2005-2014

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has now been given the power to reduce the term of the Chairman of Prasar Bharati from six to three years and a maximum age of 70 and raising the age-limit for the CEO to 65, with the Rajya Sabha giving its approval to the amendment bill in this regard. The CEO's term is also reduced from six to five years, says an indiantelevision.com report. The Prasar...

The Sri Lankan army took control yesterday of public Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) television. The army and police sealed off all roads leading to the station in the morning, preventing more than 200 staff from getting to work after employees threatened to strike in protest against a series of assaults by men “suspected of acting on behalf of a minister”. The takeover of the television...

The first anniversary of a landmark UN Security Council call for an end to the killing of journalists worldwide has passed—and the deaths continue to rise. The International News Safety Institute (INSI) counted 171 news media fatalities in 2007, outstripping the previous record of 168 set in 2006. Indeed, each year since the millennium has set new levels in blood. What is happening? On December 8

Yemen banned a new magazine Sunday for publishing a picture of the nation's president deemed "inappropriate" by authorities, the Associated Press (AP) has reported quoting the magazine's editor. Nabil al-Soufi, editor of Abwab, said the security authorities banned the first issue of the magazine because they believed the picture of President Ali Abdullah Saleh on the cover made him look dour....

An appeals court in Canada has overturned a lower court's 2004 contempt ruling against a journalist who would not reveal his source. In the ruling issued Monday in Toronto, the three-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to journalist-informant confidentiality and, as a result, the contempt charge and fine against Hamilton Spectator...

Iran has closed down nine film and lifestyle magazines for publishing pictures and stories about the life of "corrupt" foreign film stars and promoting "superstitions." The Press Supervisory Board, a body controlled by hardliners, also sent warning notes to 13 other publications and magazines on "observing the provisions of the press law," the Culture Ministry said on its website, acording to an...

A Ukrainian court has convicted three former police officers of killing an investigative journalist nearly eight years ago. The verdict Saturday in Ukranian capital Kiev ended a high-profile trial—but one the family of the journalist, Heorhiy Gongadze, says has failed to bring the masterminds to justice, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Mykola Protasov was sentenced to 13 years in jail. Valeriy...

The police in Uganda should respect a court ruling that lifts a ban on two live radio programmes, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. The court decision Friday last allowed two live political shows on Life FM in Fort Portal to resume broadcasting, but the station has since received a warning from police about its future programming. On January 8, Regional Police Commander Martin...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the murder of an Iraqi journalist by at least one unknown gunman in Baghdad on Thursday last. Qassim Abdul Hussein al-Iqabi, 36, of the local daily Al-Muwatin (The Citizen) was shot dead in Baghdad’s predominantly Shiite Karradah neighbourhood, according to local and international news reports. “We offer our deepest condolences to Qassim...

A journalist with a leading Azerbaijani newspaper who had to be hospitalised last week after being stabbed in the chest by a miscreant, has been released. acording to Arif Aliyev, chairman of the Editors Association Yeni Nasil, Four unidentified assailants encircled Agil Khalil, a reporter with the opposition daily Azadlig (Freedom), as he was leaving his office in the evening of March 13. One...