2005-2014

Despite experts and health organizations refuting the theory of a connection between vaccines and autism, recent events have brought the debate front and center in the news once again. But are the media actually doing a disservice to the public by continuing to bring up vaccines when discussing autism? "Do I think they've done a disservice? Yes," said Dr. Gregory Poland, director of the Vaccine...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, June 21, 2007 - Two newspapers in Kathmandu have suspended publication this week in response to pressure, including death threats, from a Maoist party-affiliated trade union, the All-Nepal Communication, Press and Publications Trade Union. Nepalese journalists told the Committee to Protect Journalists that the trade union action appeared to be aimed at influencing coverage...

PARIS (Reuters) - Journalists on Les Echos said on Wednesday they had suspended a strike to protest at the possible sale of the French business newspaper after further talks with its owner, Pearson (PSON.L: Quote, Profile, Research). In a statement, the journalists said they remained unhappy with proposals Pearson had made to guarantee editorial independence in case of a sale and were ready to...

KHARTOUM (AFP) - Sudan released four journalists on Wednesday after detaining them for a week for trying to cover protests against a dam that provoked clashes with police and the deaths of four demonstrators. "We were freed this morning and we've been told that there will be no charges filed against us," one of the four, Al-Fateh Abdallah from Al-Sudani newspaper, told AFP. He added that neither...

LONDON (AP) - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is reportedly considering a swap of social networking website MySpace for a 25 per cent stake in Yahoo. The Times of London, which is owned by News Corp., says its parent company was looking for exposure in a larger Internet-based business such as Yahoo. News Corp. spent $580 million to buy MySpace in 2005. Officials for News Corp. and Yahoo were not...

KARACHI, Pakistan–In the city that swallowed up Daniel Pearl, a sense of menace still hangs as heavy as the sultry air. A high-profile new film has focused renewed attention on the case of The Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and executed by Islamic insurgents here in 2002, and has underscored the fact that many questions remain unanswered. Investigators in this teeming port city, a...

(CEPET/IFEX) - Mexico, 18 June 2007 - Columnist Francisco Rodríguez announced today that he has received two death threats in the last two weeks from the same public employee. The source of the threats, according to a column Rodríguez published on 18 June 2007, is Lino Arturo Vera Pérez, an employee of the National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INEGI). Vera Pérez is the...

(MFWA/IFEX) - The Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja, Nigeria has issued a hearing notice for a suit filed against the Republic of Gambia by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) on behalf of a "disappeared" Gambian journalist, Chief Ebrima Manneh, reporter of pro-government Banjul-based "Daily Observer" newspaper. This follows an...

The Mercury News will reduce its newsroom staff by 40 positions through layoffs that will take place in July, the company announced Tuesday. The reduction - a nearly 17 percent cut - will leave the paper with 200 newsroom positions, down from a peak seven years ago of about 400. The cuts are in response to declining advertising revenues, said Executive Editor Carole Leigh Hutton. "Revenue is not...

Nepal’s Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has pledged to preserve monarchy in the country if the present king Gyanendra and Prince Paras voluntarily quit their throne. Speaking Sunday to Pakistani journalists in kathmandu, Koirala expressed his inner desire to protect monarchy even if the coming Constituent Assembly decides not to keep it. When his remarks were highlighted by national media in...