2005-2014

American journalist Paul Salopek was released Saturday from a prison in the war-torn Darfur region where he was held for more than a month on espionage charges, news agencies reported. A judge in the North Darfur capital of al-Fasher released the Chicago Tribune journalist and his Chadian driver and interpreter after a 13-minute hearing. FREE AND BACK: New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, right...

China has announced new controls over the distribution of news, photographs and graphics by foreign news agencies, further restricting foreign access to the already tightly regulated Chinese media market. The new measures took effect immediately upon being issued by the government's Xinhua News Agency. WALLPAPER: A man reads a wall newspaper in Beijing. China has released new rules governing the...

Media and entertainment giant Essel Group has bought a majority stake in in non-profit news agency United News of India (UNI), the Daily News and Analysis (DNA) has reported. UNITED MESS: United News of India (UNI) was launched in 1961, and its wire service is available in three languages – English, Hindi and Urdu – serving more than 1,000 subscribers in more than 100 locations in India and abroad...

IF SILVIO Berlusconi is worried, he is not showing it. All summer he has sung, danced and thrown extravagant parties for his friends, at one point whisking off his wife for a surprise birthday celebration in Morocco. But this week, when the orange-tanned former Italian prime minister returns to work in parliament, he faces the most difficult decision of his career. To continue as leader of the...

The use of embedded reporters by major newspapers in the United States (US) did affect the number and the type of stories published, resulting in more articles about the US soldiers' personal lives and fewer articles about the impact of the war on Iraqi civilians. THE MA'AM FACTOR: Ann Scott Tyson, who says she encountered "a lot of fighting" while reporting for the Christian Science Monitor from...

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - A Guatemalan radio reporter and human rights activist was found shot to death in his car on Sunday, police said, the latest in a wave of attacks and death threats against journalists in the country. Eduardo Maas, 58, was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds in the central town of Coban, said local police investigating his murder. During the Central American country's...

There are anniversaries sure to bring complaints from readers if the newspaper doesn't show deference with some coverage: Pearl Harbor Day, VE Day, D-Day and many others. The voices on the phone line, shaking with anger if they don't see the coverage they expected, often sound elderly. When the pivotal events that altered their lives are missed or downplayed by the newspaper, it's personal. I've...

It was bollywood’s worst kept secret. The shocker ending of Rakeysh Mehra’s Rang De Basanti was kept under wraps till its premiere. But Mehra bent the rules for NDTV. So keen was the filmmaker to involve the news channel in his youth anthem that he dared to bare his script to the channel executives even before he commenced shooting. In return, NDTV granted Mehra dollops of sacred air time to put...

WHEN Russia’s most wanted terrorist was killed two months ago, Elina Ersenoyeva, a young Chechen journalist, could not hide her relief. At last she felt it was safe to tell her mother that seven months earlier she had been secretly forced to marry Shamil Basayev, the man behind the Beslan school massacre and a string of other bloody attacks. With her husband dead her double life had come to an end...

The young editor of an Armenian newspaper critical of the government was found guilty of illegally avoiding military service and sentenced to four years in prison by a Yerevan court on Friday. The court backed prosecutors’ claim that Arman Babajanian of “Zhamanak Yerevan” used fake documents to win exemption from the two-year compulsory duty in 2002. But the presiding judge, Mnatsakan Martirosian...