News

RARELY if ever has a company risen so fast in so many ways as Google, the world's most popular search engine. This is true by just about any measure: the growth in its market value and revenues; the number of people clicking in search of news, the nearest pizza parlour or a satellite image of their neighbour's garden; the volume of its advertisers; or the number of its lawyers and lobbyists. Such...

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- CNN, Time Warner Inc.'s global cable- television news channel, will stop using Reuters Group Plc's news service starting tomorrow, according to an internal e-mail. ``We are making significant investments in our own newsgathering while simultaneously reducing our reliance on agency material,'' according to the e-mail sent to employees by Atlanta-based CNN International's...

Reporters Without Borders today drew the international community’s attention to the rapidly deteriorating condition of imprisoned journalist Faramaz Allahverdiyev. According to his wife, Tahira Allahverdiyeva, he is “close to death.” He has already undergone an operation and doctors say another one would not improve his condition. A reporter with the independent daily Nota Bene, he has been in...

Reporters Without Borders is relieved to learn that Gérard M. Manzi, the editor of the privately-owned weekly Umuseso, was released yesterday after his lawyer submitted signed statements by witnesses supporting his alibi in a rape charge on which the police had held him for eight days. Manzi has been told he must remain at the disposal of the police. Earlier report: Reporters Without Borders calls...

New York, August 30, 2007—Niger’s state-run High Council on Communications has banned the broadcast of live debates on an armed rebellion of nomadic Tuaregs in the north of the uranium-rich West African nation, according to local journalists. Attacks by Tuareg fighters have killed at least 45 soldiers since February, according to Reuters. The ruling on Tuesday was linked to the broadcast of a live...

Channel Five is to become the first UK broadcaster to ban staged shots used in editing from news reports, in a bid to win back trust from viewers following the spate of recent "TV fakery" scandals. Other broadcasters, including Sky News and the BBC, are said to be looking to follow Five's lead, which will see it axe what its news editor, David Kermode, calls "rather hackneyed tricks". Kermode, who...

NEW DELHI: Curious why the messenger was being probed and harassed while the message seemed to have been lost, the Delhi HC has barred the Delhi Police from arresting two journalists who secretly filmed 11 members of parliament allegedly receiving cash to raise questions on the floor of the house. Seeking to know what action has been taken against the errant MPs, Justice S N Dhingra on Wednesday...

(SEAPA/IFEX) - A senior member of Thailand's interim National Legislative Assembly (NLA) says martial law may remain in place in 35 Thai provinces in the short term, possibly through to scheduled national elections in December 2007. On 29 August, Prasong Soonsiri, who chairs the NLA's special committee reviewing bills in preparation for the general elections, told Bangkok's English-language daily...

(CJES/IFEX) - The Saratov Volzhsky District Court has ruled in favour of the plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by the Saratov regional section of the United Russia party against the newspaper "Saratovsky Rasklad". The court found the information stated in the article run by the newspaper on 9 August 2007 to be untrue and defamatory to the reputation of the Saratov regional section of the United...

(MFWA/IFEX) - The Libyan President Colonel Mouammar Qadhafi has filed a suit against three Niamey-based independent weekly newspapers for allegedly publishing "false information" that could undermine his honour. The newspapers are "L'Evènement", le "Canard Déchaîné" and "L'Action." Under Nigerian press laws, the editors of the three newspapers, if convicted, could face prison sentences of up to...