News

A Moscow court has reversed an earlier decision and barred the public and media from the trial of four men accused of murdering journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Yevgeny Zubov, the presiding judge in the trial of four men for the 2006 murder of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya, Wednesday ruled that the press and public will henceforth be excluded, reversing the decision he took on the first...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called calls on Nepalese authorities to carry out thorough and rapid investigations into recent attacks by violent groups on independent media and journalists. One the latest was on November 16 in capital Kathmandu and targeted the Himal Media group. "All the Nepalese media deserve the same level of safety and freedom, and it is up to the government to guarantee...

Radio Galkayo, a privately-owned station in the northeastern somalian city of Galkayo, has started functioning again and its director, Hassan Mohamed Jama, has been released after three days in detention. Jama has nonetheless been ordered to report to a Galkayo court at 9 a.m. on Thursday, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The police of the autonomous northeastern territory of...

An Azerbaijani court convicted Ali Hasanov, editor-in-chief of the pro-government daily Ideal, on defamation charges and sentenced him to six months in jail, according to the head of the Baku-based Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS), Emin Huseynov. The journalist was taken immediately into custody in court on Friday. His lawyer plans to appeal the ruling, according to Huseynov...

Two Nigerien journalists were sentenced to prison Tuesday on criminal libel charges over editorials critically scrutinising the director of the country's electricity supplier. The two men are free pending an appeal after spending five days in prison. A criminal court judge in the capital, Niamey, sentenced editor Moussa Aksar and reporter Aboubacar Sani of the weekly L'Evènement to three months in...

Rajdeep Sardesai, Editor-in-Chief, IBN Network, has been unanimously been elected as President of Editors’ Guild of India. Sardesai is the first TV editor to be elected to this post. He takes over from Alok Mehta, Editor, Naidunia Delhi. K Sachidananda Murthy, Resident Editor – Delhi, the Week, has been re-elected General Secretary, while India TV COO Rohit Bansal has been elected the treasurer at...

Dublin-based Independent News & Media (INM) will cut jobs at its London-based Independent newspaper and Sunday sister title in a bid to slash costs as a global downturn hits advertising revenue, Reuters reported on Tuesday. "It is anticipated that the final number of redundancies will number around 90, of which a sizeable number will be voluntary, and the total savings will be in excess of 10...

Emmanuel Emeka Asiwe, editor of the Huhuonline ( http://huhuonline.com) website, has been released after a week of interrogation by Nigeria's State Security Service, the domestic intelligence agency, but deplores its refusal to let him to go back to the United States, where he lives. “Irked by websites with political or satirical content, the Nigerian authorities are trying to force online...

A federal appeals court in the US on Monday threw out a contempt order requiring fines of up to $5,000 a day against a former USA Today reporter who refused to identify sources for stories about the 2001 anthrax attacks, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. Toni Locy had been ordered by a judge to personally pay the fines unless she identified officials who discussed Steven J Hatfill, who was...

The New York Times Co is closing its quarterly sports magazine, Play, to cut costs and focus on other Sunday insert magazines such as its weekly travel publication, T, in a falling ad market. The New York Times reported: [ Link] Mark Bryant, the editor of Play since its inception, said he was told last week that the issue published last month would be the final one, “and I started letting the...