Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who caricatured the Prophet Mohammed and caused outrage in the Muslim world, said Monday he is quitting because he is getting old, the Associated Press has reported. "One has to stop at some point," Westergaard said, adding that he has been working since age 23, first as a teacher and then as an artist. He turns 75 on July 13. Westergaard said he hopes his...
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has tightened rules on media relations for the US military, only days after the top general in Afghanistan was sacked over disparaging comments he and aides made in an interview. In a three-page memo sent Friday to senior military and civilian Pentagon staff, Gates said he was "concerned that the department has grown lax in how we engage with the media, often in...
A journalist discharging his/her professional duties cannot be subjected to humiliation or ill-treatment by police merely because something has been written against them, the Madras High Court has observed. Quashing a 'history sheet' opened against M Rajkumar, reporter of Udzal Echerrikkai magazine and a publisher, Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar on Friday held that if any damage was caused to a...
A Guatemalan investigative journalist with leading daily elPeriódico, who recently reported on corruption and human trafficking, has received death threats, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On June 25, two unidentified assailants broke into Marvin del Cid Acevedo’s home in Guatemala City around 10:30 a.m. while the journalist was at work, the local press reported. The...
Somali government forces have been increasingly harassing independent journalists covering violent fighting in Mogadishu, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Somali reporters targeted for their reporting included a New York Times correspondent and a CPJ International Press Freedom Award winner, while nine other journalists were injured this week while reporting during deadly...
Bahraini authorities have pressed charges against Mohammed al-Sawad, a reporter for the independent daily Al-Bilad, who is accused of violating a government-imposed gag order, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The order was issued in the case of former minister of state, Mansour bin Rajab, who was dismissed in March after a year-long investigation into alleged money...
Police Friday detained for questioning a Japanese journalist and a local photo-journalist, who were earlier held by Maoists for several hours in West Bengal's West Midnapore district, Hindustan Times has reported. The journalists, who went into a Maoist-dominated village in the district without informing police, were brought to Midnapore police lines in the district for interrogation. "We are...
Driven by strong economic performances and rapidly improving consumer confidence levels in the first quarter of 2010, main media (television, newspaper and magazine) advertising activity in India surged by 32 per cent, the highest growth amongst the 12 Asia Pacific markets covered in the Nielsen Company's survey on media spends. Overall across the 12 markets, media spends grew by 18 per cent. For...
Malaysia has suspended the publication of a main opposition newspaper, in a move political rivals criticised Friday as a crackdown on dissent. Suara Keadilan, run by opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's Keadilan party, ran into trouble after the authorities said it violated publishing laws with a report this month which claimed a government agency is bankrupt, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP)...
The Jammu and Kashmir government has sealed the presses of three newspapers in Jammu for 'printing inflammatory material'. The printing presses were sealed on Thursday night and the publications suspended indefinitely on the orders of Jammu Deputy Commissioner MK Dwivedi. Three newspapers ( The Shadow, Early Times and Glimpses of Future) were publishing "inflammatory material," said a notice...
