News

Iran's culture and Islamic orientation minister Mohammad Hossein Safar-Harandi has banned BBC’s new Farsi-language TV station from operating in the country, and also forbidden Iranian journalists to work for foreign news media, Reporters sans Frontières has reported. The decision follows the BBC World Service’s launch on January 14 of BBC Persian TV, a satellite TV station targeted at Farsi...

The editor of an independent newspaper in the West African nation of Niger was jailed Monday in connection with an investigative story alleging corruption in the finance ministry, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists. Boussada Ben Ali, managing editor of the weekly L'Action, was jailed at Niamey's main prison after a public prosecutor...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has detained at least three journalists in the West Bank since Saturday, according to local news reports and journalists who spoke to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On Monday, security forces detained Ahmad Dikkawi, correspondent for the London-based al-Quds TV station in Jenin. They also detained Samer Khuaira, the Nablus correspondent...

The International Federation of Journalists has announced its support for Tunisian journalists currently on strike at Tunisian state Radio Television. The 150 journalists, cameramen and other technicians have been organising a sit-in since Monday in protest against the failure of management to provide them with proper full contracts in line with Tunisian labour legislation. "It is unacceptable...

Plainclothes police surrounded the offices of a newly launched satellite radio station in Tunisia and detained one of its journalists on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists. Police continued their siege of the station Wednesday. The journalist, Dhafer Otay of Radio Kalima, said he was held for four hours and then released without charge...

Supporters of suspended Congressman Narayan Rane attacked the office of Marathi daily Navakal in Mumbai on Thursday, the Times of India reported. The attack was apparently in protest against a satirical editorial written on Rane and his innings in different political parties. The protesters, who smashed windowpanes and hurled paver blocks into the newspaper house in Girgaum, claimed to be members...

The Beirut-based newspaper the Daily Star, the region's oldest English language daily, has stopped publishing after a Lebanese court declared it was bankrupt, Jamil Mroue, the paper’s owner told ZAWYA DOW JONES on Wednesday. Zawya reported that the Star was in a legal dispute with Standard Chartered Plc over a $1.7 million debt. The unfortunate details: [ Link] Mroue said he is offering a 40 per...

The Evening Standard on Wednesday said Russian tycoon Alexander Lebedev has bought a controlling 75.1 per cent stake in the venerable but money-losing paper for a "nominal sum" widely reported to be $1.40. After weeks of rumours, Standard owner Daily Mail & General Trust PLC confirmed that a company formed by Lebedev and his 28-year-old son, Evgeny, would acquire 75.1 per cent of London's...

The editor of Fiji's oldest newspaper has been ordered to jail and the publication has been fined F$100,000 (NZ$104,000) for printing a letter critical of the military regime and the court system, Fairfax Media has reported. Fiji Times editor-in-chief Netani Rika has been convicted of contempt and jailed for three months with a suspended sentence for two years on a good behaviour bond. The ruling...

Bolivian President Evo Morales launched a state-run daily newspaper on Thursday, hoping to strike back against what he calls media bias three days before the country votes on his new constitution, Reuters reported. The paper, published with color photos on high-quality newsprint, is called Cambio, or "Change." Its slogan is "The truth will liberate us." The first issue hit newsstands on the three...