News

CONSUMERS who get their news from the internet are likely to trust a blog for reliability as much as a mainstream media site, the competition watchdog said today. Graeme Samuel, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chairman, said a recent report by search engine Technorati showed the number of non-mainstream blogs in the 100 most popular information websites was rising. "What is...

SALIH SAIF ALDIN was one of those extraordinary Iraqis who have responded to war and upheaval in their homeland by becoming journalists. A native of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town and once one of the centers of the Sunni insurgency, he began documenting events there, first for an Iraqi newspaper and then, beginning in January 2004, for The Washington Post. His commitment to the toughest...

A freelance journalist was shot dead near Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk on Monday, less than 24 hours after a reporter for the Washington Post was killed in Baghdad. Dhi Abdul-Razak al-Dibo, a 32-year-old freelance reporter, was killed in an ambush by unidentified gunmen Tuesday near the city of Kirku, 180 km north of Baghdad. His two bodyguards were injured in the attack. Saif Aldin, an Iraqi...

New York, October 15, 2007—A story describing purported late-night outings involving President Abdoulaye Wade led authorities in the capital, Dakar, to arrest a journalist last week, according to local journalists and news reports. A reporter involved in the story is wanted by police and has gone into hiding. Papa Moussa Guèye, director of the private newspaper L'Exclusif—the only daily based in...

BCHR has learned that the Bahraini authorities have taken measures to block access by people in Bahrain to the website of the HAQ movement ( http://www.haaq.org ). The HAQ Movement for Liberties and Democracy is a popular civic organization, established in November 2005, calling for respect for rights and democratization in Bahrain. HAQ and other popular organisations are not registered under the...

(Adil Soz/IFEX) - Saida Kurbonova, editor-in-chief of the "Ovoza" newspaper, and two of the newspaper's journalists, Mukhaiyo Nozimova and Farangis Nabiyeva, are facing charges under Article 135 ("slander contained in public speeches"), Article 136 ("insult contained in public speeches") and Article 144 ("illegal collection and distribution of private information") of the Criminal Code. The...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders welcomes the arrest of Wensley Boshomme, a gang member also known as "Zachary Occeda" and "Bertold," who is suspected of participating in the July 2005 murder of Jacques Roche, the head of the arts and culture section of the daily "Le Matin". Boshomme was arrested in a joint operation by police and members of the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has supported the Thai Parliament's decision not to extend its lèse majesté laws, which restrict media coverage of issues involving the royal family and advisors. Thailand already has severe lèse majesté laws to protect the royal family from criticism or attack. Any journalist in breach of the laws faces a prison term of up to fifteen...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, October 15, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the arrest of Khin Mar Lar, the wife of award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Thaung Tun. Khin Mar Lar was arrested on September 25 in her family home in Amarapura, a suburb of Mandalay, by police looking for Thaung Tun, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma (USCB). Tun, who is also known as...

Every edition of the Guardian and Observer newspapers is to be made available via a newly launched online digital archive. The first phase of the Guardian News & Media archive, containing the Guardian from 1821 to 1975 and The Observer from 1900 to 1975, will launch on November 3. It will contain exact replicas of the original newspapers, both as full pages and individual articles. and will be...