The Maria Moors Cabot Prize is one of the greatest honors conferred on journalists covering Latin America. The black tie gala, which took place last Thursday at Columbia University’s majestic Low Library, is like an annual reunion for journalists like me who have worked in the region.
China’s decision to extend or end the eased restrictions on foreign journalists it put in place for the Olympics is almost a moot point. The decision is expected to be announced tomorrow, and in the past, officials have suggested the new rules will be extended. But a change in the rules will be largely irrelevant…
Coverage of the arrest and jailing of Nguyen Viet Chien, a journalist with daily Thanh Nien, for breaking news on a state corruption scandal is making news today. Taiwan’s The Straits Times is running the Agence France-Presse wire story on the incident, and Radio Australia has a short news item about the jailing on their Web site today. Both…
Last weekend I participated in a conference in Venice, Italy, on climate change and the press. The meeting was hosted by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev under the auspices on the World Political Forum, an organization Gorbachev founded in 2003 to foster discussion on “crucial problems that affect humankind.”
The attempted poisoning of Russian human rights lawyer Karinna Moskalenko, who is representing the family of Anna Politkovskaya, is the focus of a story in The New York Times this morning. The article cites our alert on the incident and raises concerns about the poisoning, which sickened Moskalenko only days before pretrial hearings in the…
On September 27, the High Court in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, granted acting President Rupiah Banda an injunction restraining The Post newspaper from publishing libelous words against him. Zambia’s Sunday Times reported that the court had also given a penal notice to Editor-in-Chief Fred M’membe to comply with the order. M’membe refused and appealed to the…
The Associated Press has coverage today of the detention of two journalists working for the Jordan Times who had been detained by Syrian officials when they tried to enter the country from Lebanon. The Wall Street Journal is also running the AP story. Also today the Web site of the Philippine newspaper The Mindanao Examiner…
CPJ is concerned for the safety of two American journalists, Holli Chmela, 27, and Taylor Luck, 23, who are reported missing in Lebanon. The Chmela family issued the following statement tonight. We are hoping and praying for the safe return of our children, Taylor Luck and Holli Chmela. We wish to thank the State Department and FBI…
As we noted in a recent special report, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali relies on spying and intimidation to keep his citizens in line. The United States has been a friend and supporter of Ben Ali and not at all consistent in calling attention to ongoing human rights abuses, particularly the harassment, intimidation,…