News

HARARE, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe named a new board on Tuesday to consider an application to reopen the country's largest private newspaper, four years after it was banned. The government said it was replacing a commission which had rejected a licence application for Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe's (ANZ) Daily News and Daily News on Sunday, which have been critical of President Robert Mugabe...

(FMM/IFEX) - On 30 October 2007, at approximately 11:45 p.m. (local time), journalist Kumudu Champika Jayawardana of the informational website http://www.ethalaya.org was fired upon in Colombo, as he returned home from the office on his motorcycle. Two men in shorts waved at him to stop his motorcycle, but Jayawardana rode past them only to be shot in the back. The shooting took place on Nawala...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has called for the unconditional release of reporter Marc Garmirian of the Capa news agency and photographer Jean-Daniel Guillou of the Synchro X agency, who have been held since 25 October 2007 in the eastern town of Abéché with members of the French association Arche de Zoé (Zoé's Ark) following an abortive attempt to evacuate African children to France...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned a sentence of one-month’s forced labour imposed on editor of al-Wafd, Anwar Al-Hawari and Younes Darwish, the daily’s correspondent in Assyout, 380 kms south of Cairo, for “publishing false news” about fraud by two members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Darwish wrote an article that appeared in March 2007 based on a meeting of the regional...

Guardian Unlimited posted an increase of nearly a million users over the past month to hit the highest-ever unique user figure for a UK net newspaper. According to the figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronics, the web pages of the Guardian newspaper were accessed by 16.7 million people in September. This far outstrips the reach of the real-world copy of the newspaper, which has an...

The BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, is to launch a further 30 channels internationally, as well as a high-definition outlet and an on-demand service in the United States, as part of the next stage of its aggressive expansion plan. The launches, which will be based on four thematic brands - BBC Entertainment, with shows such as Doctor Who; BBC Knowledge, featuring programmes such as Top Gear...

New York, October 29, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Sunday’s murder in Baghdad of Shehab Mohammad al-Hiti, an editor for the fledgling weekly Baghdad al-Youm. Al-Hiti, 27, was last seen leaving his home in Baghdad’s western neighborhood of Al-Jamia to go to the paper’s offices around mid-day Sunday, a source at the paper told CPJ. Iraqi security forces found the journalist’s...

It was billed as a bitter falling out of comrades on the left, a vicious civil war between two leaders of totemic papers of the liberal intelligentsia. But when the dust settled and the blood was mopped up, the casualty count stood at two – Roger Alton, the maverick, award-winning editor of The Observer, and his trusted lieutenant, executive editor Kamal Ahmed. Alton's sudden resignation last week...

Six women who risked their lives reporting in Iraq, a Mexican reporter who faced death threats for her reporting on paedophiles, and an Ethiopian journalist who was charged with treason have received awards for courage from the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF). Caroline Kennedy (left) speaks with journalist Ban Adil Sarhan of Iraq before Sarhan was presented with a Courage in...

The global leadership of the International Federation of Journalists today protested over this week’s closure by the Russian fire authorities of the House of Journalists, a popular meeting place for reporters in central Moscow. The IFJ says the action is evidence of fresh intimidation of media and independent journalism by the Government of President Vladimir Putin in advance of Parliamentary...