2005-2014

Belarusian authorities continued their massive crackdown on critical news media on Tuesday as security agents raided offices shared by the independent weekly Nasha Niva and the Belarusian PEN Center, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). KGB agents confiscated a dozen computers and numerous digital storage devices after producing a search warrant...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on the authorities in Burundi to release journalist Jean-Claude Kavumbagu, who has been held in custody for nearly six months at Mpimba prison in the capital Bujumbura. No trial has yet been opened in the case. “Jean-Claude Kavumbagu should be released immediately. He was arrested last July and is about to begin the year...

The death of Sun Hongjie, a senior reporter at the Northern Xinjiang Morning Post, must be fully investigated by regional authorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and by central authorities in Beijing, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Sun died in a hospital in Kuitun today, 10 days after being beaten by several men at a construction site, international news...

Henry Suazo, Tegucigalpa-based radio HRN’s correspondent in La Ceiba, in the north-coast department of Atlántida, was gunned down as he left his home Tuesday morning, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) reported. His unidentified killers immediately left the scene. The motive is not yet known. Aged 39, Suazo also worked for Cablevisión del Atlántico, a local TV station...

Makhmadyusuf Ismoilov, a newspaper reporter who has been detained arbitrarily by prosecutors in Khujand, in the northern Tajikistan province of Sughd, is being held since November 23, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Ismoilov was arrested at the behest of the regional prosecutor’s office one day after an article he wrote about its alleged corrupt and...

Sithu Zeya, a 21-year-old Burmese photographer who was arrested on April 16 for taking photos of the damage caused by a bomb in a Rangoon park, has been sentenced to eight years in prison. His father, Maung Maung Zeya, a journalist and painter who was arrested a day later, is to be tried in January, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Both worked for the...

La Première, the leading TV channel of Côte d’Ivoire’s state-owned broadcaster Radio-Télévision Ivoirienne (RTI), has since December 24 not been available in France or in neighbouring African countries, where it is normally carried by the Canal + Horizon satellite service, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). It would seem this is because its signal has...

A judge in the southern Honduran town of Amapala has decided to try community radio reporters Elia Xiomara Hernández and Elba Yolibeth Rubio on charges of disobeying the authorities and “taking part in demonstrations that obstruct public services.” The trial is to take place on January 11, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Hernández and Rubio, who work...

The Axel Springer Academy, established by Germany's eponymous publishing group, said Wednesday it would create a magazine designed to be viewed exclusively on the Apple iPad, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). "Kraftwerk D" is to cost 2.39 euros (3.20 dollars), would be assembled by 18 students and would mark "a world premiere for a school of journalism," a statement said. The first issue...

Math-loving traders are using powerful computers to speed-read news reports, editorials, company Web sites, blog posts and even Twitter messages — and then letting the machines decide what it all means for the markets. The development goes far beyond standard digital fare like most-read and e-mailed lists, says a New York Times report. In some cases, the computers are actually parsing writers’...