News

It wasn't Katrina, not even close, but Seattle's storm of the century was no picnic. It gave me one more a taste of a future where the weather can suddenly turn--and destroy the habitability of our world. The storm hit Seattle mid-December with pounding rain and 70 mile-an-hour winds, reaching 110 miles per hour near the slopes of the Cascade Mountains. The ground was already soggy from the...

[BEIJING] Leading Chinese journalists have called for dedicated science coverage, as their field is increasingly marginalised by market-oriented media reforms. The Chinese Society of Science and Technology Journalism (CSSTJ) intends to petition China's official media watchdog, the Central Publicity Department (CPD) about the situation. Speaking at a CSSTJ seminar in Beijing (12 January), Li Bin, a...

New York, January 17, 2007 --The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed that Egyptian authorities have brought criminal charges against an Al-Jazeera producer in connection with her work on a documentary about torture. Howayda Taha Matwali, who also works as a reporter for the London-based daily Al-Quds al-Arabi, was charged after authorities found unedited footage showing re-enactments of...

(SEAPA/IFEX) - On 15 January 2007, Thailand's military leaders moved to block CNN broadcasts of the cable network's exclusive interview with deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, less than a week after warning the Thai press about giving the ousted leader such access to the media. Thai papers are reporting that the Council for National Security (CNS), as Thailand's ruling military council is...

(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) - ARTICLE 19 today released an analysis of Kazakhstan's draft Law 'On Publishing'. The draft Law proposes a licensing scheme for all printing presses, something not normally seen in democracies, and it entrenches a series of vague restrictions on what may be published in Kazakhstan - such as on secrets and "statements of religious uniqueness". ARTICLE 19 is concerned that neither...

(CJES/IFEX) - On 11 January 2007 in Ivanovo City, the Ivanovo regional court confirmed the prior verdict of the Lenin area Justice of the Peace against Mr. Vladimir Rahmankov, editor of the Internet-based newspaper "Kursiv". The news agency New Region reported that the ruling was sent to the press service section of the State Office of the Public Prosecutor of the Russian Federation, rendering the...

(IPYS/IFEX) - On 8 January 2007, the body of journalist Guevara Guevara Domínguez, editor and contributor of the digital edition of the U.S. weekly "Siglo XXI", who disappeared on 8 October 2006, was found in the municipality of Ocampo, in the northeastern state of Durango. The body, which was found at the bottom of a ravine, exhibited multiple fractures in the thorax, skull and limbs. Authorities...

(RSF/IFEX) - After negotiating with the managers of three privately-owned radio stations that were ordered to suspend broadcasting the previous day, Somalia's transitional federal government told them on 16 January 2007 that they could resume broadcasting, Reporters Without Borders has learned from Omar Faruk Osman, the secretary-general of the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ). The...

(CEHURDES/IFEX) - Kathmandu, January 17, 2007 - The Center for Human Rights and Democratic Studies (CEHURDES) - a Kathmandu-based freedom of expression monitoring group - expresses its concerns over some provisions in the recently promulgated interim constitution that could undermine press freedom. While welcoming the promulgation of the interim constitution as another key step in the current...

(HRW/IFEX) - (Cairo, January 17, 2007) - Egyptian security officers have charged a journalist with spreading false news that could "harm the national interest" for working on a documentary about torture in Egypt, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian government to drop the charges against the journalist. On January 13, the officers detained Huwaida Taha Mitwalli...