News

The Sun and other News International newspapers could outsource part of their TV listings operation to India, as part of the company’s cost-cutting drive. News International is in talks with PA Solutions – a division of the PA Group, which also owns the Press Association wire service – about outsourcing its centralised listings operation, which supplies TV scheduling information to its four...

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association called today for the immediate release of U Aung Shwe Oo and Daw Sint Sint Aung, two Burmese journalists working for the Japanese television news agency, Nippon News Network (NNN), who were arrested on 21 May when they went to a port near Rangoon to confirm the arrival of a North Korean ship. "The arrest of these two Burmese journalists...

The Venezuelan government’s decision not to renew a television broadcasting license is being seen as a serious setback for freedom of expression in Venezuela. Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), the country’s oldest private channel, will have to close shop when its licence expires on May 27, 2007. President Hugo Chávez has repeatedly threatened to cancel RCTV’s licence ever since he accused it of...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday approved the setting up of a new wage board to recommend the minimum emoluments and perquisites for working journalists. “Formal orders regarding this will be issued shortly by the labour ministry,” said a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). “Working journalists may be reassured that the prime minister has fulfilled the assurance he had...

Israeli army Tuesday conducted raids on five Palestinian radio and TV stations in West Bank city Nablus, according to news reports. Some of the stations have stopped broadcasting because the soldiers removed the necessary equipment. “There was no justification for these raids and, even less so, for the confiscation of transmitting equipment from these stations,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF)...

Scotland's Sunday Herald recently reported that Google has entered into secret deals with unnamed UK news organizations for the rights to use their material on Google News. According to the paper, "It now seems that Google has accepted it has lost the argument over carrying stories without paying for them." That would be a shocking about-face—if it's true. A Google spokesperson tells Ars that the...

(Adil Soz/IFEX) - On 17 May 2007, the National Security Committee (NSC) filed charges against the opposition newspaper "Taz'zhargan" for insulting the honor and dignity of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, following the publication of materials in the newspaper reprinted from foreign media outlets. The charges stem specifically from two "Taz'zhargan" reports reprinted from the newspaper "New York...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has called for the lifting of a ban on the Arabic-language daily "al-Sudani", under a highly controversial article of criminal code procedure, over an editorial accusing the justice minister of "lying in a money-laundering case". The worldwide press freedom organisation however welcomed the release of the publisher and editor of the privately-owned paper...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the 20 May 2007 murder in Baghdad of Ali Khalil, of the daily "al-Zaman" ("Time"), and the kidnapping on 9 May of the journalist Salam Duhi al-Sudani. "Less than three days after the death of two journalists working for the US television network ABC, the profession is once again in mourning for this murder," the worldwide press freedom...

New York, May 22, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists is relieved by news that Ethiopian authorities released three New York Times journalists on Monday after detaining them for five days. Nairobi Bureau Chief Jeffrey Gettleman, photographer Vanessa Vick, and videographer Courtenay Morris were arrested May 16 by soldiers in the town of Degeh Bur, the Times reported today on its Web site. The...