News

(IAPA/IFEX) - MIAMI, Florida (September 19, 2007) - The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today voiced concern to the Nicaraguan government at limits placed on newspaper production supplies as a result of a tax burden on the press, saying it contradicts principles of press freedom and free speech guaranteed under the Central American nation's Constitution. At issue is a dispute between the...

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) expressed again today its concern for the May 10 disappearance of journalists Gamaliel López and Gerardo Paredes of TV Azteca Noroeste and at the lack of progress in the investigations into their whereabouts. López is a reporter and Paredes a cameraman for the TV station located in Monterrey, in the northern Mexico state of Nuevo León. According to...

Bangalore, Sept. 19 (PTI): Seeking abolition of the Wage Board, the Indian Newspaper Society today accused the Central government of trying to curb the freedom of speech and independence of the media. “At a time when independent India boasts of a free and open economy, we are faced with yet another Wage Board– being the only industry in the country to have one”, INS President Hormusji N Cama said...

Reporters Without Borders and its partner organisation in Democratic Republic of Congo, Journalist in Danger (JED), are outraged that two petty criminals who were convicted by a military court of shooting UN radio journalist Serge Maheshe in the eastern city of Bukavu have written a letter accusing two military judges of bribing them to say two of Maheshe’s friends paid them to kill him. The two...

Authorities in Bangladesh on Tuesday ordered the arrest of a cartoonist and confiscated copies of a major newspaper's weekly supplement for publishing a "blasphemous" caricature. "The government has confiscated the issue as the c-artoon hurt the religious sentiments of the people. Moreover, an order was issued to arrest cartoonist Arifur Rahman," an official statement said, referring to the weekly...

The Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers (BDVZ) has warned against "damage to the sensitive good that is the freedom of the press" in Germany. The "series of preliminary proceedings launched of late against journalists for allegedly aiding and abetting the betrayal of secrets" pointed to a "highly questionable interpretation of freedom of the press," Helmut Heinen, the president of...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A judge on Tuesday ordered Star Tribune publisher Par Ridder to leave his job for a year, a sweeping victory for the rival St. Paul Pioneer Press, which had accused its former publisher of misusing proprietary information. Ridder's actions when he joined the Star Tribune in March caused the Pioneer Press "irreparable harm," Judge David C. Higgs wrote. He said an injunction was...

The Swedish cartoonist who depicted Islam's prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog has gone into hiding following a death threat from Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Lars Vilks, who was whisked away by the police when he returned to Sweden from Germany on Sunday, said police have described the threats against him as "very serious." The leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, offered $100,000 over the...

The New York Times Co will end its paid TimesSelect Web service and make most of its website available for free in the hopes of attracting more readers and higher advertising revenue. TimesSelect will shut down on Wednesday, two years after the Times launched it, which charges subscribers $7.95 a month or $49.95 a year to read articles by well-known columnists like Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman...

Members of the Somali Transitional National Government security forces raided the Radio Shabelle office in the capital, Mogadishu, Saturday morning and detained 19 staff members, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The security forces accused the journalists of throwing a grenade at a police patrol. Security forces fired into a nearby hallway during a daily editorial meeting...