News

New York, April 26, 2006 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the vicious beating by 10 unidentified assailants of a journalist from a suspended opposition newspaper in Kazakhstan. Kenzhegali Aitbakiyev of Aina Plyus was beaten unconscious as he was walking in the financial capital, Almaty, late Sunday, local and international press reported. Aitbakiyev, who has worked at Aina...

CAIRO, April 27 (Reuters) - Egyptian police released on bail Al Jazeera television's Cairo bureau chief after he was accused of spreading false information while reporting on the recent Sinai bombings, the Al Jazeera office in Cairo said on Thursday. An Egyptian Interior Ministry spokesman said earlier Hussein Abdel Ghani had been taken in for questioning after reporting an explosion in the...

The Taiwan High Court fined a United Daily News reporter NT$30,000 for a third day in a row yesterday after he again refused to identify his sources for a news story that is part of an insider stock trading case. Kao Nien-yi remained silent on the question of who gave him the information that he reported on March 16. The story related to an insider trading scandal in which senior government...

New York: Cuba has accused the US of having increased funds to promote a "radio-electronic war" against the island nation. During debates at the UN General Assembly´s information committee, Cuban Ambassador Rodrigo Malmierca noted that the US' 2006 budget allocated $37 million for anti-Cuban propaganda through its Radio-TV Marti, $10 million more than in 2004, Cuba's Prensa Latina news agency...

THE dramatic decline of press freedom in Australia has continued over the past year despite hard-won progress such as landmark national defamation laws. The 2006 Australian Press Freedom Report, to be released publicly tomorrow night, says the few bright spots, such as defamation and moves to give limited legal privilege to journalists who refuse to reveal a confidential source, had to be seen...

The BBC has unveiled its Creative Future strategy and its plans for a revamp of its online arm which could see it taking on the likes of MySpace. The move towards a more tech-savvy BBC is prompted by the broadcaster's fears it may be failing a younger audience who are shunning TV in favour of spending time on the internet. Research by the BBC found that 60 per cent of those aged between 16 and 24...

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- After being forced to the auction block by grumpy shareholders and snapped up by McClatchy Co., Knight Ridder has one more indignity to witness: McClatchy is selling off of the newspaper that once held all of Knight Ridder's digital dreams, The San Jose Mercury News. MediaNews Group, publisher of The Denver Post and papers from California to Vermont, will acquire the...

DUBAI – Only a miniscule percentage of the hundreds of newspapers in the Arab world enjoy credibility. And this, because most of the media establishments are owned directly or indirectly by governments – who do not want the truth to be told. This was the blunt criticism made by an acclaimed Arab journalist, Mohammed Jasem Al Saqr, Editor of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Qabas, while addressing the Arab...

A mass-circulation Chinese-language daily newspaper vowed on Tuesday to file an appeal with the Taipei District Court against a ruling that fined one its reporters for refusing to disclose the source of his information while testifying in a "stock vultures" case. The paper accused the court of violating the principles of freedom of the press. United Daily News reporter Kao Nien-yi was fined NT$30...

New York, April 25, 2006 - Two vanloads of police officers prevented The Independent from reopening today and briefly detained an employee who came to unlock the offices of the Gambian private newspaper. The police action came despite statements from National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and other government officials that the paper would be allowed to publish following a month-long ban, local...