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BAGHDAD -- A month-long ban imposed by Iraq's government on Dubai-based satellite channel Al Arabiya highlights the delicate path that media in Iraq must tread between dangerous insurgents and prickly authorities. More than 100 journalists have been killed in Iraq in the past three years while others have been imprisoned by the US-led coalition, and Iraqi officials have had a difficult...

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the contempt of court citation against a freelance journalist who is refusing to cooperate with a grand jury investigating an anarchists' protest he videotaped. A federal grand jury subpoenaed Joshua Wolf to acquire the 30 minutes of unpublished material, but he refused and was ordered jailed Aug. 1. He was released a month later as he appealed his case...

The second Gender and Media summit closed in Johannesburg Friday with a call for greater media diversity in all areas - ownership, content and audiences, according to a statement from organisers. Held under the theme “Media Diversity: Good for Democracy, good for business” the summit highlighted a number of ways in which the media is failing in one of its core functions - giving voice to the...

A U.N. tribunal charged a Croat journalist with contempt of court on Monday for revealing the names of two witnesses who testified in a war crimes case. Freelance journalist Domagoj Margetic named the protected witnesses from the trial of General Tihomir Blaskic on his personal Web site in July and August of this year, the tribunal said in a statement. The U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia...

Environment comprises a minuscule 0.35 per cent of news on popular Hindi news channels, closely trailing agriculture at 0.4 per cent and health at 0.5 per cent. GREEN-HUED, BUT NOT THAT MUCH: A view of the Sahara Samay newsroom. Sahara Samay, the survey found, also led in terms of diversity in the coverage of news, closely followed by DD News and NDTV Hindi. Diversity of environmental news...

American journalist Paul Salopek was released Saturday from a prison in the war-torn Darfur region where he was held for more than a month on espionage charges, news agencies reported. A judge in the North Darfur capital of al-Fasher released the Chicago Tribune journalist and his Chadian driver and interpreter after a 13-minute hearing. FREE AND BACK: New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, right...

China has announced new controls over the distribution of news, photographs and graphics by foreign news agencies, further restricting foreign access to the already tightly regulated Chinese media market. The new measures took effect immediately upon being issued by the government's Xinhua News Agency. WALLPAPER: A man reads a wall newspaper in Beijing. China has released new rules governing the...

Media and entertainment giant Essel Group has bought a majority stake in in non-profit news agency United News of India (UNI), the Daily News and Analysis (DNA) has reported. UNITED MESS: United News of India (UNI) was launched in 1961, and its wire service is available in three languages – English, Hindi and Urdu – serving more than 1,000 subscribers in more than 100 locations in India and abroad...

IF SILVIO Berlusconi is worried, he is not showing it. All summer he has sung, danced and thrown extravagant parties for his friends, at one point whisking off his wife for a surprise birthday celebration in Morocco. But this week, when the orange-tanned former Italian prime minister returns to work in parliament, he faces the most difficult decision of his career. To continue as leader of the...

The use of embedded reporters by major newspapers in the United States (US) did affect the number and the type of stories published, resulting in more articles about the US soldiers' personal lives and fewer articles about the impact of the war on Iraqi civilians. THE MA'AM FACTOR: Ann Scott Tyson, who says she encountered "a lot of fighting" while reporting for the Christian Science Monitor from...