West Asia - North Africa

The threat was delivered in May by text message - quit journalism or you’ll be beheaded. The IWPR reporter ignored the warning on his cell phone and got on with his job - but more intimidation followed. In his hometown Hawije, in Kirkuk province, people tend to take such threats very seriously, as it’s a stronghold of Sunni insurgents who frequently target Iraqi and multinational troops. The...

NEW YORK: In today's Iraq, intellectuals are targets of a widespread, often ethnically driven campaign of murder. Many have fled their homes, or even the country, to protect their families. Doctors, engineers, professors and even teachers seek new careers in parts of Iraq where their ethnic or sectarian group is in the majority. But one class of professionals cannot escape the violence because its...

An Iraqi freelance journalist working as a stringer for news agency Agence France-Presse has been abducted in Baghdad after visiting a relative in a government-run jail. Bilal Abdelrahman al-Obeidi disappeared on August 14 after he visited a detention centre near the Interior Ministry in central Baghdad to see his cousin. Mr Obeidi's family and AFP have been in contact with his captors using his...

(08-31) 04:00 PDT Washington -- U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public-relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq. The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide...

U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq. The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide "public relations products" that...

Reuters has urged the US military to investigate the killing of one of its journalists by American troops in Baghdad a year ago. An independent inquiry commissioned by Reuters concluded that the soldiers' shooting of television soundman Waleed Khaled on August 28 last year had appeared "unlawful". KILLED IN COLD BLOOD: The uncle (left) and father of Reuters journalist, Waleed Khaled, cry over his...

Two people were killed and 20 others wounded when a car bomb was detonated in the parking area of the state-owned Iraqi daily Al-Sabah in Baghdad. The explosion took place at about 9am on Sunday and destroyed nearly 20 cars owned by the newspaper's staff, agencies reported. REMAINS IN RUBLE: A man walks amid the rubble inside the destroyed office of the state-run newspaper after a bomb attack in...

As an uneasy truce prevails on the Israel-Lebanon front, it is time for the Lebanese media to take stock of the situation. The month-long operations saw the destruction of basic infrastructure and the imposition of a land, sea and air embargo leading to a massive drop in advertising, distribution problems, and fears of paper supply shortages. SCOURING FOR NEWS: Lebanese civilians collect...

BAGHDAD -- Mohammed Shakir has been selling newspapers from his stall on the right bank of the Tigris River in Baghdad for 20 years. He used to offer a selection from all of Iraq's political movements and parties - but no more. In his majority Sunni neighborhood that has proved simply too dangerous. Two months ago a group of masked men showed up at his stall and ordered Shakir to stop selling...

BOSTON (Reuters) - Two days after her abduction in Baghdad, American journalist Jill Carroll desperately pleaded with her captors to believe she was not hiding an electronic chip somewhere in her body to communicate with U.S. Marines. In a personal account of her 82 days held captive in Iraq, Carroll said a leader of the militant group accused her of secretly tipping off U.S. forces to her...