News

The Newsquest-owned Herald and Times group in Scotland has made all its 250 journalists and publishing staff redundant and asked them to re-apply for their jobs. The Glasgow-based company, which publishes the Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times announced this on December 3, according to the Scotsman newspaper. About 30-40 staff, 17 per cent of journalists, are expected to be cut as the company...

A 13-year prison sentence has been imposed by a prosecutor on Haci Bogatekin, owner and editor of Turkish fortnightly Gerger Firat for an article accusing another local prosecutor of bias. A four-and-a-half-year sentence was also requested for the editor of a website that posted the article, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Bogatekin’s December 2 court appearance was the seventh time...

Cuban journalist Ricardo González Alfonso has been chosen by Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) as “2008 Journalist of the Year” for helping an independent press to survive in Cuba. After challenging the state’s monopoly of news and information, González was arrested on March 18, 2003 along with 26 other dissident journalists during the crackdown known as the “Black Spring.” Accused of being “in the...

The Sakaal Times employees in Delhi have reached an agreement with the management on a compensation package which is agreeable to both sides. KK Laskar, convenor of the employees' action committee that has been formed to fight for the rights of employees, said that the issue of compensation had been amicably resolved to the "complete satisfaction" of the employees. Sixtyone employees were laid off...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has blamed callous management at Channel-5, a private TV station in Pakistan, which contributed to the death of a cameraman who killed himself after his employer refused to pay his salary. According to the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalist (PFUJ), an IFJ affiliate, Mohammad Azam Khan, 26, who worked as a cameraman for Channel-5 in Lahore had not...

Israel has lifted a four-week ban on international journalists entering Gaza and temporarily eased a blockade on shipments of goods to the coastal strip, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. The announcement follows weeks of pressure from foreign governments and the leaders of major news organisations urging Israel to reopen Gaza to the media. Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said on...

A bomb exploded Wednesday at the Agence France-Presse (AFP) office in Athens causing minor damage but no injuries, the international news agency said. An underground group labelled as anarchist by Greek police claimed responsibility. The bomb, made up of four small gas cannisters, was placed at the front door to the office on the fifth floor of a block in the centre of the Greek capital. It...

An independent Kazakh journalist is being continually harassed by the country's National Security Committee (KNB), which wants him to reveal how he obtained an internal KNB memo. The harassment led Ramazan Esergepov to seek refuge inside the US consulate in Almaty. “The pressure applied to Esergepov was out of all proportion,” Reporters sans Frontières said. “KNB should track down the source of...

Rachid Nini, publisher of Al-Massae newspaper, has been fined another 600,000 dirhams (54,000 euros) by a Casablanca court for allegedly libelling a prominent lawyer. The fine, imposed on December 1, may force Morocco’s leading Arabic-language daily to close down. Al-Massae had already said it would probably have to shut down after an appeal court ruling on October 30 confirming that it would have...

Prominent Zimbabwean journalist and human rights activist Jestina Mukoko was abducted at dawn on Wednesday from her home near capital Harare. The journalist, a former broadcaster at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) then privately-owned Voice of the People (VOP), was snatched from her home in Norton, 40 kilometres from the capital, by 15 men in plain clothes, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human...