Press Freedom

MEDIA: Born Again Non-Aligned News Network Has Chances

By IPS Correspondents
Hopes for a Non-aligned News Network (NNN) have been rekindled at a ministerial meeting of non-aligned countries here, this week, but the hurdles it faces are very different from those existing when the idea was first floated, in the heady days before the collapse of the Soviet empire.

POLITICS-US: A Close Call for Al-Jazeera?

By Jim Lobe
The White House emphatically denied a report by a British tabloid Tuesday that U.S. President George W. Bush considered bombing the headquarters of the al-Jazeera satellite television station in Qatar during the U.S. Marine assault on Falluja in April 2004.

MEDIA: South Seeks News “For Us and By Us”

By Thalif Deen
In an interview with a U.N. correspondent many moons ago, an outspoken Asian politician was asked to name the "leading newspapers" in his country.

WSIS: Criticism Was Conviction, Say Swiss

By Marty Logan
The Swiss government has been at the centre of controversy here over host government Tunisia's treatment of journalists and human rights activists prior to the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

MEDIA: Defining Limits to Internet Freedom

By IPS Correspondents
While maximising Internet access is a global concern, this net-savvy island nation is grappling with problems arising from attitudes and behaviour considered incompatible with a wired world.

WSIS: Civil Society Highlights Tunisia’s Human Rights Record

By IPS Correspondents
With a solidarity visit to a group of Tunisian hunger strikers, non-governmental organisations continued their efforts Thursday to highlight Tunisia's human rights record.

RIGHTS: Media Enemies to Share UN Spotlight

By Marty Logan
At least two enemies of media freedom will share the spotlight at this week's United Nations meeting dedicated to making the information age accessible to all the world's people.

COMMUNICATION: U.S. Fights to Remain the Ultimate Webmaster

By Haider Rizvi
International efforts to break down the digital barriers facing the world's poor will backfire if governments fail to work out their differences on the issue of internet governance, diplomatic observers here say.

MEDIA-NEPAL: Court Refuses to Restrain King’s Gov’t

By Marty Logan
The future of one of Nepal's best known radio stations, and the country's entire media, was hazy Friday after the Supreme Court refused to issue an order preventing the government from acting against Kantipur FM.

MEDIA: Telling the Burma Story, in Exile

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Few journalists are better equipped to reveal the inside story of the narcotics trade in Burma than Khuensai Jaiyen, a 57-year-old editor who wears thick glasses and has an impish sense of humour.

CARIBBEAN: Journalists Fear a “Looming Storm”

By IPS Correspondents
Caribbean journalists say they will closely monitor the position of the region's governments at the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), scheduled to begin in Tunisia on Nov. 16.

MEDIA-SLOVAKIA: Ownership Raises Freedom Issues

By Pavol Stracansky
The new owners of Slovakia's most popular television station have pledged more objective news after years of complaints that its founder and former minister Pavol Rusko used it as a vehicle for himself and his political party.

MEDIA: Banned in Gambia, Defiant in Ukraine

By Stephen Leahy
Journalists from Ukraine and Gambia were honoured this week with the International Press Freedom Award for persisting in their work even while facing serious threats against their lives.

MEDIA-COLOMBIA: Death Threats and Self-Censorship

By Constanza Vieira
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.

RIGHTS-CUBA: Ladies in White Share Sakharov Prize

By Patricia Grogg
The "ladies in white", wives and mothers of imprisoned dissidents in Cuba, received this year's Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought Wednesday in recognition of their efforts to obtain the release of their loved ones.

MEDIA: Iraq is Deadliest Beat For Reporters Since WWII

By IPS Correspondents
In its annual survey of press freedom around the world, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) once again ranked North Korea in last place of the 167 countries evaluated, closely preceded by Eritrea and Turkmenistan.

POLITICS-US: Washington on Tenterhooks Over Leak Case

By Jim Lobe
Wrapping up a two-year investigation that a growing number of legal analysts expect to yield indictments of at least one, and possibly two, of the George W. Bush administration's most powerful men as early as this week, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has Washington on pins and needles.

POLITICS: U.N. Launches New Democracy Fund

By IPS Correspondents
The United Nations has garnered more than 42 million dollars in pledges to create a new Democracy Fund (UNDEF) that would help countries transitioning from authoritarian regimes to free societies.

SIERRA LEONE: Funds Sought to Finish War Crimes Trials

By IPS Correspondents
A special criminal court trying those charged with war crimes in Sierra Leone will run out of money next year unless some 25 million dollars is raised to keep it running.

COMMUNICATIONS: Road to Tunis Paved With Questions

By Gustavo Capdevila
With just six weeks to go before the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, a number of key issues remain unresolved, including the highly debated questions of Internet governance and civil society participation.

COMMUNICATIONS: NGOs Complain of Summit Host Tunisia’s Rights Record

By Gustavo Capdevila
One of the biggest clouds looming over the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is the human rights record of Tunisia, which will host the second phase of the Summit, scheduled for Nov. 16-18.
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