International

It's time for another edition of our ongoing coverage of media freedom in the Far East. Yah!

According to Asia Times, Hong Kong journalists working on the mainland, who had enjoyed unprecedented access as reporters in the run-up to the Beijing Olympic Games, must now be accredited by the mainland must be accredited to the All-China Journalists Association and get "the consent of the individual or organization to be interviewed."

The policy is "one step forward, two steps back" for media freedom in the Communist state, Woo Lai Wan, a representative of International Federation of Journalists, said. Wan, however, isn't to worried about the new regulations: "These rules were there before the Olympics and we ignored them. We will ignore them again."

Remember when an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at former President George Bush? That was fun. Well, it happened again, except this time, it was in China and no one reported the story.

At a University of Cambridge speech, a bystander tossed a shoe at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. The Associated Press sets the scene:

In the live broadcast of the speech on CCTV's Web site, the camera remains fixed on Wen, not showing the shoe or the protester, although his remarks and the sound of the shoe hitting the stage can be heard. Wen pauses, glances sideways as the shoe hits the stage, and then continues his speech.

However, according to the AP story, "state-run newspapers and Web sites in China carried stories on Wen's speech but had no reference to the shoe-throwing. Content mentioning it on Internet forums also appears to have been deleted."

Thankfully, the Chinese blogosphere covered the incident. Bloggers, changing your opinions about journalism, one step at a time.

Occasionally we're forced to learn harsh truths. Santa Claus does not exist. The Tooth Fairy is bullshit. New York is not the center of the world.

Natural disasters have a way of pushing these stark realities to the forefront. Searching for information about Hurricane Gustav, we stumbled upon the Cuban News Agency, which provides a decidedly non-American perspective on the island nation. So the Cubans aren't ungodly heathens? Shock.

Fidel Castro called the devastation a "nuclear strike."

From the same article:

"It has been a hard blow; I could not even imagine it," said in a hoarse voice, hurt by the effort but steady and resolute, Ana Isa Delgado, the Party Secretary and President of the Defense Council in that important municipality.

We also learned that the Venezuelan Community Party and the Russians will help Cuba and how Gustav affected the United States. Good stuff throughout.

Thanks for listening. We will now return to our regularly scheduled narcissism.

After a week of protests, Thailand's Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej declared a state of emergency earlier today in Bangkok. Despite the fact that the decree allows authorities the ability to "bar the media from reporting news that 'causes panic,'" reporters in the country have so far been able to operate freely.

The reason? Army chief Anupong Paochinda has been unwilling to comply with the PM's ruling, hoping the situation will resolve itself peacefully.

This sounds like good news, but since Western media can't hope to understand what's happening (CNN is accused of cutting quotes), we'll refrain from judging.

FreeBilal.org, the Web site dedicated to freeing Bilal Hussein, the Iraqi citizen and AP photographer held by the United States government on terrorist charges for the past two years, won't need to exist much longer. The United States military will comply with last week's ruling by an Iraqi judicial committee to award Hussein amnesty. According to a statement released by the U.S. government, Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, commander of coalition detention facilities in Iraq, signed the release order earlier today. The statement does not confirm guilt or innocence.

Hussein, part of the AP photography team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005, had been held since April 12, 2006 on charges of possessing bomb-making materials, conspiracy with insurgents and helping to forge identification cards.

Dealing with pompous, asinine politicians is one of the hazards of working in television news. But Sri Lankan state broadcaster Rupavahini TV lived the dream... and held the country's Minister of Labor hostage for three hours.

Here's what happened... Mervyn Silva, Sri Lanka's Minister of Labor, stormed the offices of state broadcaster Rupavahini along with his entourage. Silva was upset that a speech he made on Wednesday had not been covered by the station. A scuffled ensured and one of Silva's aides allegedly assaulted Rupavhini's news director. Silva was then held hostage by Rupavahini's staff for more than three hours... the problem?

Rupavahini TV would have let Silva leave the building if he apologized. He eventually apologized... after Rupavahini's corporate HQ was surrounded by commandos and police with tear gas. But, wait. Silva gave a non-apology apology:

"If my action is considered as a wrong act, I would like to apologise to the employees," said Silva.

Silva has had a history of violent behavior in the past.

(Image via Al-Jazeera/Reuters)

Think your job sucks? At least you're not a publicist for the Korean Central News Agency, the government press agency of North Korea. In a press release marking Kim Jong-Il's 16th anniversary as head of the North Korean military, the KCNA writes:

When he finds himself among soldiers, he takes a scrupulous care of their life from cultural and emotional activities to meals, showing them warmer affection than their own parents would.

He took measures to let the soldiers have many photos taken so that they would be able to keep them long as mementos of their military service. When he visited a women's company in a deep valley, he took care that all conditions were taken so they could watch clear and clean TV scenes.

[...]

Concerned even over the cold wind filtering through needle holes of soldiers' winter clothes, he took care that they were replaced with better ones. He acquaints himself with the room temperature and water quality while making a round of bedrooms, wash-cum-bath houses, kitchens, non-staple food stores and other supply facilities and teaches them food processing methods, too.

That's right: Serve in the North Korean military and the Dear Leader will personally fix your television reception.

So, hmm. The bastion of press freedom known as China is building an extensive database on the 30,000 foreign journalists scheduled to cover the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But, don't worry: It's not to create blacklists, obstruct reporters or to prevent access to those rabblerousing Uighur and Tibetan secessionists.

The San Francisco Chronicle was told they have until February to disclose the names of their journalists... and the Agence France-Presse got the quote of the day, from Li Zhanjun of the Beijing Olympic organizing committee's media centre:

"Some reporters like to cover sport and some others are very interested in politics ... so we have some kind of data and information concerning that."

No comment necessary on that one, eh?

A whopping 66% of FishbowlNY readers voted No, Rosie O'Donnell should NOT get a talk show on MSNBC or anywhere else. Today's Poll:

Ow-ah. Six months after Vanity Fair was launched in Germany as a weekly magazine, Der Spiegel reports Condé Nast is running into major problems with Deutsche-Vanity Fair. A few of the highlights:

• Condé Nast is spending € 500,000 (US$670,000) weekly on the magazine, which is also suspected of exaggerating a sold print run of 120,000.

• The usually mild-mannered Spiegel accuses Vanity Fair EIC Ulf Poschardt of "flamboyant arrogance" and his staff of "burn-out syndrome."

• A photo shoot in Dresden is a sign of the editors' "desperate search for glamour."

• Editors are complaining that the magazine lacks "political relevance and journalistic seriousness."

• In a German version of the Bono/Africa VF stunt, German pop star Herbert Gronemeyer guest edited an issue of the magazine and "received little in return."

• Poschardt claims overblown expectations as a "result of the magazine's association with the legendary US edition of Vanity Fair."

• German Condé Nast publisher Bernd Runge dodged questions about the magazine's circulation.

Spiegel's verdict:

continued...