Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South Africa’s elite police unit said Thursday that it was investigating a journalist at the request of the country’s spy agency after he made corruption and tax avoidance allegations against President Jacob Zuma. In “The President’s Keepers”, released last month, Jacques Pauw paints a vivid …
Read More »Burundi radio station suspended for criticising killings
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | The director of a Burundi radio station said Friday his outlet is being temporarily taken off air after criticising the government over the killings of dozens of refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). CCIB FM+, which is run by Burundi’s chamber of commerce, …
Read More »Denis Onyango is Uganda’s Sports Personality Of The Year
Kampala, Uganda| THE INDEPENDENT REPORTER | Cranes goalkeeper Denis Onyango is Uganda’s Sports Personality Of The Year 2016. Onyango was named the country’s best at a glitz and glamour event Friday night by the Uganda Sports Press Association (USPA). The South African based goalkeeper becomes the first individual footballer to be crowned …
Read More »Tanzanian newspaper suspended for pointing finger at ex-presidents
Tanzanian newspaper suspended for pointing finger at Mkapa, Kikwete Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Tanzanian weekly, Mawio, has been ordered to suspend publication for two years after pointing the finger at two former presidents in connection with huge revenue losses, the country’s interior ministry said Friday. The weekly, regularly critical of …
Read More »THE LAST WORD: Trump’s war with the press
By Andrew M. Mwenda How the new US president is bursting the Washington bubble and annoying the nation’s hypocrites For many decades, American journalists have deluded themselves into the belief that they are unelected representatives of the people. They are convinced that their profession places them above politics as impartial, …
Read More »South Sudan deports American freelance journalist
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | The last foreign reporter living in South Sudan said Wednesday he had been deported from the war-torn country after a series of articles critical of the government. In a statement posted on his Twitter account, Justin Lynch, 25, said he was “arrested and deported” by …
Read More »Pope names US reporter as spokesman plus first female deputy
Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Pope Francis on Monday named a former Fox News correspondent to head up the Vatican press office and appointed the tiny state’s first-ever female deputy spokesperson. American Greg Burke, 56, brought in by the Vatican in 2013 to overhaul its public-relations operation, will …
Read More »The triumph of press freedom
By Andrew M. Mwenda The closure and reopening of Daily Monitor and Red Pepper exposed the weaknesses, not the strength, of the state Finally, the government re-opened Daily Monitor and its affiliate radio stations KFM and Dembe on the one hand and the Red Pepper and her sister newspapers Kamunye …
Read More »‘Only Court and not the press will try Kazinda’
By Ronald Musoke Justice David Wangutusi has warned the Ugandan press against convicting Geoffrey Kazinda, the interdicted principal accountant in the Office of the Prime Minister, before Court does so. Wangutusi said judgments being delivered in the newspapers are baseless. Speaking with direct eye contact with Kazinda, the judge said: …
Read More »New Bill spells doom for Ugandan press freedom
By Jocelyn Edwards On September 10th last year, police stormed the transmission room of the Baganda kingdoms Central Broadcasting Services (CBS) and carried away a link to the transmitter. The station suddenly went off the air. Its licence had been revoked by the Broadcasting Council for allegedly stirring up tribal …
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