News

Two reporters working for Nippon Television Network Corp. were confirmed dead Sunday after they had climbed to a mountain in Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture of Japan to cover the fatal crash a week earlier of a rescue helicopter, local media reported. Kyodo News said the two men, with whom the broadcaster had lost contact, are Yuji Kita, a 30-year-old reporter who lives in the city of Saitama, and...

A radio reporter died on Saturday, three weeks after he was shot by a gunman in the eastern Philippines, a provincial police chief said, according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA). Miguel Belen, 48, died two days after his third operation at a hospital in Iriga City, 350 kilometres south-east of Manila, Senior Superintendent Jonathan Ablang said. "He died before dawn," he said. "His body could no...

Iran's deputy culture minister lashed out at Western media on Sunday, branding them "dishonest, cocky cheats," who will be banned from an annual press fair in the autumn, the ILNA news agency reported. "This year none of the Western media are allowed to participate in the fair," said Mohammad Ali Ramin, who is also a press watchdog official. "We have eliminated them, because Western media are...

China's General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) has voiced its support for journalists' rights of supervision after police in an east China county wrongly issued an arrest warrant for a journalist, official news agency Xinhua has reported. "News organisations have the right to know, interview, cover, criticise and monitor events regarding national and public interests. Journalistic...

Mexican police raided a drug gang safe house before dawn on Saturday and rescued two television journalists abducted by cartel members who demanded networks broadcast their messages, according to news reports. Security Minister Genero Garcia Luna said cameramen Javier Canales and Alejandro Hernandez were being held in the northern state of Coahuila by members of the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's most...

The Press Information Bureau (PIB) has initiated steps to simplify accreditation procedures for foreign journalists in India, according to the Times of India. They will now be able to apply for it online from their respective countries even while applying for a visa, officials said. "We have taken steps to cut down on the time taken for security clearance," said Neelam Kapur, principal director...

An editor and several journalists of Shanghai's National Business Daily were attacked Friday by men claiming to work for a shampoo maker whose products have been alleged to contain toxic chemicals, the newspaper said. The newspaper's spokeswoman Xu Yuanyuan said police detained a man claiming to be a sales manager for BaWang International and three others after the attack at the newspapers' office...

US newspaper publisher McClatchy Co has reported that second-quarter revenue fell 6.4 per cent, as advertising and circulation continue to suffer. The revenue decline, however, was an improvement from steep drops during the worst of the recession. It's also the latest sign that the weak advertising market that has hurt most media companies is slowly reviving. Other newspaper publishers, including...

The Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) has expressed concern at the growing tendency towards enactment and enforcement of more repressive, complicated legal sanctions against journalists. In Senegal, Cameroon, Tunisia and Burundi, journalists and their leaders face constant harassment and threats to their safety as part of a brazen campaign to curb the right to freedom of expression in Africa...

Amer Abu Arfa, a correspondent for the Shihab news agency, has been convicted and imprisoned in connection with his news coverage. The agency, based in the Gaza Strip, is perceived by the Palestinian Authority as being pro-Hamas. Abu Arfa was arrested on May 11 by Palestinian security forces, according to his father, who told Shihab that his son was taken from their home by the Palestinian...