Asia

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to do his utmost to ensure that the killers of the head of Peace Radio, Zakia Zaki, who was regularly threatened by warlords, are tracked down and punished. Two armed men broke into the family home of the head of radio Sada-e-Sulh (Peace Radio) in Jabalussaraj, in the northern province of Parwan, and gunned her down...

Three gunmen shot dead a female journalist in the north of Afghanistan capital Kabul, the second such killing in less than a week. Zakia Zaki, who also served as headmistress of a school in Parwan province, ran a private radio station, partially funded by a Western media group, Reuters reported. The 35-year-old married woman was killed at her house late on Tuesday night. Zaki was threatened...

Hundreds of protestors took to the streets after the Pakistan government blocked three private television news channels. Geo TV, Ary one TV, and Aaj TV said they had been kept off air because of their coverage of the political crisis over Musharraf's March 9 ouster of the country's chief justice, according to news reports. President Pervez Musharraf Monday imposed fresh curbs on the electronic...

BEIJING (Reuters) - An advertisement saluting mothers of students and workers killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown appeared in a newspaper in southwest China on Monday, two witnesses said, in a rare public criticism of the massacre. The advertisement, in the lower right corner of page 14 of the Chengdu Evening News, read: "Paying tribute to the strong mothers of June 4 victims", two local...

New York, June 4, 2007—A Nanjing-based reporter whose online video, audio, and written news reports had angered authorities is in police custody today along with his wife, according to his employer at the U.S.-based news Web site Boxun News. Following the May 30 arrest, police accused Sun Lin (known by his pen name Jie Mu) of illegally possessing weapons and heading a criminal gang. "We are...

Cable operators in Pakistan have decided to block transmissions of television channels broadcasting negative programmes against the "solidarity of Pakistan, armed forces and the judiciary." The Cable Operators Association of Pakistan (CAP) Saturday announced that it could not become a party to the "campaign of TV channels." The chairman of the association, Khalid Shaikh, said cable operators were...

Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about the action of the Chinese foreign ministry in summoning and warning two western journalists about their reporting from Tibet last month, and it called on Beijing Olympic Games organiser Liu Qi to clarify the status of Tibet in the new rules for foreign journalists. "The Beijing games organising committee has just published a very detailed report...

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association called today for the immediate release of U Aung Shwe Oo and Daw Sint Sint Aung, two Burmese journalists working for the Japanese television news agency, Nippon News Network (NNN), who were arrested on 21 May when they went to a port near Rangoon to confirm the arrival of a North Korean ship. "The arrest of these two Burmese journalists...

The military government in Thailand closed down three community radio stations - Confidante, Taxi Driver Community Radio and Saturday Voice Against Dictatorship - just hours after they broadcast Thursday an interview with deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The authorities have also charged them with violating “national security.” The night of the September 2006 coup, the military pulled...

BEIJING: A Chinese court sentenced a man to life in prison Wednesday for taking nearly $500,000 in bribes while posing as a reporter -- and sometimes a top editor -- for the Communist Party's official newspaper, the People's Daily. Liu Yonghong had promised low-level officials outside Beijing that he could help them get promotions or work transfers by delivering their bribes to top leaders in the...