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TEHRAN (Reuters) - The Iranian government on Monday ordered the closure of a daily newspaper and banned a new women's bi-weekly from publication in the first media crackdown since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in August. "The Supervisory Board on the Press agreed to the temporary closure of Asia newspaper and Nour-e Banovan and ordered their cases sent to court," said the Culture...

AMMAN, 3 January (IRIN) - Jordan's press syndicate and newspaper publishers have launched a campaign to lobby lawmakers to speed up ratification of a new press law scrapping provisions setting jail terms for journalists. Independent politicians, media figures and newspaper editors began lobbying lawmakers this week to give priority in the new parliamentary session to approving an amendment...

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish state prosecutors on Monday charged nine people, including a journalist who works for Reuters news agency, with spreading propaganda on behalf of Kurdish separatists. If found guilty the nine, who include other journalists and human rights activists, face up to three years in jail. Turkish national Ferit Demir, a stringer for Reuters based in the eastern town of Tunceli...

The police in Lilongwe Monday forced Nation Publications journalist Mabvuto Banda disembark an Ethiopian Airlines plane at Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) as he was about to fly out to London, United Kingdom. According to the police officer who was handling the issue, Jacob Bango, KIA Police just received a message on Sunday from Lilongwe Regional Police Office that Banda should not be allowed...

MAKING predictions about anything is a fool's errand, which got me wondering why I was put in charge of it this year. But, with a firm grasp of industry trends and a little imagination (plus a Magic 8-Ball, a Ouija Board and a piece of yarn that a cat had spit up), I was able to divine some slam-dunk predictions for the coming year that would make Kreskin weep. Here goes: The 30-Second Spot will...

MOSCOW, Jan. 1 - Recent turmoil in the news department of REN-TV, Russia's last nationwide television network with independent news programming, has caused concern among media analysts and free-speech advocates in the country. Last July, RTL Group, the broadcasting arm of the Bertelsmann Group, agreed to buy a 30 percent stake in REN-TV from Irena Lesnevskaya, who founded and ran the channel with...

About two years ago, when he was ten, the boy Basel asked his father, Abd a-Razek Faraj, to start praying. It was after the fourth or fifth or sixth time - who remembers, anymore - that a military commander in the Judea and Samaria region issued an administrative arrest warrant against Faraj - in other words, extended again the original arrest warrant issued on April 24, 2002. "Allah is punishing...

Three years ago I began writing a daily report for the Jerusalem Post. The irony is that, as an Arab Muslim, I feel freer to write for this Jewish paper than I do for any Arab newspaper. I have no problem writing for any Arab newspaper if it will provide me with a free platform and not censor my writing. My editors at the Jerusalem Post do not interfere with my writing. When Arafat arrived in Gaza...

RABAT – A huge number of Moroccan independent newspapers, backing Press freedom in the Arab world, condemned the ever-increasing restrictions, trials and extravagant fines, imposed over newspapers. Some of those papers were referred to the court over charges of defamation and lodging into critical political issues. The Al Ayam Arabic weekly was the last to be sued for publishing an article...

A multi-crore newsprint import scam, involving some politicians, has been unearthed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) which has arrested five businessmen in this connection. At least 300 tonnes of paper imported from various countries through tax evasion has been seized by the DRI sleuths in this connection, sources in the agency have reported. Investigations have revealed that some...