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A Saudi journalist, Mshari Al-Zaydi, wrote about the "disease" of the Arab press blaming others for the Arab world's misfortunes in a London-based newspaper, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, on November 20. "This huge obsession among some Arabs and Muslims regarding conspiracy theories and the belief that the world is lurking in wait to pounce on us, as if the world has no worries other than cooking up plans...

THE British government gagged the media yesterday to stop them revealing the identity of a spy reported to have helped torture terror suspects held in Greece. A leading Greek paper has named a man it claims is the MI6 station chief in Athens. He and another British official are alleged to have helped the Greek authorities arrest and then interrogate 28 Pakistani-born detainees seized in connection...

One of the biggest failures of the Nigerian media is its inability to purge itself of all hurtful presuppositions that generate a gulf between its news reports and the people whose lives reflect in – or are shaped by – that news. Indeed, there is a continuously shrinking space in our newspapers, for stories of the pedestrian daily existence of people on the blind spot of the social spectrum. The...

Dakar, Senegal, 12/28 - The Tribunal of Dakar on Tuesday sentenced the editorial director of the daily, L`Observateur, Alioune Ndiaye, a journalist of the same organ, Jean-Pierre Man`, and the editorial director of Le Courrier du jour, Pape Amadou Gaye, to three months of imprisonment with a suspended sentence. They were convicted of defaming Karim Wade, chairman of the National Agency for...

The last time Kerry Packer died, 15 years ago, he quickly took the opportunity to denounce the existence of an afterlife. "I've been on the other side and let me tell you son, there's f---ing nothing there," he was fond of saying. It was a statement redolent of the media baron's forthright approach to life and his laconic sense of humour. Given he had been clinically dead for eight minutes after...

DUBAI - Arabic satellite television Al Arabiya accused Israel on Tuesday of violating press freedom and called on Israel to stop banning one of its journalists from travelling to the West Bank and Gaza. The Dubai-based channel said Israeli forces, which control all access to Palestinian-ruled areas except from Egypt, had stopped journalist Basim El Jamal from entering, citing "security reasons"...

BEIRUT: A Syrian suspect was formally arrested in Lebanon Tuesday for his alleged involvement in the assassination of anti-Syrian MP and journalist Gebran Tueni. In a move that increased suspicions of Syrian involvement in the string of assassinations targeting Lebanon for the past year, Military Investigating Magistrate Rashid Mezher issued an arrest warrant for Syrian national Abdel-Qader Abdel...

MEXICO CITY, Dec 27 (IPS) - Journalist and activist Lydia Cacho believes that the influence wielded by a powerful child prostitution and pornography ring is responsible for the death threats she has been receiving for months and her recent arrest on criminal libel charges. "Who wouldn't be afraid of these people? I'm afraid of them, and I have no doubt that the strings pulled by child...

Since this column was born again almost a year ago as a vantage point from which to observe the intersection of politics, culture and language, I resolve to continue stumbling along in Orwell's huge shoes with an aim toward simplifying English, so we ''are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy.'' I resolve to ''bring about some improvement'' with ''the present political chaosconnected (to) the...

NEW YORK: Les Goodstein, President and COO of the Daily News of New York, has joined News Corporation as Senior Vice President. Goodstein, a 28-year veteran of the News, will be responsible for new business development, News Corporation, and serve as an advisor to the New York Post and other News Corporation divisions. He will report to Paul Carlucci, Chairman and CEO of News America Marketing...