News

Viacom, the entertainment company controlled by Sumner M. Redstone, said in a statement that it had completed a plan to split itself into two companies, the CBS Corporation and Viacom Inc. Shares of the New York-based companies will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow. They have changed hands on a when-issued basis since Dec. 5. Investors are to receive one CBS share and one...

Bloomberg News, the financial news service, appears to be a bright spot in an industry clouded by transition, job cuts and uncertainty. Bloomberg has hired Roger Simon, the political writer who was unexpectedly laid off from U.S. News and World Report in October, as its chief political correspondent. Mr. Simon, 57, is one of several recent hires by the news service, which is expanding at a time...

MOSCOW, Jan. 1 - Recent turmoil in the news department of REN-TV, Russia's last nationwide television network with independent news programming, has caused concern among media analysts and free-speech advocates in the country. Last July, RTL Group, the broadcasting arm of the Bertelsmann Group, agreed to buy a 30 percent stake in REN-TV from Irena Lesnevskaya, who founded and ran the channel with...

About two years ago, when he was ten, the boy Basel asked his father, Abd a-Razek Faraj, to start praying. It was after the fourth or fifth or sixth time - who remembers, anymore - that a military commander in the Judea and Samaria region issued an administrative arrest warrant against Faraj - in other words, extended again the original arrest warrant issued on April 24, 2002. "Allah is punishing...

Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, or so goes the old saw. For decades, the famous and the infamous alike largely followed this advice. Even when subjects of news stories felt they had been misunderstood or badly treated, they were unlikely to take on reporters or publishers, believing that the power of the press gave the press the final word. The Internet, and especially...

Three years ago I began writing a daily report for the Jerusalem Post. The irony is that, as an Arab Muslim, I feel freer to write for this Jewish paper than I do for any Arab newspaper. I have no problem writing for any Arab newspaper if it will provide me with a free platform and not censor my writing. My editors at the Jerusalem Post do not interfere with my writing. When Arafat arrived in Gaza...

RABAT – A huge number of Moroccan independent newspapers, backing Press freedom in the Arab world, condemned the ever-increasing restrictions, trials and extravagant fines, imposed over newspapers. Some of those papers were referred to the court over charges of defamation and lodging into critical political issues. The Al Ayam Arabic weekly was the last to be sued for publishing an article...

Liu Binyan was rare person in China. For four decades, China's most famous journalist held on to high moral principles. Just about everyone else in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had long abandoned trying to help the workers and peasants, and instead thought almost exclusively in making a comfortable life for oneself at the expense of others. His belief in social justice never wavered or...

A multi-crore newsprint import scam, involving some politicians, has been unearthed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) which has arrested five businessmen in this connection. At least 300 tonnes of paper imported from various countries through tax evasion has been seized by the DRI sleuths in this connection, sources in the agency have reported. Investigations have revealed that some...

MILWAUKEE - A college newspaper that printed a photo essay depicting an editor's sexual fantasy of being raped created such a backlash on campus that a task force is being formed to focus on the problem of violence against women. Some women's advocates have called for harsh penalties, such as tossing the UWM Post out of its free office space at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus, because...