News

New York, May 11, 2007—Plainclothes officers raided the Dhaka home of prominent journalist and human rights advocate Tasneem Khalil early this morning in an action that the Committee to Protect Journalists called “an indication of the fragile state of press freedom in Bangladesh.” Four men identifying themselves as a “joint task force” came to Khalil’s house after midnight and said they were...

Reporters Without Borders has hailed the progress being made in the inquest into the 1975 deaths of cameraman Brian Peters and four other journalists in East Timor but deplored some of the comments made to the Coroners Court in Sydney on 8 May 2007 by former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his defence minister, Bill Morrison. "We share the anger expressed by some of the journalists' close...

May 11 (Bloomberg) -- Thomson Corp. agreed to sell its textbook and educational testing for $7.75 billion in cash to fund its $17.5 billion offer for Reuters Group Plc and create the biggest financial news and information company. Apax Partners, a London-based buyout firm, and the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System agreed to buy Thomson Learning and Nelson Canada, Thomson said today in...

PASADENA, Calif: The job posting was a head-scratcher: “We seek a newspaper journalist based in India to report on the city government and political scene of Pasadena, California, USA.” A reporter half a world away covering local street-light contracts and sewer repairs? A reporter who has never gotten closer to Pasadena than the telecast of the Rose Bowl parade? Outsourcing first claimed...

When is local journalism not really local? When it’s about Pasadena and written by someone in India. James Macpherson, editor and publisher of the Pasadena Now website, hired two reporters last weekend to cover the Pasadena City Council. One lives in Mumbai and will be paid $12,000 a year. The other will work in Bangalore for $7,200. The council broadcasts its meetings on the Web. From nearly 9...

The attack on the Dinakaran offices in Madurai by DMK supporters Wednesday has come in for condemnation from press freedom organisations worldwide. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) mourned the deaths of three employees of Tamil daily Dinakaran who were killed in an attack on the newspaper’s offices. “We are horrified by the attack on Dinakaran newspaper and mourn these...

(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) - A Memorandum by ARTICLE 19 highlights the failure of the new draft Constitution of the Republic of Montenegro to provide effective guarantees for freedom of expression. The proposed standard for restrictions on this fundamental right is low and the right of reply, as well as the right to claim damages for inaccurate media reporting, is given constitutional status. The draft...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has voiced concern about gruesome threatening messages aimed at journalists and the fact that one of the latest messages, which are being blamed on drug traffickers, was followed four days later by an apparent attempt to kill a leading investigative journalist by sabotaging her car. On 3 May 2007, World Press Freedom Day, the head of a corpse was left on a street in the eastern...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has deplored the action of the Polisario Front's security services in briefly detaining Australian documentary filmmakers Violeta Ayala and Daniel Fallshaw during the first week of May 2007 near the Rabouni refugee camp, 25 km from Tindouf in southwestern Algeria. "Western Sahara under Moroccan control and the refugee camps in Algeria are in the areas that...

(CMFR/IFEX) - Two journalists from the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (Focap) were banned from entering the Philippine Marines headquarters in Taguig City on 9 May 2007 for an arranged interview with jailed opposition senatorial candidate and former Navy officer Antonio Trillanes IV. Focap is the organization of foreign correspondents based in the Philippines. Douglas...