George Bonavia, a well-known broadcaster among migrants in Canada, passed away on Saturday, aged 87. A former sub-editor of the Maltese daily Il-Berqa, he emigrated in 1948 and between 1961 and 1973 produced a magazine programme on cable radio about migrants in Canada. Up to 1965 he also wrote a regular column on Maltese migrants in Il-Berqa. Soon after emigrating, Mr Bonavia set up the first...
GAZA CITY: The Palestinian journalists’ union yesterday slammed militants for using a jeep that allegedly had press insignia on it during a cross-border raid into Israel. In the first such operation in nearly a year, Gaza-based militants drove a jeep to the border fence between the coastal strip and Israel, breached it and attacked an army post on the other side. The post was unmanned at the time...
(PPF/IFEX) - On 7 June 2007, the Speaker of the National Assembly barred journalists from Pakistan's lower house of Parliament. According to press reports, journalists who had come to cover the budget session were refused entry to the Parliament building. This is viewed as a retaliatory measure by Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain against the 5 June incident in which journalists chanted slogans from...
(IPYS/IFEX) - A newspaper's journalist has been threatened over its coverage of the non-renewal of Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) station's frequency concession, and the newspaper itself has suffered a series of power outages. As well, President Hugo Chávez has warned that the frequency concessions of other television stations may be cancelled. On 30 May 2007, the newspaper "Correo del Caroní" of...
BOGOTA, June 8 (Reuters) - Colombia must do more to protect a reporter working for the Spanish-language sister paper of the Miami Herald after he received threats from paramilitaries, a U.N. panel said on Friday. The U.N. High Commission for Human Rights said Gonzalo Guillen of El Nuevo Herald had been intimidated by paramilitaries. It provided no details, but Human Rights Watch said in a letter...
(SEAPA/IFEX) - The Singapore High Court has rejected a regional periodical's application for a Queen's Counsel from the United Kingdom to represent the magazine in a defamation lawsuit brought against it by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. The Hong Kong-based "Far Eastern Economic Review" had sought to hire libel specialist Gavin Millar, but Justice Tan...
Reporters Without Borders today condemned the defamation suit which a controversial retired general, Veli Küçük, has brought against Erdal Dogan, one of the lawyers who represent the family of murdered Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink. “This lawsuit against one of Dink’s lawyers in the run-up to the start of the trial of Dink’s alleged killers on 2 July in Istanbul is worrying,” the press...
Reporters Without Borders today called on the Nigerian authorities to protect the staff of The Punch daily newspaper after two gunmen on 5 June burst into its offices in Port Harcourt, in the southeastern state of Rivers, looking for an employee. “This region of Nigeria is particularly dangerous and political kidnappings are becoming more and more frequent there,” the press freedom organisation...
(FLIP/IFEX) - Demobilised paramilitary leader Juan Francisco Prada Márquez, alias "Juancho Prada", has confessed his responsibility for the 2004 murder of Martín Larrota Duarte, director of La Palma Estéreo radio station in the municipality of San Alberto, Cesar department, in northern Colombia. Prada Márquez's admission was made on 16 May 2007, during his second "spontaneous declaration" (version...
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today said the Somalia government must put end to its policy of media harassment and intimidation after authorities shut down three radio stations in Mogadishu for the third time this year over allegations they were “backing terrorists.” “We condemn this continuous harassment by the Somali government on media who try to work independently,” said...
