2005-2014

Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan says her media reform package has good prospects of becoming law and will be introduced to the Senate soon. Senator Coonan said she plans to begin introducing the legislation shortly to have the package of reforms considered by the end of the year. The changes would remove limits that prevent TV companies owning newspapers in the same market and loosen...

OTTAWA, Sept 8 (Reuters) - One of Canada's top television reporters has been suspended from her job for praising the country's increasingly troubled military mission in Afghanistan, La Presse newspaper reported on Friday. Christine St-Pierre, a veteran Ottawa correspondent for French-language public broadcaster Radio-Canada, wrote an open letter to Canada's 2,300 troops telling them to ignore...

A group of 51 newspaper publishers in Japan including The Japan Times said Thursday it will establish a new company this month that will create a Web site containing news and regional information. Press Net Japan Co. will be headquartered in Tokyo. The Web site is scheduled to be up and running by the end of the year. The site will carry domestic and overseas news, information on tourism and local...

The Sunday Times becomes Britain's first £2 paper this weekend and the Times is also raising its cover price, as News International looks to recoup its investment in new freesheet the London Paper. Meanwhile, the Telegraph Group - which is about to move into new premises with an integrated digital newsroom - is also raising the cost of its titles. The Sunday Telegraph increases by 20p to £1.80...

Jakarta - In Indonesia, newspaper readers who are tired of daily politics and endless domestic problems sometimes skip the headlines that makes them frown and turn to the classified advertisements. It is both shocking and amusing. 'Would you like a second honeymoon? Call me, Rosita, a sweet and aggressive woman, sexy, bra size 36C, able to cure premature ejaculation, great service, 250 thousand...

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The president of Sudan agreed to release American journalist Paul Salopek on Saturday after meeting with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a spokesman for the governor said. The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Chicago Tribune and his Chadian driver and interpreter will be picked up by Richardson in the war-torn Darfur region, where the three were arrested, said Pahl...

Copenhagen - A Danish newspaper published Friday some of the controversial cartoons recently exhibited in Iran that satirized the Holocaust, saying the move was necessary since the exhibition had its roots in Denmark. The exhibition in Tehran was organized in the wake of massive protests in the Muslim world earlier this year sparked by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's decision to publish...

The United States has long prided itself on enjoying a free press. Freedom House, an organization that measures freedoms worldwide, declared that journalists in the United States work in an environment of complete press freedom, according to its 2005 Map of Press Freedom. In the same year, among Arab countries only parts of Palestine were labeled “free,” while Bahrain, Kuwait, and Lebanon were...

MIAMI (Reuters) - At least 10 Florida journalists received regular payments from a U.S. government program aimed at undermining the Cuban government of Fidel Castro, The Miami Herald reported on Friday. Total payments since 2001 ranged from $1,550 to $174,753 per journalist, according to the newspaper, which said it found no instance in which those involved had disclosed that they were being paid...

Relatives of the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov from the city of Djizak already kicked up a scandal upon discovering secret services' interest in their family in early August. Margarita Karimova, the mother of independent journalist Jamshid Karimov, had specialists of the Djizak Municipal Directorate of Internal Affairs remove all bugs installed at her place a year ago. Colonel Marat...