News

Public awareness of the number of American military fatalities in Iraq has declined sharply since last August. Today, just 28 per cent of adults are able to say that approximately 4,000 Americans have died in the Iraq war. As of March 10, the Department of Defence had confirmed the deaths of 3,974 US military personnel in Iraq. In August 2007, 54 per cent correctly identified the fatality level at...

Senior IPS officer RK Sharma was Monday awarded life imprisonment by a Delhi court in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case. The court said he did not deserve the death penalty due to his "excellent" service record. Three other convicts were also sentenced to life imprisonment for the gruesome killing. Additional Sessions Judge Rajender Kumar Shastri, disallowing the prosecution's plea that the...

A reporter was shot dead by his sister-in-law's brother at Panki area in the district, the Kanpur police has said, according to a Press Trust of India (PTI) report. Vinay, who was a reporter with a Delhi-based news organisation, had come to Allahabad to meet his brother and sister-in-law on Holi, SSP Anand Swaroop said. The trio, then went to Priya's brother's place, Ajay, at Panki where Vinay and...

Syrian authorities are insisting on having a military tribunal examine charges against journalist Mazen Darwish, head of the Syrian Centre for Media Freedom and Freedom of Expression. He is accused of "libelling and defaming the state's bodies" by publishing a feature report about the January 2008 riots in Damascus, and for criticising the security bodies' failure to protect the citizens killed in...

Tesco Lotus, one of the biggest retailers in Thailand, has filed two staggering defamation cases against a Thai columnist and a former Member of Parliament, sending a strong message to civil society and the press to tread carefully before criticising the retailing giant in Thailand. Tesco Lotus is suing columnist/academic Kamol Kamoltrakul and former Thai National Legislative Assembly (NLA) member...

The Burmese Press Scrutiny and Registration Board has suspended the 7 Days News journal for a week for reporting on a multiple-murder case in its March 13 issue, according to Mizzima News. The report quoted police and covered the funeral of a family of four and their domestic help who were shot dead in broad daylight near the home of imprisoned leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon on March 3, said...

Journalist Sanjuana Martínez Montemayor has been informed that her services will not longer be required by the daily Milenio, in Monterrey, Mexico, due to a "restructuring of the newspaper." The last article published by the journalist was titled "Ernestina: a year of ignominy" in the newspaper's 'A Bocajarro' column. In the article, Martínez Montemayor criticised the federal government's handling...

Authorities in in the Russian republic of Ingushetia want to see the back of a private television channel that has shown critical reports from the region. In an open letter to the Russian parliament, the prosecutor-general, the FSB security service and the interior ministry, delegates of the region’s Popular Assembly demanded that Moscow-based REN-TV stop broadcasting in the Republic, according to...

Two gendarmes have testified in court that they told their superiors about plans to kill journalist Hrant Dink six months before his murder on January 19, 2007, but their superiors did nothing and later threatened them with reprisals if they mentioned the information. The gendarmes from the northeastern city of Trabzon, Okan Simsek and Veysel Sahin, who are on trial for failing to react after...

Several top US newspaper publishers will devote online advertising space to a new network that wants to make it easier to place ads on hundreds of newspapers' websites at a time, says a Reuters report. The network, quadrantONE, said it will get space from 138 sites and represent more than 250 newspapers. Publishers joining the network include AH Belo Corp, McClatchy Co, Media General Inc and EW...