Features & Analysis

  
Chris Hondros, Carolyn Cole, a rebel fighter, and the author in Liberia. (Courtesy Nic Bothma)

Tribute to Chris Hondros, who ventured far with his torch

My dear friend Chris. In the silence, I hear the symphony of memories that was your life as I knew it. I see your waving hand gestures and wry smile as you recount stories whilst we sit together in the tropical Liberian heat discussing everything from classical music to aperture priority. My heart and mind…

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Protesters denounce anti-press violence in Iraqi Kurdisatn in this 2010 demonstration. (AP/Yahya Ahmed)

Anti-press violence in Iraqi Kurdistan, past and present

Kurdistan is different, as nearly every Iraqi Kurd I have ever met has said. Far less violent than the rest of Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the parts of the north controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government have escaped the kind of sectarian unrest that continues to flare in the south. But in…

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Hetherington at the opening night of the World Press Photo Award exhibition in Zurich, Switzerland, on May 7, 2008. (AP/Keystone/Eddy Risch)

Tim Hetherington: A star inexorably, humbly rising

I first met Tim Hetherington in Monrovia in 2005, in the run-up to Liberia’s then historic elections, which officially drew the line under the country’s 14-year civil war. Tim had already reported from Liberia in the chaotic final stages of that war in 2003, marching for days on end through dense and unforgiving tropical bush…

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Novaya Gazeta, a leading Russian independent news outlet, has been under cyber-attack.

Cyber-attacks on press up in number, down in cost

The last two weeks have seen a spate of denial-of-service (DOS) attacks against news sites, coordinated attempts to overwhelm outlets with fake incoming data so the sites cannot respond to legitimate users.

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News assistants in China: an invisible, important group

Among the first concerns a journalist may have on coming to China as a foreign correspondent is how to communicate with the Chinese people, the majority of whom do not speak a word of English. Finding a “news assistant” is usually the answer.

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Cheema (Pauline Eiferman)

Umar Cheema: ‘Their efforts to intimidate me backfired’

On September 4, 2010, Pakistani journalist Umar Cheema was abducted as he was going home after a dinner with friends near Islamabad. He was held captive for more than six hours, during which he was tortured by masked individuals. He was told to stop criticizing the government in the articles he wrote for the English-language…

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Jose Pavia, press freedom champion, dies at 72

Jose Pavia, a veteran journalist and tireless press freedom advocate, died on April 18 in the Philippines. Pavia, known simply as “JLP” among his friends and journalist colleagues, was a key partner in CPJ’s Global Campaign Against Impunity. He was 72 and had been battling cancer.

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Michael Posner said he does not feel comforted from the response or lack of response on the recent detention of Ai Weiwei, seen here. (AP/Andy Wong)

Site hosting Ai Weiwei petition hit with cyberattack

Change.org is back up and running after what the site said was a cyberattack that came from within China. Here’s the site’s announcement that was running on its homepage earlier today:

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A police officer manhandles a journalist during a Walk to Work protest. (Joseph Kiggundu/The Monitor)

Ugandan media censored over Walk to Work protests

Freedom of the press in Uganda hit a new low late last week when the government, in response to a decision by opposition figures to demonstrate against the escalating price of food and fuel by walking to work, banned live coverage of the protests and issued a directive to Internet providers to block two popular…

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Al-Jazeera journalist pans China’s Libya coverage

In reporting on the Libyan conflict, China’s media “emphasize only the humanitarian disasters caused by Western air bombardments, and [report] sparingly if at all on the violent suppression and massacre of the people by Qaddafi,” Al-Jazeera’s Beijing bureau chief, Ezzat Shahrour, writes on his blog. Chinese readers so far have been largely supportive of his…

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