Showing posts with label US journalists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US journalists. Show all posts
Saturday, May 27, 2017
Trump Admin Wants To Change The Law To Jail Journalists
Friday, March 02, 2012
MAIL ONLINE: • Veteran war journalist Marie Colvin was killed by rocket attack last week in Homs, Syria • Film appears to show reporter's body being buried by activists • Burial went ahead as activists had no electricity to keep her body refrigerated • Meanwhile Syrian government troops have amassed outside the city • Britain closes embassy in Damascus as Foreign Secretary William Hague vows to maintain pressure on President Assad to end the violence
American war journalist Marie Colvin, who was killed by Syrian government forces last week, has been buried in a cemetery near where she fell, a Syrian activist has claimed in a video posted online.
Harrowing footage appears to show the veteran war reporter's badly burned body being lowered into a grave in the embattled neighborhood of Baba Amr, where Colvin spent her last weeks.
The body, wrapped in white cloth with a white sign bearing Colvin's name, has been buried because the rebels did not have electricity to keep her body refrigerated. It had started to decay, a rebel in the film footage explains. (+ extremely graphic video) » | Hannah Roberts and Graham Smith | Friday, March 02, 2012
Extremely graphic video »
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
TELEGRAPH BLOGS – CON COUGHLIN: Marie Colvin, who has been killed in the Syrian city of Homs, was without doubt one of the finest foreign correspondents of her generation, and also one of the most fearless. In the 25 years or so years that I have known Marie she was invariably to be found on the front line of the world's most dangerous conflicts, laughing off the very real risks she faced as though it was just another day in the office. Beirut, Gaza, Iraq, the Balkans, Sri Lanka – wherever there was trouble, you could guarantee that Marie would be in the thick of it. » | Con Coughlin | Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Related »
Thursday, March 17, 2011
REUTERS: Four journalists covering the fighting in Libya for the New York Times are missing, the newspaper said Wednesday.
The New York Times said the journalists, who included two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Shadid, were last in contact with their editors Tuesday morning from the town of Ajdabiya.
Also missing were Stephen Farrell -- a reporter and videographer who was kidnapped by the Taliban in 2009 and rescued by British commandos -- and two photographers, Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario, the newspaper said. » | Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Mohammad Zargham | NEW YORK | Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Thursday, August 06, 2009
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: While Negotiating Journalists' Release, Clinton and Kim Widened Talks to Security, Regional Concerns
WASHINGTON -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, in more than three hours of discussions with Bill Clinton in Pyongyang, drew the former U.S. president into a wide-ranging discussion of security and regional issues.
Former U.S. officials and diplomats say the meetings, attended by the top ranks of Pyongyang's security establishment, were part of a renewed campaign by Pyongyang to stimulate direct negotiations with Washington over the country's nuclear program.
President Barack Obama and his aides stressed Wednesday that they weren't viewing Mr. Clinton's trip as anything more than a humanitarian mission focused on securing the release of two detained American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling.
Mr. Clinton returned to California Wednesday morning on a private jet with Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling, who had been arrested in March at the Chinese border and later sentenced to 12 years hard labor for illegally entering North Korea. Mr. Clinton's one-day visit secured their release.
"We were very clear this was a humanitarian mission," Mr. Obama said in an interview with MSNBC Wednesday. "We have said to the North Koreans there is a path for improved relations, and it involves them no longer developing nuclear weapons."
Mr. Clinton and his delegation were tight-lipped Wednesday about what transpired during a 75-minute meeting with Mr. Kim on Tuesday. They also attended a two-hour banquet hosted by the North Korean leader and his country's pre-eminent national-security body, the National Defense Commission.
U.S. officials briefed on Mr. Clinton's mission, however, are already outlining a broad discussion with Mr. Kim that focused on significantly more than just the two imprisoned Americans.
These U.S. officials indicated that Mr. Clinton expressed to Mr. Kim the necessity that his regime end a nuclear program that's feared to be stoking a broader arms race across Asia and the Middle East. >>> Jay Solomon | Thursday, August 06, 2009
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Euna Lee and Laura Ling, the two US journalists freed after 140 days in captivity in North Korea, have returned home with Bill Clinton to a tearful reunion with their families in Los Angeles.
Euna Lee, 36, and Laura Ling, 32, were flanked by the former US president Bill Clinton, whose meeting with the reclusive Jong-il had secured their liberty during a surprise 20-hour visit to Pyongyang, as they gave their first account of their escape from a 12-year sentence of hard labour.
"Thirty hours ago, Euna Lee and I were prisoners in North Korea," said Miss Ling, struggling to remain composed. "We feared that at any moment we could be prisoners in a hard labour camp. Then suddenly we were told that we were going to a meeting.
"We were taken to a location and when we walked through the doors, we saw standing before us president Bill Clinton. We were shocked, but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives [was over].
