Asia

Geo TV and the News daily correspondent Musa Khankhel was shot dead Wednesday in Pakistan's northwest Swat Valley. No group has claimed responsibility for the killing, the first violation of a truce called Monday between the government and local militant groups. Khankhel had been covering a peace march led by Muslim cleric Sufi Muhammad, the father-in-law of local Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah...

More than six years after her detention and torture, Nepalese journalist Meena Sharma Tiwari has been granted compensation of 15,000 Nepalese rupees (150 euros) by the Appellate Court, the International Press Institute (IPI) has reported. Tiwari is the fourth Nepalese journalist to receive compensation in connection with detention and mistreatment by the authorities. "IPI welcomes the judgment as...

Malaysian authorities have seized the latest editions of two opposition newspapers. Tempers have flared since last week when the National Front government took over the northern Perak state from the opposition after several of its lawmakers switched allegiance, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. Details: [ Link] Tian Chua, information chief of the People's Justice Party, said at least 20,000...

Press freedom groups in the Philippines have called on the Senate to withdraw its invitation to a reporter to appear before the inquiry into the alleged corruption in World Bank (WB)-funded road projects, saying doing so might be “undue interference” in his work as a journalist. The Senate Committee on Economic Affairs headed by Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago has summoned Newsbreak senior writer...

Press freedom in Nepal continues to face serious threats despite the hope that restoration of democratic rule would improve the situation. The Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) recorded a staggering 342 press freedom violations in 2008 alone, including a significant escalation in the number of physical attacks on journalists and media houses. Four journalists—Uma Singh, JP Joshi, Birendra

Noor Hassan, a reporter for the Royal News television channel, was abducted on February 8 in Swat, the epicentre of fundamentalist militant insurgency in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP). He was released the next morning in Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan, the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) has reported. Hassan told PPF that he, along with Royal TV reporter Mohammed Ilyas...

The Iranian ministry of culture and Islamic guidance Wednesday suspended Hemat, a weekly that supports allies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The ministry said a spoof movie poster on the front page of the latest issue, on February 1, had insulted senior government officials, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “There would be something comic about this suspension if it did not...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged Pakistani authorities to act effectively to protect Kamal Asfar, journalist on the magazine Ash-Sharq (The East), who on February 1 escaped a murder attempt. His brother, journalist, Aamir Wakil, was killed in Rawalpindi on January 24. “I am lucky to be alive today”, Asfar told the worldwide press freedom organisation. Two bearded men had fired several...

A South Korean blogger in custody since January 7, charged with spreading false information online, should be set free, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said. Park Dae-sung, described in international news reports as an unemployed, self-taught economist, anonymously posted predictions about the global financial climate in online bulletin boards under the pen name "Minerva," to public...

Pakistani authorities have been arged to adopt energetic measures following the murder of a journalist and an attack on a privately-owned TV station within a space of 48 hours over the last weekend. On January 24, Aamir Wakil, 40, a married man with four children, was murdered close to his home in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. On January 26, an angry crowd ransacked the studios of Samaa TV in the...