News

Burmese state censors are clamping down on the publication of feature stories or interviews with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, on orders from the government, the editor of People's Era journal said recently, according to Mizzima News. Editors of People's Era and the Venus journal met with Suu Kyi on December 21. On December 17, People's Era submitted the transcript of its interview with Suu...

The Washington Post uses Facecbook to the hilt, according to prominent Internet communications firm Bivings Group that tracked how newspapers use the social networking site to best connect with audience. Ranking No. 1 and 2, respectively were The Washington Post and The Chicago Tribune. The Post was cited not just for its very high fan-to-circulation ratio, design features and use of Twitter app...

Journalist José Luis Galdámez and his family deserve protection by Honduran authorities, according to an order from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, reported the Associated Press. Galdámez has a radio program in which he has openly supported ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Galdámez has received several death threats and in September hesurvived, unharmed, an armed attack in front of his...

The Folha de S. Paulo newspaper has been an example of crusading journalism in Brazil for many decades. Its team of reporters and columnists are famous for the rambunctious and yet lucid way they challenge those in power. But that reputation has soured recently thanks to Folha’s heavy-handed response to two brothers who satirised the paper in a spoof web site, says a Financial Times report. The...

Belarusian authorities continued their massive crackdown on critical news media on Tuesday as security agents raided offices shared by the independent weekly Nasha Niva and the Belarusian PEN Center, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). KGB agents confiscated a dozen computers and numerous digital storage devices after producing a search warrant...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on the authorities in Burundi to release journalist Jean-Claude Kavumbagu, who has been held in custody for nearly six months at Mpimba prison in the capital Bujumbura. No trial has yet been opened in the case. “Jean-Claude Kavumbagu should be released immediately. He was arrested last July and is about to begin the year...

The death of Sun Hongjie, a senior reporter at the Northern Xinjiang Morning Post, must be fully investigated by regional authorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and by central authorities in Beijing, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Sun died in a hospital in Kuitun today, 10 days after being beaten by several men at a construction site, international news...

Henry Suazo, Tegucigalpa-based radio HRN’s correspondent in La Ceiba, in the north-coast department of Atlántida, was gunned down as he left his home Tuesday morning, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) reported. His unidentified killers immediately left the scene. The motive is not yet known. Aged 39, Suazo also worked for Cablevisión del Atlántico, a local TV station...

Makhmadyusuf Ismoilov, a newspaper reporter who has been detained arbitrarily by prosecutors in Khujand, in the northern Tajikistan province of Sughd, is being held since November 23, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Ismoilov was arrested at the behest of the regional prosecutor’s office one day after an article he wrote about its alleged corrupt and...

Sithu Zeya, a 21-year-old Burmese photographer who was arrested on April 16 for taking photos of the damage caused by a bomb in a Rangoon park, has been sentenced to eight years in prison. His father, Maung Maung Zeya, a journalist and painter who was arrested a day later, is to be tried in January, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Both worked for the...