She added: "Euna and I would just like to express our deepest gratitude to president Clinton and his wonderful, amazing, not to mention super-cool team ... and the United States Secret Service who travelled half way around the world, and then some, to secure our release." >>> Toby Harnden in Washington | Wednesday, August 05, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: Bill Clinton burst back on to the global political stage yesterday in the unlikely setting of North Korea — and orchestrated an immediate and spectacular diplomatic coup.
Within hours of the former US President shaking hands with Kim Jong Il, his reclusive host, North Korea announced that two imprisoned American journalists would be pardoned and released. Laura Ling and Euna Lee, sentenced to 12 years of hard labour in June after being convicted of spying, are expected to be on board Mr Clinton’s private jet when he leaves Pyongyang today.
“We are counting the seconds to hold Laura and Euna in our arms,” their families said in a statement.
Mr Kim’s “special pardon” was a sign of North Koreas’s “humanitarian and peace-loving policy”, the state’s official news agency said.
The appearance of the world’s most gregarious former head of state in the rogue state took all sides by surprise. It also suggested that President Obama is prepared to use the formidable political skills possessed by the husband of his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, when it suits him.
Mr Clinton’s success raised hopes that North Korea may soon be enticed back to multinational disarmament talks, after three months of mounting tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.
The breakthrough came after what the North Korea media described as “sincere and exhaustive discussions” on a range of matters between Mr Clinton and Mr Kim. The North Koreans said the former US President had flown to Pyongyang bearing a “courteously conveyed” personal message from Mr Obama.
The White House denied that a message had been sent and described Mr Clinton’s trip as a “solely private mission”. Behind the scenes, the Obama Administration had approved the trip after North Korean officials were said to have told the journalists’ families that they were prepared to release them to Mr Clinton. The families then approached the former President.
In another striking break with tradition, footage of Mr Clinton’s arrival and images of his meeting Mr Kim were aired almost immediately on North Korea’s tightly controlled state television channel. >>> Leo Lewis in Tokyo, and Tim Reid in Washington | Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Monday, June 08, 2009
THE NEW YORK TIMES: WASHINGTON — The United States government and Western rights groups protested Monday after North Korea’s highest court sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor, a move that introduced another complicating factor into Washington’s stand-off with North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests and its broader nuclear ambitions.
The two journalists — Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36 — were detained by North Korean soldiers at the Chinese border on March 17 and charged with illegally entering North Korean territory and “hostile acts,” but not with the more serious charge of espionage as some had feared. The North’s official news agency, KCNA, announced the conviction and sentence in a report monitored in Seoul.
Lisa Ling, Laura Ling’s sister, told ABC television that the two journalists were working on a story about the trafficking of North Korean women into China when they were detained, but other reports said they were reporting on North Korean refugees who had fled their country. The exact circumstances of their arrest remain unclear.
President Obama was “deeply concerned” by reports of the sentencing, the White House said in a statement Monday. The United States is “engaged through all possible channels to secure their release,” the statement said.
The human rights group Amnesty International sharply criticized the legal procedures behind the sentencing and called for the journalists’ immediate release. “No access to lawyers, no due process, no transparency: the North Korean judicial and penal systems are more instruments of suppression than of justice,” said Roseann Rife, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific deputy director.
In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists described the sentence as “deplorable” and called on all participants in the six-party talks on North Korea — both Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States — to work together for the women’s release.
Ms. Ling’s father, Doug Ling, spoke briefly to The Associated Press at his home outside Sacramento, California on Monday, saying the family was “going to keep a low-profile until we hear something better about the situation.” >>> By CHOE SANG-HUN | Monday, June 08, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
TIMESONLINE: The jailed Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi was waiting to learn her fate today after her one-day trial on espionage charges at Tehran’s Revolutionary Court.
She was tried on charges of “spying for foreigners... for America,“ Ali Reza Jamshidi, an Iranian government spokesman said, adding that a verdict was expected in two to three weeks. She faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Ms Saberi, 31, who was arrested in January after buying a bottle of wine and subsequently accused of working without press credentials, was charged last week with spying for the United States. An investigative judge involved in the case alleged that she had passed classified information to American intelligence services.
She “was carrying out spying activities under the guise of being a reporter”, Hassan Haddad, the chief deputy prosecutor said last week. “The evidence is mentioned in her case papers and she has accepted all the charges,” he added.
News of yesterday’s speedy trial came as a setback for American efforts to secure her release. They also dashed hope of rapprochement between the countries, raised by Tehran’s positive response to President Obama’s appeal for direct talks.
Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, expressed her “deep concern” for Ms Saberi’s safety and dismissed the charges against the reporter as baseless. She said it was unclear why the trial was moving at such fast pace, especially given the gravity of the charges.
Her parents visited her briefly today at the notorious Evin prison and said she appeared in reasonable health. “We met Roxana for a few minutes and she is doing well,” Reza Saberi, her father, said. “We are waiting for the judge to make a decision. It should come out in a week. There is always hope but we don’t know what will happen.” >>> Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent | Tuesday, April 14, 2009
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