News

A Venezuelan journalist who recently reported on drug trafficking and corruption was shot to death on Friday in Valencia, a city in the north-central province of Carabobo, according to news reports and interviews, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. A motorcycle-riding assailant shot Orel Sambrano, left, director of the local political weekly ABC de la Semana and Radio América...

Several unidentified assailants attacked Yermek Boltai, a reporter and editor for the website of the Kazakh service of the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), in Kazakhstan's financial capital of Almaty on Sunday, the broadcaster reported. The assailants reportedly did not take any of the editor's valuables, including his money and cellphone. The attackers hit Boltai...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has voiced its concern after armed men burst into the apartment block of Janet Mba, editor of the magazine The Scroll in Arepo in Ogun State in south-western Nigeria. She escaped attack because she managed to call the police before they could strike. The worldwide press freedom organisation recorded at least 10 cases of physical assaults and eight cases of threats...

A human rights lawyer well-known for his work on abuses in Chechnya, Stanislav Markelov, and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova were shot to death Monday in broad daylight by a masked gunman who trailed Markelov from a press conference in Moscow. Markelov had at the January 19 press conference condemned the early release of Yuri Bodanov, a Russian former colonel who was sentenced in 2003...

The economic downturn has forced the postponement of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) annual congress and forum, the largest annual international gathering of newspaper executives and editors, MediaGuardian.co.uk has reported. This year's annual conference for WAN and its related organisation, the World Editors Forum (WEF), was scheduled to take place March 22-25 in Hyderabad. WAN/WEF...

Union workers at the Denver Post have voted to enter into formal discussions with the newspaper's owner to reopen contract talks in a bid to trim expenses at the ailing newspaper, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. Denver Post owner William Dean Singleton wants $2 million in wage and benefits givebacks from its union workers. That’s roughly 20-25 fulltime positions at the daily newspaper. The...

The editor of an Odessa newspaper has been found guilty of inciting ethnic hatred in Ukraine for writing an anti-Semitic article, Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) has reported. Ihor Volin-Danilov, an editor of Nashe Dyelo, received a suspended 18-month sentence for a 2007 article titled 'Kill the best of the goyim'. Volin-Danilov concluded in the story that the Jewish religion is “criminal and...

A Swiss lawyer working on behalf of the Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at US President George W Bush says his client will seek political asylum in Switzerland. Geneva-based lawyer Mauro Poggia says Muntadar al-Zaidi's life is in danger in Iraq, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. Al-Zaidi is currently in an Iraqi jail awaiting trial on charges of assaulting a foreign leader for his December...

Israel has released two Palestinian journalists employed by the Iranian Arabic-language TV station Al-Alam after being held for 10 days on spying charges. However, they were freed on bail on January 15 and are still accused of “revealing secret information” and “transmitting information to the enemy in war time.” Khader Shahin, a Jerusalem resident and Al-Alam correspondent, was summoned for...

The Union government has announced 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in the facsimile editions of foreign newspapers, provided the investment is held directly by the owners of original publication. According to the new FDI norms for facsimile editions issued by the commerce ministry on Wednesday, the policy for FDI in publication of facsimile edition of foreign newspapers include...