2005-2014

LONDON (Reuters) - A Fox News reporter, responding to accusations he misrepresented himself as a Vatican offical to an east London mosque used by suspects in a foiled plot to blow up planes, said on Monday he had identified himself clearly. Mohammed Shoyaib, imam of the Masjid-e-Umer mosque in Walthamstow, told Britain's Guardian newspaper that Father Jonathan Morris, a Fox News religion reporter...

CERTAIN she would be murdered by the men who kidnapped her on a Baghdad street and fatally shot her translator, American journalist Jill Carroll begged her captors at one point to use a gun to end her life rather than a knife. "Promise me you will use this gun to kill me by your own hand. I don't want that knife, I don't want the knife, use the gun," Carroll remembered crying hysterically to the...

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Brazil's most notorious organized crime group kidnapped a television reporter and forced his station to broadcast a video Sunday in which the gang called for improvements in Brazil's prison system. The prison-based First Capital Command, or PCC, whose leaders have been accused of ordering violence in Sao Paulo state, said it would release the reporter only after the video was...

TEHRAN, Iran - Sayeed Habibi considers himself a marked man. The reason: his Internet blog that challenges some of the policies of Iran's theocracy. He predicts that someday - perhaps soon - he'll be taken to prison and his site will be shut down. "And another voice will be silenced," said Habibi, a 34-year-old postgraduate and an unofficial elder statesman for student-led activist movements. "I...

Cologne - A German media group said Sunday it was acquiring a one-quarter stake in a major Israeli daily newspaper, Haaretz, in an investment worth 25 million euros (36 million dollars). Haaretz, which is editorally left of centre and is Israel's third-biggest daily in circulation terms, described the alliance with family-controlled M DuMont Schauberg as based on 'shared values.' DuMont Schauberg...

A lot has changed for women in the past 100 years. Corsets have gone out of style, glass ceilings have shattered and voting rights are a reality. But when it comes to sports journalism, women are still lagging behind. n June, the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida released the results of a diversity study commissioned by the Associated Press Sports...

HAMBURG: A few days before he planted his head into the chest of the Italian defender Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final, ensuring an inglorious exit to an otherwise stellar soccer career, Zinédine Zidane stepped out onto the balcony of his Berlin hotel and had a smoke. From an office building nearby, someone whipped out a camera phone and took a shot. A couple of days later, the photo, in all...

The Internet is rapidly changing the rules of advertising — but using naked people to sell clothes? A French clothier is testing the limits of the maxim that sex sells with online commercials that use hard-core pornography to hawk $100 T-shirts. The campaign by Shai clothing depicts French porn stars frolicking on a circular bed, clothed, at least initially, in the brand's latest styles. Shai's...

The Government issued a stern warning to the media not to put the probe into the alleged terror plot at risk by publishing information about suspects. In a joint statement, Home Secretary John Reid and Attorney General Lord Goldsmith called for "considerable restraint" to avoid prejudicing any future trials. It singled out the use of photographs and speculation over individuals' links and...

The mainstream media has had a hard time lately in its coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah war, as the unofficial media—the bloggers—have been busy pointing out. The sharp-eyed blogger Charles Johnson spotted how a Reuters photo showing burning buildings had been photoshopped. The smoke rising from a damaged building, and the building itself, were copied over the photo—making the result of Israeli...