News

Though the role of anti-tobacco advertising in reducing youth smoking has been fairly well established in recent years, a new study indicates that newspaper editorial coverage also may have a significant indirect impact. The study evaluates the relationship between newspaper coverage of the Florida Tobacco Control Program's (FTCP) health promotion campaign with declines in youth smoking reported...

Afghan secret police have arrested journalist and blogger Kamran Mir Hazar, editor of the kabulpress.org website, for the second time in just over a month. As he left his office Thursday in the company of some colleagues, he was arrested by four men waiting outside. They identified themselves as members of the secret police and took him away, without saying why. “Once again the authorities have...

New York, August 9, 2007—A Senegalese government official accused of lying about his educational degree threatened reporters with violence this week, according to news reports and local journalists. Transport Minister Farba Senghor threatened over a newsroom speakerphone on Tuesday to “beat up” private daily Walf Grand-Place’s reporter Pape Sambaré Ndour, after calling the journalist a “bastard,”...

New York, August 9, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed deep skepticism about drug and weapons charges leveled against four reporters in northern Mexico covering a drug raid. The reporters were detained Tuesday by the Mexican army while they were covering a routine drug raid in the northern state of Coahuila. They have been charged with possession of a firearm and marijuana...

(HRinfo/IFEX) - On 9 August 2007, HRinfo called for the Syrian government to conduct a fair and honest investigation concerning the assault against Iraqi journalist Saif al-Khayat, who suffered serious violations at the hands of Syrian Political Security Forces before he was ordered to leave Syria in mid-June 2007. Al-Khayat had traveled to Syria to work as a member of the Japanese news agency...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned an attack by gunmen on Believers Broadcasting Network (BBN), a protestant-run radio station in Freetown, in the early hours of 4 August in which two radio presenters were shot and seriously injured. “Coming just a few days before general elections on 11 August, this armed attack should be taken seriously,” the press freedom organisation said. “We urge the...

The Roh Moo-hyun administration has decided to take disciplinary measures against South Korean journalists and their companies that do not abide by the "news embargoes'' set by government offices. The Government Information Agency (GIA) Tuesday unveiled a plan to implement it as early as next month, the Korea Times reported. Journalists who violate embargoes would be banned from interviewing...

A "spying" bill that would allow the Zimbabwean government to intercept mail, phone calls and emails without having to get court approval has been signed into law by President Robert Mugabe. Under the "Interception of Communications" law, service providers will be forced to install "enabling equipment" on behalf of the government, which would allow senior intelligence, police and revenue officials...

Reporters Without Borders today urged the Kazakh authorities not to come to any hasty conclusions about Saken Tauzhanov’s death on 2 August and to do everything possible to clarify the circumstances. The authorities said the 37-year-old journalist, who wrote for three independent news websites, zonakz.net, dialog.kz, and kub.kz, was run over by a truck. “We wonder about the circumstances of this...

JUBA, Sudan, Aug 8 (Reuters) - The editor and owner of Sudan's The Citizen daily was arrested and jailed for a day because of his coverage of a corruption investigation involving high-level south Sudanese officials, he said. Southerner Nhial Bol was released on Tuesday evening from his jail in south Sudan's capital, Juba, and warned other journalists could face a worse fate because the semi...