Asia

Thai media tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul has been sentenced to two years in prison for slandering a government official during a live television broadcast on in November 2005. A Bangkok criminal court on Thursday last sentenced Sondhi in relation to comments he made on November 25, 2005 on his popular Muang Thai Rai Supda television talk show which accused former Deputy Transport Minister Phumtham...

Afghan interpreter and freelance journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi kidnapped by the Taliban a month ago has appealed to President Hamid Karzai to release three junior Taliban members to secure his freedom, Reuters has reported. Naqshbandi made the appeal to Karzai 10 days after an Italian journalist who was captured with him was freed following the release of five senior members of the Taliban. “You...

Free expression groups worldwide have joined Afghan journalists in demanding the release of the independent journalist and translator who was kidnapped by the Taliban at the same time as a now-freed Italian journalist. La Repubblica reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo, his driver, Syed Agha, and his translator, Ajmal Naqshbandi, who is also a journalist, were kidnapped on March 5 by the Taliban in...

The Dawn Group of Newspapers, Pakistan’s largest English language newspaper and magazine publishing house, is facing serious economic pressures as well as legal harassment by the government of Pakistan for it coverage of events and policies related to militancy and security in the country. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (C) salutes during the Pakistan National Day parade in Islamabad March...

Hundreds of protesters blockaded an Afghan hospital where freed Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo was staying on Tuesday, demanding details of the death of his beheaded driver, news agencies have reported. More than 200 relatives and friends of executed driver Syed Agha protested outside the Italian-run Emergency hospital in the capital of southern Helmand province, Lashkar Gah, demanding...

At 9 p.m. in a dark Shenzhen parking lot, Dr. Bai Xiuyu handed over a plain envelope in what was supposed to be a discreet blackmail payment to a local reporter in this southern Chinese city. The money in the envelope – 15,000 yuan, about $2,000 (all figures U.S.) – was to be paid to three reporters who'd threatened to go public with a story saying her health clinic was providing services it was...

Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo was released by the Taliban Monday after two weeks in captivity and days after his driver was executed, news agencies have reported. Sources privy to the deal told local Pajhwok Afghan News that the La Repubblica journalist was handed over to Italian officials in the Hazarjuft district of the southern Helmand province at 5:10pm (local time). "My head is...

Suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has confessed to the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl, a central role in 30 other attacks and plots in the US and worldwide that killed thousands of victims, said a revised transcript released Thursday by the US military. Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan in 2002, is pictured in...

Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo abducted by the Taliban in Afghanistan last week has appeared in a video shown on television Wednesday appealing to Premier Romano Prodi to work for his release. TV grab from Euronews shows an image from video footage, received by non govenmental organisation Emergency, of Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo who was abducted 10 days ago by a Taliban...

Yahoo Inc. did not violate Hong Kong’s privacy laws when it provided prosecutors with information about a Chinese reporter accused of leaking state secrets, authorities said Wednesday. Shi Tao, a former journalist for the Dangdai Shangbao or Contemporary Business Newspaper in the central province of Hunan, was sentenced last year to 10 years on charges of leaking state secrets. Shi was alleged to...