2005-2014

The intermediary in the June 2003 murder of Brazilian journalist Nicanor Linhares has been convicted, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Judge Francisco Mario Liberato sentenced Cássio Santana de Sousa to 23 years in prison on Wednesday for his participation in Linhares' killing in the northern city of Fortaleza, according to local news reports. Santana was...

The government of Gabon has launched a crackdown on independent media coverage of President Omar Bongo's hospitalisation and potential succession issues. Bongo, Africa's longest-serving head of state, has been in a Spanish hospital since earlier this month amid conflicting reports about his condition. On Saturday, the state-run National Communication Council (known by its French acronym as CNC)...

Authorities found the body of a journalist who covered the police beat in northern Mexico Tuesday morning after he was abducted from his house on Monday night, according to Mexican news reports. Authorities found the body of Eliseo Barrón Hernández, left, a reporter and photographer for the Torreón-based daily La Opinión, in the city of Gómez Palacio, Durango, where he lived, reported the national...

Two journalists, a Canadian and an Australian, who have been held hostage for over nine months in Somalia are in poor health and have sought greater help from their governments to secure their release. Freelance Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan said they were in poor health and urged their respective governments to help free them, according to news...

Somalian radio reporter Nur Muse Hussein died Tuesday as a result of gunshot wounds suffered while covering fighting in April. Hussein, a veteran correspondent for Radio IQK, suffered two bullet wounds to his right leg while reporting on clashes between militia groups in the central town of Beledweyn on April 20, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSJ). We offer our deep...

Despite the global financial crisis, newspaper circulation grew 1.3 per cent worldwide in 2008, the President of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) said Wednesday in a speech that contradicted “misleading” reports predicting the imminent death of newspapers. “The simple fact is that, as a global industry, our printed audience continues to grow,” said Gavin O’Reilly, WAN President and CEO of...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is launching an emergency appeal to provide emergency financial support to more than 100 journalists and their families who were forced to flee the intense conflict in northern Pakistan in late May 2009. The specific objectives of this internal appeal are to enable the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and the Khyber Union of Journalists...

A hand grenade attack was carried out on opposition television station Maestro TV in the early hours of Monday in Tbilisi as the political debate programme “Camera 5” was being broadcast live. The explosion damaged the entrance and blew out windows but caused no injuries, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “Any use of such methods to intimidate news media is deplorable and...

Presstime, the monthly magazine of the Newspaper Association of America ( http://www.naa.org/), will soon cease to be in print. Presstime, its staff already much reduced, will continue on the association’s website, the New York Times has reported. The NYT report said: [ Link] “No one wanted to close down Presstime,” John F. Sturm, president and chief executive of the association, said in an e-mail...

Balibo, a powerful film that tells of the events surrounding the brutal killing of five journalists by Indonesian soldiers in East Timor in 1975, will be showcased at the upcoming IPI World Congress in Helsinki. The political thriller is told through the eyes of Roger East (played by Emmy Award-winning actor Anthony LaPaglia), an Australian who went to East Timor to investigate the earlier...