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Vienna, 11 May 2006: On the occasion of the European Union Latin America and Caribbean (EU-LAC) Summit in Vienna, Austria, the International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, calls on the European Union (EU) to raise the issue of press freedom and freedom of expression. In the Americas, at least 11 journalists were killed because of...

SUDAN-CHAD BORDER (CNN) -- One of the greatest difficulties of reporting from Darfur is the size, scale and scope of it. Darfur itself is about two thirds the size of Texas. It's a large area, and it doesn't have a road infrastructure like Texas. That's for sure. There are a lot of dirt roads, but not a lot else, and the big problem is security. Getting around to cover this story is a major...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Unknown assailants, shouting "God is greatest," lobbed a percussion bomb at the office of Turkey's most staunchly secularist newspaper on Thursday, the third attack on the paper in just a week. The device exploded but nobody was hurt, though some glass was blown out of windows by the blast, the chief editor of Cumhuriyet, Ibrahim Yildiz, told Reuters. Attackers also tried to...

MOSCOW, May 11 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow prosecutors Thursday rearrested Fail Sadretdinov, acquitted last week of the murder of former Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov. "Sadretdinov was arrested on specious grounds," said Sadretdinov's lawyer, Ruslan Koblev. Another lawyer, Ruslan Zakalyuzhny, said Sadretdinov had been arrested in his notary's office without any explanations. Sadretdinov and two...

EVERY waking moment reminds Frank Gardner of what happened to him in Saudi Arabia. Shot six times – four in the small of the back – Gardner thinks of himself as fortunate to be paralysed rather than dead. But the few seconds that it took to discharge those bullets never leave the 44-year-old. The images spool, in an endless loop, across his memory like a strip of film. He can see himself dashing...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A member of the European Parliament said on Thursday that the White House has pressured journalists not to name certain European countries in their reports about CIA detention practices on the continent. Claudio Fava of Italy, charged with writing a European Parliament committee report on possible secret CIA prisons and detainee transfers in Europe, did not identify the...

Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will seek to revive the process to reach an understanding with media players to cut down on the broadcast of market sensitive news and avoid information that drove up or hammered down prices of financial products without being backed by facts. Coming down heavily on the media for repeatedly giving out inaccurate news to investors and the public, Sebi...

JOHANNESBURG, 10 May 2006 (IRIN) - The arrest of three journalists this week on criminal libel charges has been viewed by some commentators as yet another sign of the Malawi government's willingness to crack down on dissent. Robert Jamieson, owner of The Chronicle newspaper, its editor, Dickson Kashoti, and reporter Arnold Mlelemba were arrested on 8 May for allegedly defaming Malawi's Attorney...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is concerned about a Costa Rican Supreme Court decision on 3 May 2006 rejecting a newspaper lawyer's petition for article 7 of the Press Law to be struck down as unconstitutional. The article provides for prison sentences for those who use the media to "defame" or "insult". "We call on the government to reconsider the Press Law and to begin a debate on...

(Brussels, May 9, 2006) - Politically motivated prosecutions of independent newsweeklies are rolling back press freedom in Morocco, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today. Today the Casablanca appeals court confirmed a fine and one-year suspended sentence against the director of al-Mash'al ("The Torch") weekly for "insulting" a foreign head of state. In the last year, the...