Asia

(AFP) — Mushtaq Yusufzai has been wounded by the Taliban, arrested by Pakistani forces and his mother has begged him to quit -- but still he keeps reporting from the frontline of the "war on terror". The 32-year-old specialist on Pakistan's wild tribal belt is the winner of the Kate Webb award, set up by Agence France-Presse (AFP) to honour the life and career of the legendary foreign...

Sri Lanka's military barred foreign journalists Thursday from covering weekend elections in the east that are seen as a test of confidence in the government, which seized the region from Tamil Tiger rebels last year, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. Maj Gen. Palitha Fernando said any foreigner not registered as an election observer cannot be in Eastern province during the polls. An...

Press freedom organisations have called on the Burmese government to allow journalists to travel to the country to report on the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Wednesday expressed concern at reports that the country’s military government has refused to issue journalist visas to foreign reporters who have requested to enter the country to...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for sedition charges to be dropped against Malaysian blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin, who was jailed Tuesday. He is being held in connection with a story alleging that Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife were involved in the October 2006 murder of a Mongolian translator. Najib has denied the allegation. Raja Petra’s online article...

The Burmese junta, which has appealed for international aid to cope with the impact of Cyclone Nargis, has barred foreign journalists from entering the country and expelled one BBC reporter, news agencies have reported quoting state media. BBC Asia correspondent Andrew William Harding was stopped by Myanmar (Burma) immigration officials at Yangon International Airport from entering the country May...

A renowned Chinese columnist has lost his job at a magazine over commentaries on unrest in Tibet which did not conform with the official line, a watchdog group and a source with knowledge of the dismissal said on Tuesday, according to Reuters. Zhang Ping, who writes under the pen name Chang Ping, was sacked as deputy chief editor of the Southern Metropolis Weekly magazine, the Paris-based...

Pakistan's information ministry has forwarded letters from two Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) supporters to an English newspaper and asked it to print them to rebut an article criticising party leader Asif Ali Zardari, the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) has reported. “In what is really unheard of, the press officer of the information ministry forwarded two letters of unknown PPP supporters to The...

The Malaysian government Thursday lifted the ban on publication of a prominent Tamil daily in the face of fierce criticism by Opposition leaders and pressure from media activists, the Press Trust of India (PTI) has reported. The country's Home Ministry had suspended the publication permit of "Makkal Osai" or People's voice last week on the grounds that the paper had flouted publication guidelines...

A young Afghan journalist, sentenced to death in January for spreading feminist criticism of Islam, has been granted an appeal, according to one of the international organizations monitoring his case, Bloomberg News has reported. Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, 23, was transferred on March 28 from prison in the remote province of Balkh, in northern Afghanistan, to capital Kabul, according to Jean...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed alarm at a report of a grenade attack on the home of a female radio journalist in Herat province, Afghanistan. It is the second attack on radio producer Khadija Ahadi’s home in two weeks. The Afghan Independent Journalists’ Association (AIJA), an IFJ associate, reported that unidentified gunmen threw a grenade inside Khadija’s home on...