News

Social networking sites worldwide have grown substantially in the past year, with some sites registering increases of as much as 270 percent, according to a study released by Internet measurement company ComScore Inc. Social networking behemoth MySpace.com attracted more than 114 million global visitors age 15 and older in June 2007, representing a 72 per cent increase versus year ago. Facebook...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the abduction and beating of journalist Sinan Tekpetek by police in the Istanbul district of Beyoglu on 26 July. Tekpetek, who edits the newspaper Yüzde 52 Ofke (52 Per Cent of Anger) gave an account of the attack at a news conference at the headquarters of the Human Rights Association (IHD) in Istanbul on 28 July. “The violence described by Tekpetek is...

(BIANET/IFEX) - The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has heard the appeals of former Kayseri mayor Sükrü Karatepe, who had been convicted of "inciting hatred and hostility" and of Ziya Ulusoy, a journalist who had been sentenced to 16 months imprisonment. Both appeals were based on Article 6/1 of the European Convention on Human Rights and claimed that there had not been a fair trial. The...

(MFWA/IFEX) - On 31 July 2007, three men accompanying Sherry Ayittey, a functionary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Ghana's main opposition party, forced a photographer of the "Daily Guide", a pro-government newspaper, to remove images of Ayittey from his camera. Policemen from the Striking Force Unit of the Ghana Police Service prevented the three men from further harassing journalist...

BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dow Jones & Co Inc said on Thursday it did not know that one of the people named to protect its editorial independence after it becomes part of News Corp runs a foundation that received a donation pledge of $2.5 million from News Corp. Rupert Murdoch's global media conglomerate selected Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Nicholas Negroponte to be part of...

On the first anniversary of French journalist Grégoire de Bourgues’ murder in Kazakhstan, Reporters Without Borders today said it was obviously pleased that two people have been convicted of killing him but it condemned the Kazakh judicial system’s failure to shed full light on the case. “Many questions are still unresolved one year after this young French journalist’s death and the authorities...

With Rupert Murdoch’s $5 billion purchase of Dow Jones now approved by the board, the question focuses even more on how he might operate the company’s flagship Wall Street Journal. Those scrutinizing Murdoch’s U.S. newspaper holdings for clues to his stewardship of the Journal have frequently cited his in-your-face conservative New York Post tabloid as Exhibit A, and his ownership of papers in...

Newspapers in Manipur went off the press Wednesday after a gift-wrapped rocket-propelled grenade was delivered to a newspaper office in Imphal Tuesday night. Journalists and editors decided overnight to suspend publication of all dailies indefinitely and pull news bulletins off local cable channels. The grenade received by the Sangai Express came from a faction of the underground People’s...

Opposition-aligned Venezuelan TV channel RCTV has been allowed by the country's Supreme Court to remain on cable, just hours before a government-set deadline that could have removed it from the cable lineup. The Supreme Court of Justice said in a statement Wednesday that it suspended the telecommunications commission's order for Radio Caracas Television and other cable channels to register as...

A young journalism student and a part-time trainee journalist was shot dead in Jaffna Wednesday by unidentified gunmen. The killers called the victim out of his house in the wee hours and gunned him down. Sahathevan Nilakshan (22) was one of the editors of Sankam, a popular student magazine published by the Jaffna District Students Federation. Nilakshan, a journalism student of Jaffna Media...