2005-2014

Robert Shemahamba, director of Radio-Télévision Communautaire Mitumba (RTCM) and correspondent for the Syfia Grands Lacs news agency, has been arbitrarily detained since Dececmber 17 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The journalist is being held in a cell at the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) in Uvira, Sud...

Two Uzbekistan journalists working for public television Yoshlar, Saodat Omonova and Malohat Eshankulova, were dismissed on December 9, three days after they demonstrated against censorship and corruption at the TV station, in a square in central Tashkent, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). It expressed concern over their safety, since following their...

Iranian journalist Abdolreza Tajik, winner of the RSF 2010 press freedom award, has been freed after his family put up bail for a third time in the sum of 500,000,000 tomans (about 370,000 euros), Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. RSF said it was delighted at the release on Wednesday of the emblematic figure in the struggle for freedom and journalism in...

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a US government agency with independent status, voted to adopt an ineffective set of Net Neutrality rules last week after more than a year of negotiations with the various parties concerned, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The five-member commission’s two Democrats voted with its chairman, Julius Genachowski...

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace Mugabe, has brought about a libel suite against independent weekly The Standard for quoting a US diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks accusing her of involvement in diamond trafficking. She is demanding $15 million in damages, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The First Lady’s libel suit aims to undermine...

WikiLeaks has surpassed Spiegel as the most quoted source in opinion-leading German media in the first two weeks of December, according to Zurich-based Media Tenor International. According to Media Tenor’s ongoing continuous analysis of quotations in the 40 most important German media for more than a decade, Spiegel has held the pole position from the beginning. “With Spiegel being one of the...

Authorities should immediately release Congolese radio journalist Robert Shemahamba, who has been held in the eastern city of Uvira since Friday in connection with a political program critical of local officials, the New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Shemahamba, director of the community station Radio Télé Mitumba, was taken into custody by the...

With just days to go to the first anniversary of the abduction of French TV journalists Hervé Ghesquière and Stéphane Taponier and three Afghan assistants in northeastern Afghanistan, the French foreign ministry announced Monday that it has received and authenticated a video from their captors showing that they are still alive. “This is of course good news for the families, who have been reassured...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on Thai authorities to release Sun Shucai, an 87-year-old refugee activist and journalist who was arrested in Bangkok on December 8. He is now in a Bangkok immigration detention centre after a judge fined him 3,000 Baht (75 euros) on December 9 and ordered the authorities to examine the possibility of deporting him. “We are...

Online advertising in the US is expected to exceed newspaper advertising in 2010. For the year, online ad spending is expected to rise about 14 per cent to $25.8 billion, while print advertising spending in newspapers is expected to decline about 8 percent to $22.8 billion. Research firm eMarketer includes everything from Google and eBay to the New York Times in its online advertising category...