News

Pan-Arab satellite channel Aljazeera has said it will appeal after a Spanish judge sentenced its correspondent Taysir Alluni to seven years in prison for collaborating with al-Qaida. "The verdict is very disappointing and we consider it unfair and we will contact immediately the legal defence team to study the possibilities of appealing it," Aljazeera general manager Waddah Khanfar said on Monday...

Reporters Without Borders expressed "surprise" after a court in Madrid on 26 September sentenced Tayssir Allouni, a journalist with Arabic TV network al-Jazeera, to seven years in prison for "collaboration" with al-Qaeda. The prosecutor’s frequent references to the journalist’s October 2001 interview with Osama Bid Laden, just after the 11 September attacks on the US, "makes it impossible to rule...

LAST week at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown New Orleans, a mix of contractors, journalists and security people sat in the bar, reminiscing about Katrina and speculating about Rita, the storm of the moment. Hurricane coverage, for all of its discomforts, is a bit of a caper with beaucoup fringes. Reporters get to take over hotels, spend like pirates, drink like sailors and eat like truck drivers...

I had been dreading this moment for weeks, but I knew it would come inevitably. The night before leaving for Baghdad; preparing for yet another trip to that doomed city to report on yet more violence. For weeks at a time, I had lived in denial. I had told myself, no, it's not happening; no, I am not going back there. I have had enough, I am not going back to Iraq. But then I gave in, I started...

Coimbatore, Sept 24: An inquiry has been ordered into the alleged assault of a Tamil daily reporter by revenue officials at Tirupur near here, official sources said today. In an order issued this evening, Coimbatore District Collector S Kosalaraman said "it has been decided to conduct an inquiry on the alleged occurrence and hence Hastings Hope, District Revenue Officer (Stamps), Coimbatore, is...

Bangalore , Sept 25: YAHOO! India is eyeing rural India with its Emerging Market Initiative. Speaking to Business Line at his Bangalore office, Dr Prasad Ram, CTO, Yahoo! R&D India, said that `livelihood-based' offerings for the rural market would roll out by mid-2006. The Yahoo! R&D office here, designed as a microcosm of the one in the US was set up in last June. Since then, Indian engineers...

CHANDIGARH, SEPTEMBER 24: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today lashed out at the media–the financial media in particular–saying the time had come for journalists to do some soul-searching on how competition had affected quality. He underlined the lack of accountability in journalism, pointing out how it took just one mistake for an airline pilot or railway man to lose his job. ‘‘How many mistakes...

China's repressive government may one day allow the full flood of the Internet to sweep through Chinese society, but for now it is still dedicated to building ever higher and stronger seawalls against liberating knowledge. Over the weekend, two state censorship agencies issued new and more stringent rules about what news can be published on the Internet and who can publish it. The rules...

Rita was no Katrina, to the relief of an entire nation. But in the aftermath of the first hurricane, which ravaged New Orleans and large parts of the Gulf Coast, broadcast and cable TV took no chances. From networks calling in their weekday morning-show anchors for weekend Rita duty (ABC's Good Morning America ran five hours Saturday) to wall-to-wall coverage on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC and prime...

For the third consecutive year the rich got richer. In the 24th annual edition of The Forbes 400, the collective net worth of the wealthiest in the US climbed $125 billion, to $1.13 trillion. All but 26 people on the roster are billionaires. Surging real estate and oil prices drove up several fortunes and helped pave the way for 33 new members (and nine retreads). And figuring the top 400 are 42...