Deathtrap Iraq

LONDON: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is set to announce that Iraqi interpreters working for the British army will be given the opportunity of asylum here, newspapers reported on Saturday. The offer to interpreters and their families, who face threats because of their work with the British, will apply to those who have worked with them for a year. Brown is due to make a statement on Iraq to...

Reporters Without Borders today deplored the murder of TV journalist Jawad al-Daami, of the satellite TV station Al-Baghdadiya, who was shot dead in Baghdad on 23 September, less than a week after the killing of Muhannad Ghanem Ahmed, of radio Dar Al Salam, in the northern city of Mosul. “The plight of the Iraqi media continues to be disastrous,“ the wordwide press freedom organisation said. “Ever...

Global journalists' and and news safety leaders have welcomed the launch of an Iraq-based campaign aiming to stem the tide of violence against news media which has claimed the lives of 226 journalists and media staff since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the International News Safety Institute (INSI) are calling on governments and aid agencies to...

During the reign of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi newspaper Azzaman could only be published in London. Fleeing the government's muscular arm in the 1990s, the newspaper's founder, former Hussein aide Saad al-Bazzaz, was forced to run his media operation out of Europe for nearly a decade. But after Mr. Hussein's expulsion in 2003, Mr. al-Bazzaz set up offices in Baghdad, and he has since been busy...

BAGHDAD: A cameraman for the independent satellite channel Al-Mousaliya was killed by unknown gunmen Monday in an ambush in the northern city of Mosul, police said. Amir Malallah al-Rashidi was killed in the ambush at 8 p.m. in an eastern part of the city by gunmen in two cars, said Police Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim al-Jubouri. The 38-year-old had worked for the state-run Iraqiya television before...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - People ask if it is tough being a journalist in Iraq. For me the hardest job is being a mother. The daily fear for my son overwhelmed me last year when a car bomb exploded near our home during the fasting month of Ramadan. My son Hani, who was six at the time, had just finished playing soccer with his friends in the street. He came inside, sweaty and cheerful, washed his face...

The death of an Iraqi translator and interpreter employed by the US television network CBS News brings the number of journalists and media workers killed in Iraq since the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003 to 200, according to Reporters sans frontières (RSF). RSF voiced dismay on learning of the murder of Anwar Abbas Lafta, a translator and interpreter employed by CBS News. Lafta’s body...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A translator for CBS News in Iraq has been found dead after being abducted from his home by eight to 10 armed men a week ago, CBS said on Monday. Anwar Abbas Lafta, an Iraqi who had worked for CBS News for 10 months, was abducted on the evening of August 20 by men who entered his home, fought with him and his brother and shot his sister in the arm, CBS said in a statement. His...

An Iraqi photographer working for the Associated Press (AP) was kidnapped in Diyala province on Tuesday, while another journalist working for state-run al-Sabah newspaper has been reported missing, acording to reports. An armed group intercepted the car of AP photographer Talal Ahmed Abdullah in central Baquba, 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, and took him to an unknown location, the independent...

A criminal court in Baghdad has dismissed the charge of incitement to terror against 11 current and former employees of the independent Iraqi production company Wasan Media, acording to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Wasan Media general manager Shaker Mahmoud Khalaf al-Falahi (above) and broadcast engineer Omar Luqman Mahmoud remained behind bars for a separate charge of possessing...