-released film, impinged on last week's World Trade Organisation talks. A story issued by financial news agency AFX on Sunday, picked up by several other outlets, has left a series of red faces by faithfully reporting a press release from "the independent state of Narnia". The story claimed Narnia had walked out of the World...

BELEM, Brazil --Journalist Lucio Flavio Pinto's crusade against the destroyers of the Amazonian rain forest has earned him an International Press Freedom Award -- along with death threats and some 32 lawsuits aimed at keeping him silent. He was too busy working on his legal defense to fly to New York to accept the press award last month. "In the 1960s, deforestation represented less than 1 percent...

The Addis Ababa airport I used to know was shabby and neglected, an overgrown shack of wood, concrete and tin. It smelled of incense mingled with the dank, sweet odor of sewage. But the old airport had been torn down since my last visit; in its place was a sparkling, high-ceilinged structure of metal and glass into which light poured from every direction. Now, as I rode into the city, traffic...

PARAMARIBO, Suriname: In an unprecedented ruling, a judge in Suriname on Tuesday ordered newspaper ‘De West’ to advertise a correction in another daily newspaper, ‘De Ware Tijd’. The ruling came after the Currency Board started a libel suit against the newspaper. Judge John von Niesewand also imposed a fine of US$1,800 for each day the newspaper refuses to comply with the order. Meanwhile ‘De West...

NEW YORK: The newspaper industry had quite the rollercoaster year in 2005, with many of the twists and turns leading down rather than up. We saw anonymous sourcing attacked, blockbuster deals struck, and, of course, cuts, cuts and more cuts. Still, the daily miracle survived, albeit with a need for changes and a continued uncertainty on how to get there. With that, I offer my choices for the top...