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British journalist Sean Langan has been released after being abducted and held in Afghanistan for three months by a group associated with the Taliban, the Press Associaiton (PA) has reported. The freelance reporter was working for the Channel 4 programme Dispatches when he was abducted on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some details: A spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office...

The row between the Madiga Reservation Porata Samiti (MRPS) and daily Andhra Jyothi took a turn for the worse Tuesday with the arrest of editor K Srinivas and two reporters under the provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the Hindu has reported. Some details: The arrest of the journalists was based on a complaint lodged by MRPS leader Manda Krishna Madiga alleging that the action...

A woman journalist covering the plight of Cyclone Nargis victims seeking aid from international NGOs in Rangoon has been detained by for over two weeks, according to her publication, Mizzima News has reported. Eint Khaing Oo, 24, a journalist with the weekly journal Ecovision, was arrested on June 10 as she covered the story of cyclone victims approaching NGOs for aid, according to an executive...

Angolan journalist Felisberto da Grâça Campos was sentenced Monday by an Angolan court to six months in prison for allegedly defaming former justice minister Paulo Tjipilika. The journalist was sentenced on charges of defamation, libel, and abuse of the press, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). Grâça Campos is the director of the weekly Semanario Angolese. The state argues...

A 10-day prison sentence has been handed down to independent journalist Mazen Darwish, President of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, according to the Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). He was sentenced under Article 387 of the criminal code for "defamation and insulting state administrative bodies". The verdict will appear on his record for a period of three to...

An 11-year prison sentence has been imposed on Kurdish journalist Mohammad Sadegh Kabovand for "activity against national security." The former editor of Payam-e Mardom-e Kurdestan, a weekly closed down in 2005, Kabovand received his 11-year sentence on June 22 from a Tehran revolutionary court for creating a human rights organisation in Iran's Kurdish region. Since his arrest in July 2007, he has...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has welcomed the "transparency" of a US Defence Department report released on June 16 confirming that US soldiers were responsible for the fatal shooting of Reuters soundman Waleed Khaled in Baghdad on August 28, 2005. Khaled drove with Reuters cameraman Haider Kadhem to the Baghdad district of Al-Adil to cover a situation in which an Iraqi police unit had been...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the arrest of journalist Ahmed Al-Majoun in a raid by US and Iraqi soldiers on his home in Tikrit (180 km north of Baghdad) early on June 24. His son was also arrested. Majoun heads a journalists union based in Salah El Din, the province of which Tikrit is the capital. No reason has been given for their arrests. "We are disturbed to see that, just a...

The ministerial council of Arab information ministers, held in the headquarters of the Arab League on June 20 and 21, has sought to further restrict satellite television broadcasting. The meeting resulted in the release of a document employing overly broad terms to define a proposed regulatory framework for satellite channel transmissions, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights...

Bomb attacks were carried out Saturday against the privately-owned television station Canal 4-Unitel in Yacuiba, Tarija department, southern Bolivia, and against the radio station Radio Kollasuyo in Potosí, in the department of the same name in the country's southwest. Political and media polarisation that is undermining the country was behind both attacks, which caused severe damage in both cases...