18 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost
Zhao Lingmin, one of the top editors at Window on the South, a Guangzhou-based news and current affairs magazine, has been suspended from her duties. In a letter to colleagues, Zhao wrote that an article called “China Has Risen, We Must Say Goodbye to the Foreign Policy of Revolution” , which she wrote for a recent edition of the magazine, featured “errors of political guidance”. The article, which is still available on a number of blogs and chatrooms, has been deleted from most other sites. The original link at the Window on the South website now results in a 404 error message.
17 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost
Vanuatu‘s Minister of Ni-Vanuatu business, Pastor Don Ken, reportedly visited the newsroom of the state-owned Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation demanding that a story covering his arrest and jailing on the eve of Vanuatu Independence day celebrations in July 2011 be censored. Media watchdog the Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF) and reporters at the broadcasting station alike have expressed concern over the minister’s interference and pressure.
17 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost
Local papers in Albemarle County, Virginia, have reported that Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, has been removed from sixth-grade reading lists after a parent complained that it was “our young students’ first inaccurate introduction to an American religion.” In the book, in which a father and daughter are rescued by Mormons on condition they adopt the Mormon faith, Conan Doyle wrote that Mormons were “persecutors of the most terrible description”.
17 Aug 11 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Al Jazeera’s Kabul bureau chief has been brought before an Israeli military court a week after he was arrested and detained by Israeli officials. Al Jazeera reported that Samer Allawi was yesterday charged with being a member of Hamas. He was arrested on 10 August, while crossing the border between Jordan and the West Bank. He was attempting to return to the Afghan capital Kabul after a three-week holiday in his hometown of Nablus.
