News

A Jordanian court has handed down jail terms of three months each on five newspaper journalists, including two prominent editors, for contempt of court and defamation. Editor Taher al-Adwan and reporter Sahar Qassam of the Arabic daily Al-Arab al-Youm, former Ad-Dustour editor Osama Sharif, and Ad-Dustour reporter Fayez Louzi were sentenced Thursday under the penal code to three months in prison...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is dropping a lawsuit against French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur for reporting that he sent a text message to ex-wife Cecilia offering to call off his marriage, a statement by his new wife Carla Bruni said today. Sarkozy last month had lodged the complaint against Le Nouvel Observateur for reporting he had sent a SMS to Cecilia eight days before his marriage to ex...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the immediate release of Argentina's Córdoba province-based journalist Néstor Pasquini, who has been held without trial for eight months on charges of inciting violence, aggravated arson, and causing minor injuries during a riot he was covering in a small town. The owner of local radio station FM Show and correspondent of the Red Panorama radio...

With international attention focused on the unfolding violence in Tibet, the Chinese media is confronting massive censorship, leaving the Chinese public largely in the dark. The Chinese government has barred or expelled virtually all international reporters from the region, and the state media presents the government’s perspective, which blames the Dalai Lama for the violence, the New York-based...

The first-ever detailed report on the plight of Iraqi journalists who have been forced into exile was released by Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) today, the eve of the fifth anniversary of the start of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Most of these journalists fled to Jordan or Syria after receiving threats or surviving murder attempts. Hundreds are trying to live a normal life again in Amman or...

The editor of a small-circulation fortnightly is being detained for no known reason since March 7 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Nsimba Embete Ponte, editor of L’Interprète, is being held incommunicado in a building used by the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) in Kinshasa. “The security forces have no grounds for acting in this way,” Paris...

A Delhi fast track court Tuesday convicted suspended IPS officer Ravi Kant Sharma in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case of 1999 along with three other co-accused. While Sharma has been convicted under Sections 302, 120B and 201of the Indian Penal Code, three others—Sri Bhagwan, Satya Prakash and the alleged hired killer Pradeep Sharma—have been found guilty of murder and destruction of evidence...

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has now been given the power to reduce the term of the Chairman of Prasar Bharati from six to three years and a maximum age of 70 and raising the age-limit for the CEO to 65, with the Rajya Sabha giving its approval to the amendment bill in this regard. The CEO's term is also reduced from six to five years, says an indiantelevision.com report. The Prasar...

The Sri Lankan army took control yesterday of public Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) television. The army and police sealed off all roads leading to the station in the morning, preventing more than 200 staff from getting to work after employees threatened to strike in protest against a series of assaults by men “suspected of acting on behalf of a minister”. The takeover of the television...

Yemen banned a new magazine Sunday for publishing a picture of the nation's president deemed "inappropriate" by authorities, the Associated Press (AP) has reported quoting the magazine's editor. Nabil al-Soufi, editor of Abwab, said the security authorities banned the first issue of the magazine because they believed the picture of President Ali Abdullah Saleh on the cover made him look dour....