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JOHANNESBURG, 14 Dec 2005 (IRIN) - Zimbabwean authorities on Wednesday returned the passport of the country's only remaining independent publisher after seizing it last week. "The attorney-general's office has conceded that the seizure was unlawful ... the passport is with my lawyer," Trevor Ncube, the Zimbabwean owner and publisher of the Standard and the Independent newspapers in Zimbabwe, and...

It used to be that alternative weekly newspapers were like that Marlon Brando line from "The Wild One" – when someone asked him what he was rebelling against and he replied, "Wadda ya got?" There was war in Vietnam and an international nuclear stare-down, economic injustice and racial inequality, and a dominant corporate culture against which nonconformity was a political statement. Cut to late...

Editors of The Weekly Observer were yesterday summoned and charged by the police for allegedly promoting sectarianism. The paper’s editor, Mr James Tumusime and the political editor, Mr Ibrahim Semujju Nganda, were also questioned for hours over a story they published on December 1, titled " Tinyefuza meets FDC over Besigye". Police said a reference in the story that Bahima generals were allegedly...

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- One day after Time Inc. gave notice to 105 unlucky employees, including some of its highest-ranking veteran executives, people inside the company -- and at sibling units within Time Warner -- are asking what’s next? In addition to saving on personnel costs -- a savings Time Inc. would not disclose yesterday -- the company clearly plans a run at ramping up its own brand, no...

After a 13-year run, The Los Angeles Times is shutting its national edition next week, officials said yesterday. The separate national edition has been an endangered species for years, kept alive as a way to give the newspaper's reporting a physical presence in Washington and New York. But the edition was costly and the paper's owner, the Tribune Company, had been planning to shut it earlier this...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- When The Rendon Group was hired to help Afghan President Hamid Karzai with media relations in early 2004, few thought it was a bad idea. Though Rendon's $1.4million bill seemed high for Afghanistan, the U.S. government was paying. Within seven months, however, Karzai was ready to get rid of Rendon. So was Zalmay Khalilzad, then the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and now the...

BEIRUT: "We shall not be silenced; paying with your life is part of a journalist's job description," Gibran Tueni once said. "Anywhere in the Middle East, and Lebanon is no exception, a journalist has one of the most dangerous jobs, where messengers like Samir Kassir are targeted and get killed," the late journalist and MP once told The Daily Star, sensing the Lebanese media would fall victim to...

Damascus - Syria's official newspapers maintained silence on Tuesday about the second report on the United Nations investigation into the assassination of Lebanese ex-premier Rafik Hariri delivered Monday in New York, which accuses Damascus of ongoing failure to cooperate with the probe. 'The report (delivered Monday) has nothing new,' was the single- sentence reaction in Al-Thawra government...

USA Today will be merging its newspaper and online newsrooms, USA Today President and Publisher Craig Moon and USATODAY.com Senior Vice President and Publisher Jeff Webber announced on Tuesday. USA TODAY Editor Ken Paulson announced that USATODAY.com Vice President and Editor-in-Chief Kinsey Wilson had been promoted to Executive Editor of USA TODAY, joining current Executive Editor John Hillkirk...

NEW YORK, NY -- (OfficialWire) -- 12/13/05 -- WikiPedia.org: you can find links to it everywhere. Online forums, scholarly journals, blogs, high school research papers. WikiPedia is an "open source" encyclopedia with the philosophy of democratic contribution. This encyclopedia differs from other more established encyclopedias by its editors; WikiPedia is composed of anonymous people contributing...