News

3 June 2007

Wall St Journal journalists in threat over Murdoch bid

Journalists at The Wall Street Journal, the US financial newspaper being stalked by Rupert Murdoch, may stage a walk-out if he buys the title's parent company Dow Jones, according to sources close to the publication. The Bancroft family, which controls 64 per cent of Dow Jones through shares with special voting rights, said last week it would enter talks with Murdoch's News Corporation after it...

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3 June 2007

Murders, repression characterising dangers to Press around the globe in 2007

Nearly 60 journalists have been murdered in the past months, and prosecution of journalists for "treason" and "extremism" are on the rise, according to the annual half-year review of press freedom by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN). The report, presented Saturday to the Board of the Paris-based WAN on the eve of the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum in Cape Town, South...

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3 June 2007

UN tribunal offers hope for justice in Lebanese journalist attacks

The UN Security Council has established an international criminal tribunal empowered to prosecute individuals responsible for a series of deadly attacks against Lebanese journalists in 2005. The Security Council approved resolution 1757 on May 30, establishing an international criminal tribunal to prosecute the masterminds of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, who...

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3 June 2007

Pakistan: Cable operators decide to block anti-army TV channels

Cable operators in Pakistan have decided to block transmissions of television channels broadcasting negative programmes against the "solidarity of Pakistan, armed forces and the judiciary." The Cable Operators Association of Pakistan (CAP) Saturday announced that it could not become a party to the "campaign of TV channels." The chairman of the association, Khalid Shaikh, said cable operators were...

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1 June 2007

Journalists slain in a bloody week in Iraq

New York, June 1, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the slayings of four Iraqi journalists during an especially deadly week in the country. Nazar Abdulwahid al-Radhi, 38, a correspondent for the independent news agency Aswat al-Iraq and Radio Free Iraq, was gunned down in the southern city of Al-Amarah on Wednesday morning. Three men wearing white uniforms and riding in a pickup...

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1 June 2007

In Gaza, captors release video of abducted BBC reporter

New York, June 1, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists today renewed its call for the immediate release of captive BBC reporter Alan Johnston following the disclosure of a videotape showing the journalist alive and in apparent good health. The tape was the first proof of Johnston’s condition that captors have offered since the abduction in the Gaza Strip more than two months ago. The video...

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1 June 2007

Samir Kassir’s car-bomb murder still unpunished two years later

Reporters Without Borders voices its support for the tributes being paid in Paris to Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir on 4 June, to mark the second anniversary of his car-bomb murder in Beirut on 2 June 2005. A meeting is to be held at the Arab World Institute in Paris. At the same time, the press freedom organisation wonders why the investigation into his death is so slow and why no one has yet...

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1 June 2007

Rolling the dice

It seemed like a good idea at the time. With blogging flourishing and citizen journalism just budding, Mark Potts and Susan DeFife thought they had a winning formula for a new kind of journalistic enterprise. One evening in the summer of 2004, they sketched out their common vision: A series of hyperlocal, news-oriented Web sites whose tone and content--news, commentary, blogs, photos, calendar...

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31 May 2007

Iraq: Four journalists killed in less than a week by armed groups

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has voiced deep shock at the murders of four Iraqi journalists by armed groups within a space of five days. The body of a local TV station employee was found in the boot of his car in the northern city of Kirkuk on 26 May 2007. A Turkmen journalist was killed in Kirkuk on 28 May. Gunmen burst into the home of a journalism teacher and contributor to several...

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31 May 2007

Liberia: Govt lifts ban on independent newspaper

The Liberian government has lifted with immediate effect the ban it imposed on the Independent Newspaper. On February 27th, this year, the Government of Liberia through the Ministry of Information revoked the operational permit of the paper when it published what the Ministry described as obscene materials depicting former Presidential Affairs Minister Willis Knuckles having sex with two ladies...

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