News

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has deplored the UN's refusal to issue accreditation to the Taiwanese media for the 63rd session of General Assembly that opened in New York on September 16. The press freedom organisation recently wrote to Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon asking him to help find a way for Taiwan's journalists to be able to cover the General Assembly. The United Nations has been...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has welcomed the arrest of suspects in the killing of three journalists and a media worker in Mosul. CNN reported that two suspects have been arrested in Mosul, according to Gen Jalal Tawfeeq, military operations commander of Nineveh province, who spoke to al-Sharqiya. According to Reuters, Brig-Gen Khalid Abdul Sattar, the spokesman for Iraqi military...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has welcomed the decision by the 2008 Academy of the Chernoritzets Hrabar award in Sofia, on the recommendation of the Union of Bulgarian Publishers, to revoke a prize awarded earlier this year to a racist journalist. The prestigious Young Journalist of the Year prize given to Kalin Rumenov, a journalist with the Novinar national newspaper...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has voiced its deep concern about an upsurge in fatwas (religious decrees) calling for the murder of journalists in the Arab and Muslim world. In the latest case, a high-ranking Saudi official, Sheikh Saleh al-Luhidan, president of the superior council of jurisprudence, issued a fatwa on September 12 calling for the murder of owners of Arabic satellite television...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for a review of the trial of alleged regional drug baron Ceferino García, who was acquitted by a court in Maturín, in the northeastern Venezuelan state of Monagas, on August 28 of masterminding the murder of Mauro Marcano. A radio and newspaper journalist, Marcano was gunned down outside his Maturín home on September 1, 2004. "This verdict is a victory...

A group of 50 armed men Sunday attacked the Shahpur Jehanian Press Club, of Tehsil Daulatpur, in Nawabshah District of Pakistan's southern province of Sindh, the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) has reported. The attackers beat and abducted four journalists and took physical control of the press club. Among those assaulted were: Manthar Dahiri, correspondent of the daily newspaper Sobh and...

Press freedom organisations have urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to intercede on behalf of former journalist Ahmed Ghous Zalmai and Mullah Qari Mushtaq, who were sentenced Thursday by a Kabul court to 20 years in prison for publishing a Dari translation of the Koran. Dari is the Farsi (Persian) dialect spoken in Afghanistan. "We appeal to the president's spirit of tolerance and ask him to...

The Novato Advance, a weekly newspaper in Marin County, Novato, California, will cease publication after 86 years, citing declining advertising revenues and higher expenses, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. The newspaper announced Wednesday that it would publish its last issue on September 24. The paper, which has a circulation of about 10,500 and employs 18 people, has not been profitable...

Job cuts, prompted by dwindling margins being experienced by newspaper industry in the US and UK, could prove to be a boon for the Indian graphic designer firms set to grab a sizeable chunk of the increased offshoring, a research study says, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI). A substantial drop in the advertisement revenue of newspapers in the US and UK due to tremendous increase in on...

Singapore's attorney-general's office has initiated legal action against the Wall Street Journal Asia and two editors over articles allegedly casting doubt on the judiciary's integrity, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). A statement on the website of the Attorney-General's Chambers on Friday said the articles "impugn on the impartiality, integrity and independence of the Singapore judiciary...