2005-2014

A Thai criminal court has acquitted a press freedom activist who was sued for defamation by a telecommunications company that, until recently, was owned by the family of the Thai prime minister. VINDICATED: Thai media activist Supinya Klangnarong celebrates at the criminal court in Bangkok, Wednesday March 15, 2006. A Thai court cleared Supinya of criminal libel of the business empire founded by

McClatchy Co has reached a deal to buy Knight Ridder Inc, the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, for about $4.5 billion in cash and stock, the companies announced Monday. McClatchy will also assume about $2 billion in Knight Ridder's debt, the Associated Press (AP) reported. The catch is McClatchy plans to sell 12 of Knight Ridder's 32 newspapers. SOLD OFF: A general view of...

The Uzbekistan government is tightening controls over local and foreign journalists working for foreign state-funded media. The cabinet approved regulations February 24 giving the Foreign Ministry wide discretion to issue formal warnings to foreign correspondents, revoke their accreditation and visas, and expel them. HEARTLESS ATTACK: Andijan residents carry back home their dead. According to the

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has warned of a dangerous escalation in the Yemen government's crackdown on the country's independent and opposition press–one that has grown bolder in exposing high-level corruption and tackling sensitive political issues. PULLED UP FOR BLASPHEMY: Mohammad al-Assadi (extreme right), editor-in-chief of the English daily Yemen Observer, stands in a

Two journalists were charged with exposing German state secrets on al Qaeda's frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a case their defenders called a blow to press freedom. Prosecutors in the city of Potsdam, near Berlin, said on Wednesday they were pursuing a case against German reporter Bruno Schirra and the foreign editor of Swiss newspaper Sonntagsblick, Johannes von Dohnanyi, over an...

Gunmen assassinated the editor of an Iraqi weekly near his home in Baghdad, police and colleagues said on Tuesday, in the third killing of an Iraqi journalist in a week, Reuters has reported. ASSAULT UNABATED: Iraqis carry the coffin of Amjad Hameed, a senior Iraqi state television editor, during his funeral in Baghdad March 11, 2006. Gunmen assassinated Hameed, along with his driver, on Saturday...

Despite pronouncements that the situation in the Philippines has "normalised" enough to warrant a lifting of a "state of emergency" declared by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo last month, media harassment "arrogantly continues" in the country, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) has alleged. A RESOUNDING 'NO': Filipino journalists clench their fists in protest over Philippine President

The two journalists of the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) being held incommunicado in Turkmenistan have been handed over a 15-day sentence, the radio has reported quoting Miklos Haraszti, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media. HIS NEWS: OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Miklos Haraszti spoke to officials in

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez has expressed support for the work of provincial journalists who report under threat of violence and said that any official who impedes their work "is committing a crime against democracy." I TELL YOU SO: Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe Vélez gestures before voting during nationwide legislative elections in Bogota, Sunday, March 12, 2006. Uribe, seeking a

The three journalists abducted by Palestinian militants in the Gaza area have been released. Caroline Laurent of French women's weekly Elle, Alfred Yaghobzadeh of photo agency SIPA and Yong Tae-young of Korean public broadcaster KBS were kidnapped on Tuesday from a Gaza City hotel by an armed group linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) that claimed to belong to the