News

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California (Reuters) - Google Inc. has become more comfortable doing big acquisitions but still sees small technology deals as its primary thrust for buying businesses, its chief executive said on Thursday. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told reporters at a briefing at Google headquarters that the Web search leader remained open to buying larger companies, as it has done twice in...

BANGKOK, Thailand - The Thai government abruptly scrapped plans to sue Google after the U.S. company agreed to remove from a Web site video clips deemed insulting to the country's revered king, an official said Friday. The government blocked access to YouTube — a popular video-sharing site owned by Google — on April 4, after Google Inc. turned down Thailand's request to remove the clips seen as...

LONDON (Reuters) - Police have bailed five people, including a journalist, arrested on Tuesday as part of an investigation into the alleged leaking to the media of sensitive police information. The five also include two police officers and a soldier. No details of the nature of the leaked material were immediately available but Thames Valley Police said their joint investigation with Hertfordshire...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, May 11, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by reports that police in the southern Russian city of Samara have raided the local bureaus of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and the independent news agency Regnum. Three journalists with other news organizations were also detained and interrogated, according to news reports. The police actions come one...

(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) - The very day Blair formally announced his intention to step down as leader of the Labour Party, an Old Bailey judge sentenced a whistleblower to six months' imprisonment and issued a gagging order against the media, sending a clear signal that government secrecy remains strong. Parallel efforts by the government to undermine the two-year-old Freedom of Information Act reinforce...

(HRinfo/IFEX) - Hrinfo has expressed dismay that Judge Abdel Fatah Murad has asked the Administrative Judiciary Court to block 29 websites, in addition to the 21 he had previously requested be made inaccessible. The judge amended his original list of websites following a 5 May 2007 investigation of the case by the court, resulting in a total of 50 websites presently vulnerable to closure as a...

(AJI/IFEX) - On World Press Freedom Day on 3 May 2007, the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Indonesia received the sad news that the state is seeking the arrest of journalist Risang Bima Wijaya, who has been in hiding following a 2005 Supreme Court ruling rejecting his appeal against a libel verdict handed to him by a lower court. The Supreme Court sentenced Risang Bima Wijaya, former...

QUITO, Ecuador – President Rafael Correa is suing a local newspaper for libel over an editorial that said he was leading the politically unstable nation with “mobs, rocks and clubs.” Correa said the La Hora editorial was “unfounded” and offended “the dignity of the country's foremost authority.” But he added he would drop the lawsuit if the paper's president, Francisco Vivanco, who is named in the...

(FLIP/IFEX) - Adamis Guerra Bermúdez, photographer for the Valledupar edition of the newspaper "Vanguardia Liberal", was assaulted on 9 May 2007 by informal gasoline vendors protesting a recent decision by the national tax authority. The incident occurred near the town hall of La Paz, 15 minutes from the city of Valledupar in Cesar department. The photographer and journalist Edgardo Mendoza were...

Baghdad, May 11, (VOI) – Iraqi journalist Jamal al-Atabi said the U.S. forces released his son Furat, a layout designer in the Iraqi newspaper al-Sabah, on Friday after three months in detention. "Iraqi Member of Parliament Mathal al-Alusi had several contacts with the U.S. forces for the release of my son, detained since February 2007, without any charges," Atabi told the independent news agency...