Consumer and corporate Internet usage could outstrip network capacity both in North America and worldwide in a little more than two years, says a new study. Young boys and girls surf in the internet in Carlsbad in California, October 2007. Nearly 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of online video [...]

A European court has awarded damages to an investigative journalist whose home was raided and computers confiscated after he published articles alleging fraud within the European Union. In its ruling for the German reporter, Hans-Martin Tillack, the European Court of Human Rights said Tuesday that the right to protect the identity of sources is an essential [...]

The Sri Lanka military air strike last week on the Voice of Tigers, the radio station of the Tamil Tiger rebels in the north of the country, is being described as a war crime. Three of the station’s staff, who had not been given any warning, and six other civilians were killed in the bombardment [...]

Kazakhstan will become the first ex-Soviet state to assume the chairmanship of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev passes by the guard of honor during a welcoming ceremony before his meeting with his Hungarian counterpart Laszlo Solyom, not seen, in Budapest, Hungary Friday, November 23, 2007. Nazarbayev arrived [...]

A journalist’s claim that 11 of his close relatives were murdered in Iraq last weekend is false. Amman-based Iraqi journalist Dia al-Kawwaz had claimed on November 26 that 11 members of his immediate family were shot by gunmen the previous day in Baghdad. “We are obviously relieved to learn that the Kawwaz family is safe and [...]

The US military is to finally bring a court hearing against Associated Press (AP) photographer Bilal Hussein on December 9, 606 days after the Iraqi was first taken into custody, the agency has reported. The move would be the first legal step in initiating formal charges against Hussein, who was seized in Ramadi on April [...]

BAGHDAD (AP) — Bilal Hussein’s career as a photojournalist nearly ended soon after it began. Hussein, who had been working for The Associated Press for about three months, volunteered to stay in his native Fallujah as U.S. forces prepared to assault the city to drive out Sunni religious extremists. It was a decision not taken lightly. [...]

Li Changqing, a Chinese journalist who was imprisoned for alerting the public to an outbreak of dengue fever before the authorities, has been awarded the 2008 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers. Li, a reporter and deputy news director of the ‘Fuzhou Daily’ in Fuzhou City, Fujian [...]

The law is being bend, moulded and used to curtail the freedom to express. Legal hurdles have been placed in Mongolia for reporters and whistleblowers. The findings have been highlighted in Protecting Journalists’ Confidential Sources and Repealing the Criminal Defamation Legislation, brought out by Globe International. The ‘UB Post’, Mongolia´s independent weekly English newspaper in Ulaanbaatar, [...]

Australia’s proud international reputation for the strength of its democratic institutions and civil rights records received a blow with the latest findings of the ‘Report of the Independent Audit into the State of Free Speech in Australia’. RSF focused on the anti-terrorism laws in Australia that “risk being abusively used against the press” such as [...]

Attacks on freedom of expression riding on notorious laws are increasing in Bahrain. Recent incidents have prompted 26 International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) members and 21 other organisations, led by the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), to urge the authorities to stop their latest clampdown on free expression. The organisations in their call to [...]

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has called on all participants in next summer’s Beijing Olympics — the International Olympic Committee, athletes, sponsors and other partners — to “exert serious pressure” on China to hold the government to its promises of reform. A pedestrian walks past a banner promoting 2008 Olympic Games tickets in Beijing, April [...]

The International Press Institute (IPI) has appointed IPI Deputy Director David Dadge as the new director of IPI. He will succeed Professor Johann P Fritz, who is retiring at the end of 2007. Dadge (41) has worked at the IPI secretariat in Vienna, Austria, since April 2000 as the editor of the IPI World Press Freedom [...]

India has been chosen as the host country for the 62nd World Newspaper Congress, 16th World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo in 2009, the World Association of Newspapers announced today. “India is probably the most exciting newspaper market in the world at the moment,” said Timothy Balding, CEO of the Paris-based WAN, which organises the [...]

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and UNESCO will collaborate on global efforts to forge universal standards towards building a multilingual cyberspace. The three agencies organised a workshop on this subject during the second Internet Governance Forum (IGF) taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 12-15, [...]