2005-2014

After branding Internet companies Google and Yahoo as tools of China's communist government, the US Congress passed a new bill today prohibiting US businesses from aiding Internet-restricting countries in the censorship of online content. The "Global Online Freedom Act of 2006", introduced in the House of Representatives by Republican Representative Chris Smith, who chairs a House subcommittee on...

BEIJING – Authorities on Thursday removed the top editors of an investigative weekly that had tested the limits of censorship, banished them to a think tank and announced that the publication would be relaunched in a more compliant format next month. Action against Freezing Point and its editor, Li Datong, comes as overseas observers focus on whether Internet and technology firms such as Google...

BEIJING (Reuters) - The editors of a bold Chinese weekly purged by censors issued an impassioned call for free speech on Friday, but propaganda officials fought back by accusing them of insulting the country's ardent patriotism. Propaganda officials said on Thursday that Freezing Point, a weekly section of the China Youth Daily that specialised in exposing official corruption and misrule, could...

In a victory for Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Richard Parsons, dissident investor Carl Icahn is abandoning his fight for control of the world's largest entertainment company. Icahn has decided against his previous plan of nominating a full slate of directors to replace Time Warner's 14-member board, people with knowledge of the situation said. And the billionaire could give up the proxy fight...

The union representing many Knight Ridder Inc. employees has teamed up with a private equity firm in a bid to purchase nine of the publishing company's 32 daily newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News and the Monterey Herald. The Newspaper Guild-Communication Workers of America said it has entered into a partnership with the Yucaipa Cos., chaired by businessman Ron Burkle, as a step toward...

February 17, 2006 ¤Ñ President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday filed a second libel suit against the mainstream Chosun Ilbo newspaper, saying a cartoon defamed him by circulating false facts. The cartoon, titled "The lie is detected fast," was published on Aug. 9 last year and addressed illegal eavesdropping by the state intelligence agency. In his written complaint submitted to the Seoul Central District...

A DRAWING by Fairfax cartoonist Michael Leunig that found its way on to an Iranian newspaper website without his approval was anti-Semitic and not an anti-war comment as claimed by the artist, Jewish groups believe. The controversy continued yesterday with a column by Michael Gawenda in The Age, critical of the cartoonist. Gawenda, the paper's former editor-in-chief and now US correspondent...

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has launched an appeal and a petition for the immediate release of six journalists thrown into prison in Yemen and Algeria for reprinting the controversial prophet cartoons as part of informing their readers. "Whatever one thinks of the cartoons or whether they should be published, it is absolutely unjustified to jail or prosecute journalists, threaten them with...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged international leaders at the level of the European Union and the United Nations to use their influence on the governments of Algeria, Jordan, the Yemen and Syria to free journalists who have been arrested or detained for publishing cartoons which have caused outrage in some Muslim communities around the world. "At a time when...

The International Federation of Journalists hosted a meeting in Brussels on February 15, 2006 at which media professionals discussed the publication in Denmark and elsewhere of cartoons which have caused regrettable offence to many people in Europe and around the world. The following statement was agreed: While all professional groups understand well the need to consider cultural and religious...