News

Journalist Jofelle Tesorio, who was ordered jailed by a local judge Thursday morning, was released after almost ten hours in detention. Tesorio was brought to a women's detention facility in Camp Karingal in Quezon City shortly after posting a P20,000 bail bond about 9 a.m. Thursday morning. Tesorio, former correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and editor of Bandillo ng Palawan, is facing...

Yemeni authorities are questioning a journalist over alleged links to Shiite Muslim rebels accused of planning attacks against strategic sites, the ruling party said Thursday. Abdelkarim Al-Kiwani, editor of the Al-Shura weekly of the Union of Popular Forces Shiite party, "is currently being questioned ... about a link to the terrorist cell" led by Abdulmalik al-Huthi, it said on its website...

The decision by General Electric Co. and Pearson PLC to abandon their efforts to bid for Dow Jones & Co. aids Rupert Murdoch in his quest to acquire the publisher of The Wall Street Journal but raises questions about the strategies of the other three going forward. Pearson must now determine the best course for its Financial Times newspaper, which the publishing company was considering hiving off...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, June 22, 2007 - Nigeria's leading independent broadcast network says it will take the government to court next week after authorities demolished three new station facilities in the capital, Abuja. African Independent Television (AIT) plans to sue for damages after the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), a local government entity, last week bulldozed without warning three...

(CMFR/IFEX) - A lawyer for the journalists who filed a class suit against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's husband Jose Miguel Arroyo has asked Makati City Judge Zenaida Laguilles to quash the defense subpoenas on eight of the journalist-plaintiffs. The subpoenas were received by the Roque and Butuyan law office, which handles the case of the journalists, on 18 June 2007. They require...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has voiced concern about a wave of court orders imposing "preventive censorship" on news media. In most cases, the orders are issued by local courts and are often quashed on appeal. Nonetheless, they feed a climate of intimidation and encourage self-censorship. "Legal measures against news media that defame, insult or violate the right to privacy are not in...

(CENCOS/IFEX) - Amid the impunity currently the rule regarding attacks on journalists and media outlets, "Generos" newspaper journalist Claudio Tiznado has decided to ask for asylum in the United States, following an assault. "Generos" is a bimonthly newspaper based in Hermosillo, a city in the northern state of Sonora. Tiznado was assaulted at the end of April 2007. He believes the assault was...

(CENCOS/IFEX) - The staff of "Hora Cero" newspaper, a bi-weekly newspaper based in the city of Reynosa, in Tamaulipas state, northern Mexico, have built barricades at the newspaper's entrance, after receiving information that a group of people intend to mob the facility in response to the newspaper's publication of information on the misuse of public funds by Reynosa mayor Francisco Javier García...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has voiced revulsion at the murder of Noor Ahmed Solangi, a correspondent for the Sindhi-language newspaper "Khabroon" in Kingri, Sindh province. Ahmed Solangi, 34, died in a hail of nine bullets after he was ambushed by six people on motorbikes armed with Kalashnikovs, who shot him at point blank range as he was distributing newspapers on 17 June 2007. "We...

(FNJ/IFEX) - Pabitra Kumar Khadka, central representative of the FNJ and Sindhupalchowk correspondent for the national daily "Gorkhapatra ", was threatened with death on 18 June 2007 by Sub-Inspector Surendra Basnet and Constable Keshab Raut of the area police office in Barabise, Sindhupalchowk, a district in central Nepal. Khadka was threatened for not disclosing the source of a news report...