News

Ibrahim Eissa, editor-in-chief of Egypt’s Al-Dustour newspaper, has been awarded the 2008 Gebran Tueni Award, the annual prize of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) that honours an editor or publisher in the Arab region. The prize, which is made in memory of Gebran Tueni, the Lebanese publisher and WAN Board Member who was killed by a car bomb in Beirut on December 12, 2005, was presented...

Politico and Reuters have joined hands to offer articles to newspapers and sell advertising on the papers' websites, the New York Times has reported. Politico recently began offering papers a limited number of free articles, and beginning this week the papers that sign onto that service, the Politico Network, will also see the stream of daily output from Reuters and choose up to 10 articles and 10...

Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets Monday to demand the release of a journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush, news agencies have reported. Journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi, who was abducted by Shiite militants last year, was being held by Iraqi security and interrogated about whether anybody paid him to throw his shoes at Bush during a press conference the previous day in...

The US military has refused to comply with the Iraqi central criminal court's order to release Reuters photographer Ibrahim Jassam. Maj Neal Fisher, a spokesman for detainee operations, said on December 10 that the US military was not bound by Iraqi court orders and would continue to hold Jassam on the grounds that he posed "a threat to Iraq security." Jassam was arrested at his home by US and...

Authorities in Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Syria have prevented four Arab journalists and human rights activists from attending the Arab Free Press Forum, an annual gathering in Beirut, Lebanon, that examines how independent media can be effective despite widespread repression in the region. The travel restrictions drew condemnation from the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), the organiser of...

The Botswana Parliament on December 10 pressed ahead with passing of the controversial Media Practitioners Bill. The bill, which faced fierce objections and an outcry from the media and the public in general, is now at the parliamentary committee stage before the final vote, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). The bill provides for the setting up of a statutory media...

One of Haiti's best known journalists, Joseph Guyler C Delva, has been sentenced to a month in prison by a Port-au-Prince criminal court for defaming a senator, Rudolph Boulos, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Delva is still free pending the outcome of an appeal. The order was passed on December 10. Boulos sued Delva after he said Boulos had a US passport. This would preclude him from...

Peru President Alan García has indicated that he believes jailed TV presenter Magaly Medina should be released. He told a group of Medina supporters on December 10 that he thought the two months she has spent in prison were "sufficient" and that he would discuss the matter with justice minister Rosario Fernández. The host of a celebrity gossip show on privately-owned ATV, Medina has been serving a...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern over the sidelining of journalist Javier Molina of Ecuadorian TV station Cablenoticias, which has been state-run since July 2008. Molina was the host of the political programme 'Sobremesas de entorno'. The journalist received three warnings from the new government-appointed management after the station was taken over, ordering him to modify his...

The Constitutional Court in Colombia ruled that the government cannot take measures to restrict a journalist's freedom of expression or right to information as a result of its obligation to provide the journalist with protection, the Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (FLIP) has reported. The ruling came after the court reviewed the case of a journalist who was under government protection as...