News

Seven employees of a pro-peace radio station in Israel were released from jail Tuesday, a day after police raided the station's Jerusalem office and seized its transmission equipment, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. On Monday, police shut down the transmitter and closed the studio, saying the station was broadcasting without a permit. There are numerous pirate radio stations broadcasting...

A gunman on a motorcycle shot dead a Philippine newspaper columnist in Manila on Monday night, the first journalist killed this year in the Southeast Asian nation, Reuters reported quoting police sources on Tuesday. Benefredo Acabal was walking close to a friend's house on Monday night when a man on a motorcycle shot him five times in the head and the body, police officer Lardy Ignacio said. The...

A Bangladeshi journalist who has reported extensively on alleged police corruption has been detained by the police and accused of robbery. Rabiul Islam, a journalist for the Daily Sunshine, a Rajshahi-based newspaper in the Bangla language, has written several reports implicating the Durgapur police force in alleged corruption and malpractice. On March 28, Rabiul was taken in to custody accused of...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the killing of Carlos Quispe, a journalist working for Radio Municipal in the city of Pucarani, about 40 km west of La Paz, Bolivia, and called for the government to act quickly to find those responsible. A group that opposes the mayor attacked the city’s municipal building on March 27. The mob then moved onto the municipal radio...

The editor of a New York-based weekly has received a death threat. Majeed Babar, executive editor of the Weekly Asia Tribune, said a man called him on March 29 and told him, “We will cut you to pieces” in Urdu. Babar told the Committee to Protct Journalists (CPJ) that the threat was linked to opinion columns and paid advertisements promoting a beauty pageant in his print and online newspaper, the...

A New York Times correspondent and a British freelancer who were arrested and accused of reporting illegally in Zimbabwe have been freed on bail, but their passports are being held and they are unable to leave the country, the Associated Press (AP) has reported quoting a lawyer. Barry Bearak, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Times, suffered a back injury during a fall in his cell, said...

The Yemeni government has cancelled the licence of independent weekly newspaper Al-Wasat. On Saturday last, Information Minister Hassan al-Lawzi ordered the newspaper’s licence terminated because the paper had damaged relations with Saudi Arabia, and violated technical provisions of the press law, according to local journalists and official press accounts. A Yemeni government spokesman who asked...

Four men have been convicted and sentenced to 11 years each in the November 2004 murder of Mexican photographer Gregorio Rodríguez Hernández. Judge Daniel Armenta Rentería convicted former Escuinapa Police Chief Abel Enríquez Zavala on charges that he acted as an intermediary between the mastermind and the perpetrators, court secretary Juan Carlos López told the New York-based Committee to Protect...

Network 18 and Marathi newspaper Lokmat have launched a regional news channel, says a CNN-IBN report. Bits from the promo news item: Speaking about the new venture CNN-IBN’s Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai said, “Our aim with IBN Lokmat was to build truly a world class regional channel that will fulfill the aspirations of the people of Maharashtra but more importantly will become a sort of bridge...

Russian prosecutors have opened a criminal case into the mysterious death in July 2003 of an investigative journalist and liberal lawmaker, news agency RIA Novosti has reported quoting an investigation committee spokesman on Friday. Yury Shchekochikhin, who reported on high-profile corruption cases, died after a brief and puzzling illness almost five years ago, at the age of 53. A post mortem...