News

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the ongoing legal harassment of BBC correspondent in Thailand, Jonathan Head. Police Lt Col Wattanasak Mungkandee filed a third criminal complaint this year against Head on December 23, alleging he had insulted the Thai monarchy in his reporting. The latest charges are related to a December 3 article in which Head speculated that the royal...

Kazakh authorities must launch a thorough investigation into the stabbing of Artyom Miusov, a reporter with the opposition weekly Taszhargan, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Miusov suffered serious internal injuries on December 30 last after an assailant approached him outside an Almaty supermarket, asked his name, and then stabbed him three times in the abdomen...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the intimidation of Tunisian journalists who tried to cover efforts on December 30 last by the opposition Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) to demonstrate against Israeli attacks on Gaza. Two journalists were assaulted and three faced harassment in Tunis, according to several CPJ interviews. Al-Jazeera correspondent Lotfi Hajji told CPJ...

A soldier killed Radio Shabelle reporter Hassan Mayow Hassan, shooting the veteran journalist twice in the head after stopping him in the Somali town of Afgoye on January 1 morning, three local journalists have told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The journalists said they had interviewed witnesses to the killing. "The transitional government must do everything it can to immediately...

The Iinternet has now surpassed all other media except television as an outlet for national and international news in the US, says a new report from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Currently, 40 per cent say they get most of their news about national and international issues from the Internet, up from just 24 per cent in September 2007. For the first time in a Pew survey, more...

The biggest news industry story of 2008 in the US, expectedly, is about job cuts, says leading industry magzine Editor & Publisher. The US Department of Labour estimates that around 21,000 newspaper industry jobs disappeared this year. E&P's 'Top Ten Newspaper Industry Stories of the Year', listed by Senior Editor Joe Strupp are as follows: [ Link] Record Job Cuts: Three years ago, this was the...

More than 10 journalists were injured on Monday when the police tried to break up a rally taken out in capital Kathmandu by the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) to protest Sunday's attack on Himalmedia by supporters of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the principal constituent of the ruling coalition in Nepal. According to ekantipur.com, the police personnel at Maitighar Mandala, a...

The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush will go on trial this month on charges that carry up to 15 years in jail, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported quoting a judge. Zaidi became a hero to many in the Arab world when he threw his shoes at Bush during the US president's surprise visit to Iraq on December 14. Investigating judge Dhiya al-Kenani rejected new...

For the fourth straight year, the UN General Assembly last week ignored pleas by human rights defenders and passed a resolution condemning the "defamation of religions," especially Islam. Optimists hailed the move by citing the shift of several "yes" votes to abstentions, but the reality is that this totalitarian initiative is spreading throughout UN bodies -- and now threatens to rewrite a core...

Northern Ireland's only Irish language daily newspaper is closing down. West Belfast-based La Nua (New Day) will shut at the end of the year after more than two decades in production because official funding has been withdrawn, its managing director said. Mairtin O Muilleoir added that a proposal to provide a service online at reduced cost had been rejected by all-Ireland sponsoring body Foras na...