News

Several sources in Iran have told Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) that the authorities have again been blocking the Internet and mobile phone networks since the start of a big protest at 3 p.m. on February 20. Internet connections have been slowed right down or entirely disconnected in certain neighbourhoods in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz and Mashad, making it hard or...

The Bahraini security forces had previously been restrained in the way they obstructed journalists but snipers in a helicopter fired at New York Times reporter Michael Slackman and cameraman Sean Patrick Farrell as they were filming the violence in Manama’s Pearl Square on February 18. The US network security company Arbor Networks reports a 20 per cent decrease in Internet traffic in and out of...

The violence against journalists has been continuing in Yemen. In one of the latest incidents, security forces assaulted Zaki Saqladi, a correspondent of the news website AlmasdarOnline, Tuesday in the southern province of Ad-Dali, confiscating his car and his camera, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Swiss Info correspondent Abdel-Karim Salam was the...

The Libyan authorities have imposed a news blackout on what is going in the country. It was already very difficult to interview people on the spot before the government began to trying to crush the uprising. It is now virtually impossible for a journalist to work. The few foreign correspondents who were already in Libya before the crisis are kept under extremely close surveillance and have to...

A campaign was launched Tuesday by the National Press Owners Committee (CONAPP), the Togo Union of Independent Journalists (UJIT) and the Togolese Media Monitoring Centre (OTM) to draw attention to the plight of three privately-owned radio stations which the government closed three months ago. The three stations – Providence, Métropolys and X-Solaire – were closed by the Posts and...

A destructive attack was carried out by 50 masked gunmen Sunday on the headquarters of Naliya Radio and Television (NRT) in the compound known as “German Village” in Sulaimaniya, in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, to prevent it from continuing to cover unrest in the city. After firing at NRT’s guards, wounding one of them, the gunmen smashed all the broadcasting equipment and then set...

The Kazakhstan government is keeping journalist Ramazan Esergepov in prison in violation of the law and endangering his health. Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said it was “a new attack on his rights” and showed he was being held for “political reasons.” Prison authorities refused for a third time, on January 27 this year, to free him despite his serious health...

The Managua-based daily El Nuevo Diario has been under pressure since the start of the year. One of its reporters, Luis Galeano, has received death threats over two sensational corruption stories he wrote for the newspaper, one in January and the other in February. At the same time, its management accuses the authorities of obstructing importation of the inputs it needs to print, Paris-based press...

A day might come when, rather than dusting off a resumé when looking for work, we would be better advised to clean up our Facebook profile. Staffing agency OfficeTeam recently released results of a survey that showed 43 per cent of human resources managers they polled thought it was somewhat or very likely that profiles on websites such as Facebook and LinkedIn will someday replace resumés for...

Women and young people are the most active users of social media today, and women in their 30s make up more than half of heavy contributors — that is, they engage in six or more social media activities, according to Netpop Research, a San Francisco-based research firm studying Internet trends. Their recent report, Social Animals: Who's Sharing What and Why Online?, is based on results of an online...