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This nation of roughly 15 million – the largest and wealthiest of Central Asia’s five republics – struggles daily to balance its booming economy with a still tentative democracy. Caught in the middle is Kazakh journalism. Watched closely by the government, plagued by self-censorship and its own, widespread corruption, the news business in Kazakhstan is "probably the best of the ’stans and the most...

PARIS--Karim Baïla unlocks the door of his silver VW Beetle and we cram in. We pull out of chic central Paris, headed for the low-income suburbs and public housing districts where thousands of cars had burned since the youth uprising began two weeks earlier. Karim is something of an anomaly. Born to illiterate Algerian parents, he is now one of few French Algerian reporters who make regular...

BERKELEY, Calif.--When the knock came at the door, Zhao Ling knew what to do. She shoved her notes into an envelope and threw them out the window of her 12th floor hotel room. She shut off her cell phone. Then she held her breath. Zhao was working undercover, reporting on Chinese farmers in the Sichuan Province city of Zigong who had been left homeless and jobless after the government took their...

A Sierra Leonean editor jailed for writing articles attacking the president has had his sentence quashed, BBC reported. Paul Kamara, who had been convicted for seditious libel in October 2004 and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, was freed Tuesday night after the Sierra Leone Appeals Court overturned the verdict of the High Court. FREED IN FREETOWN: Paul Kamara, who also serves as chairman of

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the one-year prison sentence imposed on Jean-Léonard Rugambage, a Rwandan journalist who reported alleged corruption among judges in the semi-traditional "gacaca" courts. GENOCIDE SCAPEGOAT: Belgian Catholic priest Guy Theunis (R), accused of taking part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, talks with an unidentified person inside the high court

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the many attacks, threats and other abuses against journalists in several provinces on November 20 and 26 in a continuation of the abuses being committed by the police with impunity since staggered polling in the ongoing Egyptian legislative elections began on November 8. National Democratic Party sympathisers armed with knives fight supporters of the

A policeman has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Philippines journalist Edgar Damalerio in May 2002. Three and a half years after the murder of Edgar Damalerio, the justice system has finally cleared a major hurdle in this case, marked by the murder of three witnesses and impunity for those who instigated the killing. The Cebu regional trial court on Tuesday gave weight to the

Ren-TV anchor Olga Romanova said late Monday that she had agreed to accept an offer to host a new program on the channel, four days after security guards prevented her from going on air. She told Ekho Moskvy radio that she had received the offer in a letter Monday from Alexander Ordzhonikidze, the station's general director. "I intend to carry out the station management's orders presented in the...

A secret memorandum leaked to a British tabloid from the office of the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has disclosed that the United States president, George Bush, once toyed with the idea of bombing the headquarters of Al Jazeera TV network in Doha. This has caused much embarrassment to both 10 Downing Street and the White House. Attempts are now afoot by Mr Blair’s office to put the lid back...

There is no denying it. Red-top tabloid newspapers have broken two very important stories in the past week. The Daily Mirror's front page claiming that Tony Blair had to talk George Bush out of bombing the Qatar headquarters of the radio station al-Jazeera was a genuine scoop. They based their expose on the supposed contents of a confidential memo of a meeting between the two leaders. Initially...