News

Hours after receiving a jolt from the Supreme Court, RK Sharma, a suspended Haryana cadre IPS officer and key accused in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, on Tuesday downplayed his alleged intimate relationship with the deceased scribe but claimed she knew several top BJP leaders, the Daily News & Analysis (DNA) has reported. Some details: “She (Shivani) knew many officers in various...

The Zimbabwe government has directed the country’s largest journalism training school to accept only students who have completed a controversial national youth-service training programme — blamed by critics for brainwashing youths into zealots of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party. Churches and human rights groups say graduates of the training programme, which is run by former and...

Al-Jazeera, the Arab news network the Bush administration says is a tool of al-Qaeda, will launch Wednesday its English version, which will be available in 70 million households worldwide. Al-Jazeera International will broadcast from Doha, Qatar, and from bureaus in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; London; and Washington, D.C. Cable and satellite distribution deals are expected to be announced today...

New York, February 13, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Monday’s ruling by an appeals court in the capital Niamey to overturn the conviction of two journalists jailed for nearly four months on criminal defamation charges over an article critical of the prime minister. An appeals court repealed 18-month prison sentences handed down by a trial court last September against Director...

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which is looking for a local partner as it aims to launch its popular MySpace website in China, is in early talks with prominent blog companies Bokee.com and BlogCN.com, industry sources said on Sunday. Murdoch and his wife, Wendi Deng, as well as MySpace executives, were in Beijing at the weekend to meet Chinese government officials, other industry...

It's hard for Carlos Patiño, a 24-year old photographer for the local La Opinión newspaper, to do his job these days: In addition to living in one of Colombia's most conflictive areas and working for an often-targeted publication, he has two bodyguards with him at all times. They accompany Patiño because of threats he received after photographing the arrest of a suspected drug trafficker at the...

LONDON: The European Commission is trying to rally support for a sweeping overhaul of media regulations after policy makers softened proposals to govern the emerging digital media with the same rules that traditional broadcasters are required to live by. The media commissioner, Viviane Reding, wants to update the Television Without Frontiers directive, a law written in 1989, to take account of...

Islamic Republic News Agency Managing Director Jalal Fayyazi and Indian PTI News Agency Deputy Managing Director M.K. Razdan inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) here on Saturday. According to the 11-article MOU, IRNA and PTI agreed to exchange national and international news items free of charge, IRNA reported. In the cooperation agreement, the two sides also agreed to supply their...

LONDON (Reuters) - Blogs are becoming a force to be reckoned with as a means of advertising products, according to a survey. An Ipsos MORI poll found that the Internet journals are a more trusted source of information than TV advertising or e-mail marketing. But among their European counterparts, Britons are the least switched on to web logs. Get it right, and blogs could be a boost to companies...

The Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) is alarmed with the latest suspensions of a newspaper and its editor - this time, it is the "Weekend Mail", the Sunday edition of the "Malay Mail", for its reports about sex. According to news reports on 8 November 2006, the Internal Security Ministry said the suspension was justified as the subject is "contrary to Eastern values practised by Malaysians"...