News

Cutbacks to Maori and Pacific Islands production by TVNZ in New Zealand are a threat to democracy and claims to regional leadership, the Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF) has said. “TVNZ outsourcing news, current affairs and culture to private contractors are happening against a background of years of cutbacks,” said PFF Chair Titi Gabi. "News media are an integral part of any democracy but New...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has cndemned Monday's sentencing of Ethiopian journalist Temesghen Desalegn to three years' imprisonment on charges of defamation and incitement that date back to 2012. A court in Addis Ababa, the capital, convicted Temesgen on October 13 in connection with opinion pieces published in the now-defunct Feteh news magazine, according to news reports. He was...

Police and politicians in Zimbabwe should respect the right of journalists to report the news without fear of intimidation or violence, the Committee to Protect Journalists said after police beat up a journalist in capital Harare last week. The attack on Wednesday followed a statement made last week by Grace Mugabe, the wife of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, in which she said journalists...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Burmese authorities to immediately release a freelance journalist who has been in official custody for nearly a month after covering armed clashes between ethnic rebels and government forces in southeastern Burma. Aung Kyaw Naing, a Burmese freelance journalist based in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, was reporting from an area held by the rebel...

The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA), the union and industry advocate for Australia's journalists, has condemned the decision of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to abandon the investigation into the murder of five Australian journalists in East Timor. October 16 marked the 39th anniversary of the murder of journalists Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham and...

The bullet-riddled and half-buried body of local magazine editor Antonio Gamboa Urias was found Thursday in Ahome, in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, 13 days after he was reported missing. Sinaloa prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera said Gamboa was murdered after being abducted as he left a bar because of an argument that had taken place in the bar. Six people took part in the murder of Gamboa...

Al-Nur Ahmad Al-Nur, a leading Sudanese journalist who is the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat’s Sudan correspondent, was arrested by members of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) in Khartoum last Thursday evening for reasons that are still unknown. Al-Nur, who is also a columnist for the Sudanese daily Al-Tigheer, was arrested while on his way to his office and was...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliates Free Media Movement (FMM) and Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association (SLWJA) have condemned the death threats issued to some of the journalists who participated in the concluding ceremony of journalism training on October 15 in capital Colombo. The training was organised by Transparency International Sri Lanka and a number of...

A month after seizing the capital, Sanaa, and despite having signed a peace accord under UN aegis, Yemen’s Houthi rebels are continuing to advance on the centre and south of the country, occupying the headquarters of news media on the way and arresting or kidnapping journalists. In one recent instance, five gunmen claiming to be members of the Houthi movement stormed into the premises of...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) have expressed deep concern over the legal course against ARY News channel's CEO and its anchor over a broadcasting of a programme that challenged Pakistan's judiciary. The Supreme Court of Pakistan on October 13 decided to prosecute the chief executive of the private television network, Salman...