2005-2014

LOS ANGELES - That giant sucking noise you hear is the sound of advertising dollars moving from traditional media and into new media like the Internet. It's changing the landscape of the advertising business, and no company is more responsible for the shift than Google. Like a giant magnet, Google is pulling more and more advertising dollars on to the Internet and away from traditional media like...

The government has allowed foreign institution investors (FII) to invest up to 26 per cent in news and current affairs channels. It has also given a green signal to television channels and teleports to uplink in Ku-Band through Indian satellites with the condition that this permission will not be used to run or operate DTH service without proper license. LAWS OF CRICKET: The mandatory sharing of...

Reporters Without Borders today called on the Chinese authorities to stop blocking accessing to the website of the independent online encyclopedia Wikipedia, whose popularity has been growing steadily in China. The site has been unavailable in several provinces including Shanghai since 18 October. This latest online censorship paradoxically comes at a moment when China is openly raising the issue...

The country which shows the maximum respect for press freedom is now under threat from Islamic fundamentalists. Death threats have been made against two cartoonists ? whose names are being withheld for security reasons ? after 12 cartoons of Mohammed appeared in the conservative daily Jyllands-Posten in Copenhagen. NOT FUNNY: The newspaper has hired security staff to protect the journalists after...

COPENHAGEN -- The ambassadors of Muslim countries to Denmark have protested against 12 newspaper caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed in a letter to Denmark's prime minister, his office said on Thursday. An Islamic group also threatened to carry out attacks in the Scandinavian country over the affair, media reported. Images of the prophet are considered blasphemous under Islam. The 12...

A Danish daily's decision to print twelve cartoons featuring Muslim prophet Mohammed could prove costly for Denmark. Experts fear the caricatures could increase the risk of Denmark becoming the target of a terror attack. The newspaper Jyllands-Posten features in recent propaganda images circulating on the internet. The images show bombs exploding over pictures of the newspaper, and blood flowing...

Shares of Google (GOOG) jumped 12% to an all-time high of $339.90 Friday after the Internet giant blew away Wall Street's third-quarter estimates with a sevenfold surge in profits and a doubling of sales. Analysts tripped over each other in the rush to issue the rosiest research report. Lehman Brothers, First Albany and RBC Capital Markets each lifted their 12-month price targets to $450, despite...

In a show of dissent against Rupert Murdoch, shareholders of News Corp. withheld as much as 15 percent of their vote to re-elect four directors at the media conglomerate's annual meeting Friday to protest the company's failure to consult them on a takeover defense measure. Even though the directors were still re-elected by a large majority, the fact that some shareholders withheld their support...

Press freedom is being eroded in parts of the Western world, failing to advance in Iraq, but making progress in states emerging from repression, the watchdog Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said. North Korea once again comes bottom of the RSF fourth annual World Press Freedom Index. It is closely followed in the 167-country list by Eritrea (166th) and Turkmenistan (165th), which are other...

Prague, 20 October 2005 (RFE/RL) -- One of the stories published in "Women's Rights" questioned the harsh punishment under Shari'a law for women found guilty of adultery, such as stoning. Another article argued that giving up Islam is not a crime. The magazine's editor, Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, was arrested on 1 October following a complaint made to the Supreme Court by a religious adviser to Afghan...