News

Israeli forces have arrested Iran's Al-Alam News Network's correspondent reporting from the occupied Palestinian territory. Khezir Shahin reporter of the Al-alam international News Network was taken in custody by the Israeli forces on Gaza Strip on Monday, the network reported Tuesday. The Israeli army issued a statement claiming the reporter was trying to illegally cover the Israeli operation...

The Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) condemned Monday the attacks committed by the Israeli forces against Palestinian media in Gaza. In addition, PEC, in a statement issued in Geneva, said that it also deplored the fact that Israel is not allowing non-resident media in Gaza to cover the current conflict. PEC called upon Israel to implement UN Security Council resolution 1738 that forbids any attacks...

The Israeli ban on foreign journalists from entering Gaza to cover the conflict is a dangerous violation of press freedom that adds to "ignorance, uncertainty and fear" in the region, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has said. IFJ says that the presence of independent reporters on the ground is needed to ensure that there are no flagrant abuses of human rights by combatants. IFJ's...

Myanmar's (Burma) censorship board has stopped issuing licenses to 11 weekly journals and 20 magazines which failed to renew their license, sources in the Yangon (Rangoon) literary community said, according to Mizzima news agency. Mizzima reported: [ Link] An editor of a weekly journal, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the censorship board, which is under the Ministry of Information, has...

Philip Bennett, the Washington Post's managing editor, is stepping down this week after four years as the paper's second-ranking news executive, the paper reported. Bennett was a candidate to be executive editor after Leonard Downie Jr announced that he was leaving last spring after 17 years in the job. But in July, Post publisher Katharine Weymouth chose Brauchli, less than three months after...

Bolivian President Evo Morales is planning to launch a state-run daily newspaper later this month which would act as a counterbalance to the "anti-government" local media, Reuters has reported. "The state's going to have its own newspaper and I've told the media team that we should launch it on January 22," Morales was quoted as saying by the official news agency ABI on Sunday. During a radio...

At least seven people, three of them policemen and two journalists, were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of the Government Polytechnic College near an imambargah in Dera Ismail Khan district of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province on January 4, the Dawn newspaper has reported. The suicide attack followed an explosion of low intensity. Over 20 people were injured, most of...

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has approved a new media law despite local and international pressure to reject the legislation critics say undermines democracy, according to news reports. The amended media law provides for a new communications commission with powers to regulate broadcasting content and impose tougher fines or jail terms for press offences. "I have assented to the bill," Kibaki said...

The Lima-based Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS) has filed a complaint before the District Magistracy Control Office (Oficina Distrital de Control de la Magistratura, ODICMA) against judge Teresa Cabrera, who sentenced journalist Magaly Medina and television producer Ney Guerrero to serve prison terms in a defamation case brought against them by football player Paolo Guerrero. The sentence, which...

A Davao broadcaster was released on December 23, 2008 after having spent almost two years in prison in Davao del Norte following his conviction on charges of libel, according to Manila-based Centre for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR). Davao is a province located approximately 946 km south of Manila. Libel is a criminal offence in the Philippines. Alexander Adonis, formerly of Bombo Radyo...