Conflict Journalism

t is difficult to imagine Iraq ever having had independent media. Under the state-controlled Iraqi News Agency, set up in 1959, journalists had to toe the government line or face dire consequences. Now insurgent activity and US air strikes make moving around the country - or even asking the wrong questions - a very hazardous activity indeed. But there was a time when newspapers thrived in Iraq and...

Over 2,000 professionals from various walks of life including lawyers, journalists, teachers and doctors staged demonstrations in Nepal's capital Kathmandu on Sunday to protest media repression and the recent rejection by the Supreme Court of a petition seeking a stay order on the controversial media ordinance introduced by the government in early October. Pro-democracy activists demonstrate in...

A group of journalists today called on the chief of the United Nations Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Nepal to play a pro-active in protecting Nepali media from various government offenses. In a memorandum handed over to Ian Martin, the journalists said they feared that in the aftermath the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in relation to the media ordinance, the...

King Gyanendra, while addressing the inaugural session of the thirteenth SAARC summit in Dhaka today, said that his February 1 move was necessitated by the ground realities of the pre-Feb 1 period and was not taken at the cost of the democracy. Nepal was in the danger of turning into a failed state, but since February 1, the security situation in Nepal had improved, the King said. He said the...

The Nepalese Attorney General, Professor Pawan Kumar Ohja, has defended the legality of the recent media ordinance, claiming that it is not unconstitutional - despite having been issued by the executive in the absence of parliament. "As ordinances also hold legislative power, it can amend not only the ordinance itself, but also the existing laws and regulations made by the parliament," Ohja said...

KATHMANDU, Nov. 11: The Gorkhapatra Style Book will be amended to bring uniformity to its Nepali publications, said Executive Chairperson of the Gorkhapatra Corporation at the conclusion of the two-day refresher course organised by the corporation to its Nepali proofreaders on Friday. During the training, different speakers said that there were different dictionaries and grammar books and, thus...

The Supreme Court today declined to issue a stay order on the implementation of the controversial media ordinance. It also refused to continue the interlocutory stay order issued on October 27 ordering the government not to take further action against Kantipur FM. The court ruled there was no ground to issue a stay order in the case filed by Kantipur FM and others. A special bench of Chief Justice...

A cameraman working for Aljazeera has been beaten and briefly arrested by Israeli soldiers while filming a protest in the West Bank. Nabil al-Mazzawi was detained along with three other foreign protestors while filiming a demonstration against Israel's construction of the separation barrier. He was later released, Aljazeera management confirmed. Aljazeera's editor-in-chief Ahmad Sheikh said al...

Cheju Island _ Some 70 senior journalists from 22 nations Wednesday called on the Nepalese government to take immediate steps to restore freedom of speech in the Himalayan country. ``The ongoing government crackdown on the Nepalese media is a cause for great concern for journalists committed to freedom and democracy in the Asia-Pacific region,'' they said in a statement. They adopted the statement...

BOGOTA, (IPS) - They live in such fear that they dare not venture beyond the city limits. The death threats are periodically renewed, just in case it occurs to any of them that the danger has disappeared. They are reporters in the midst of Colombia's four-decade civil war. After they were targeted by collective threats in 2003, 16 journalists with the leading publications in the eastern oil-rich...