News From You

We receive dozens of news tips and press releases each week from ftm contributors. We want MORE. And we want to share the raw information as quickly as possible. NEWS FROM YOU is the forum for adding what you know to what we know. Share what you know...or what your hear. We will apply the light-touch of the editors axe for clarity. We will also accept NEWS FROM YOU in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese...without translation. (We do insist on being able to understand what you contribute.) You also must clearly indicate that your contribution is for publication in NEWS FROM YOU.

Please note: we cannot use PDF files, only text and .doc files.

Send us NEWS FROM YOU

Week ending April 14, 2006

ITU - IPTV Given Global Standards Boost at ITU - April 13, 2006

from Toby Johnson ITU

ITU will take the lead in international standardization for IPTV with the creation of a Focus Group on IPTV (IPTV FG). Today's announcement follows an agreement reached at a public consultation meeting held on 4 and 5 April where around 120 experts from the world's leading ICT companies backed up ITU's role in the coordination of global IPTV standards. The decision was made because of the benefits of worldwide standards for all players in the IPTV value chain and the need to achieve rapid progress to avoid market fragmentation. The first meeting of this group will be held in early June 2006.

The announcement, while acknowledging that standards work is ongoing in many different places, including ITU, is a reaction to an industry call for ITU to push forward and coordinate global standardization effort in the field.

IPTV is a system where a digital television service is delivered to consumers using internet protocol over a broadband connection. It will help pave the way for players, many of whom are already moving to IP-based NGN infrastructure, to offer a triple-play of video, voice and data.

Standards are necessary in order to give service providers, whether traditional broadcasters, ISPs or telecommunication service providers, control over their platforms and their offerings. Standards here will encourage innovation, help mask the complexity of services, guarantee quality of service (QoS), ensure interoperability and ultimately help players remain competitive.

WAN - "Never a Prisoner" - April 13, 2006

from Larry Kilman WAN

"I have never felt like a prisoner when I have been behind bars. You can be in prison without being a prisoner; the real prisoners are those who imprison journalists whose only crime is to inform or to express an opinion."

So says Pius Njawé, one of Africa's leading journalists and press freedom heroes who estimates that he has been arrested 126 times while carrying out his profession.

Mr Njawé recounts what it is like to be a target, merely for doing his job, in an article that is being offered for publication, free of charge, to newspapers world-wide. The article is part of a package of essays, opinion pieces, infographics, editorial cartoons, public service advertisements and other materials being offered by the World Association of Newspapers for publication on or near 3 May, World Press Freedom Day.

Newspapers are encouraged to view and download the material from http://www.worldpressfreedomday.org , and use as much of it as space allows.

While Mr Njawé never feels like a prisoner, his 34-year career as a journalist in Cameroon has been filled with hardship. "Being deprived of your family, your colleagues and the people you love is a real ordeal, and the tears you shed say less about being behind bars than about the pain and suffering your absence causes all sides," he writes.

In fact, more than 500 journalists were arrested last year. The theme of the WAN World Press Freedom Day package is, "Don't Lock Up Information: Stop Jailing Journalists," and it contains the personal stories of endurance, pain and determination of the men and women arrested and imprisoned.

WAN - Metro International Executive To Address World's Publishers - April 12, 2006

from Larry Kilman WAN

Pelle Tornberg, the Executive Director of Metro International, may be stepping into the lion's den when he addresses the World Newspaper Congress in June. But it is a role that he relishes.

Mr Tornberg, known for his bold and controversial declarations about the future of the press, says that free newspapers will, in the long-term, replace their paid-for counterparts on weekdays. He sees 95 percent of the paid-for newspapers "surviving" as niche products which readers will buy at week-ends.

"If you apply the pay TV and free TV model to the newspaper industry, then the paid-for newspapers probably have to accept living with smaller circulations and probably increasing their prices, increasing the exclusivity," he says.

Mr Tornberg's forecast is likely to be challenged at the World Newspaper Congress, to be held from 4 to 7 June in Moscow, Russia. The Congress, along with the World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2006, are the global meetings of the world's press. Registrations are on a record pace; at least 1,500 newspaper publishers, managing directors, chief editors and other senior newspaper executives are expected to attend.

Full conference details, including programme and registration details and a list of participants, can be found on a special World Association of Newspaper's web site, http://www.moscow2006.com .

WAN has been tracking the rise of the new brand of free newspapers worldwide and counts 180 with a total distribution of more than 26 million copies daily. In some countries, notably in Europe, free newspapers represent a substantial percentage of total newspaper circulation.

RFE/RL - Released Turkmen Prisoner Thanks U.S. Congress - April 12, 2006

from Don Jensen RFE/RL

Turkmen prisoner of conscience Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev, released yesterday after being incarcerated for two years in a psychiatric institution, spoke to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) Turkmen Service today about his imprisonment and why he was released.        

Durdykuliev said he owed his freedom directly to the U.S. Congress and wanted, through RFE/RL, to thank the 54 U.S. Senators and Representatives who sent a letter last week to Turkmen president Saparmurat Niyazov urging his release. "Without that letter, I would still be with them (in the psychiatric ward)," he said.        

Turkmen authorities placed Durdykuliev in a psychiatric institution in 2004 after he requested permission to hold a rally protesting government policies on the same day as celebrations were scheduled to mark Niyazov's birthday.  Prior to his arrest and incarceration, Durdykuliev was frequently heard on RFE/RL Turkmen Service broadcasts.         During today's interview, Durdykuliev told RFE/RL that he was detained for two years and two months with murderers and the criminally insane, and subjected to a systematic campaign to make him lose his mind -- even though a health commission had certified he was in good mental health and classified him as a political prisoner. Durdykuliev said that, for the last three weeks, he was not allowed hot meals or family visits. Then yesterday, April 11, Durdykuliev said he was taken out of the hospital, put in a car and driven more than 13 hours to his home in the town of Nebit Dag, near the Caspian Sea coast in western Turkmenistan.        

Durdykuliev told RFE/RL that he needs medical treatment and plans to sue the Turkmen government for compensation. "I am asking Turkmen authorities to pay me $5 million," he said.

Out2 Media - Citizen Journalism Site to Pay Contributors - April 11, 2006

from Chris McManus Boldbrook Marketing

Out2 Media Group will start paying news contributors -- citizen journalists -- a fee for writing self-submitted articles for its network of local (US) newspapers.  Payment will start at $5 per article.  The idea is to reward contributors and further encourage citizen journalism for local and community-based coverage.

Out2 has a national online infrastructure that enables local edition newspapers -- it currently has more than 13,400 editions across the country. We've seen a decline of local and community coverage as newspapers expand their geographic reach to make up for lost ad revenues. The New York Times, for example, is a national paper and no longer the local New York daily. The New York Times company is pushing its Boston Globe property in the same direction.  As a result, communities are losing those local news stories that are important to them.

Out2 aims to replace that -- in part through reader-submitted articles.  Who better to report on a community movement to install a traffic light on a dangerous intersection, or provide the Little League scores.

Informa - Asia Pacific TV: Satellite Challenges Cable Dominance - April 10, 2006

from Adam Thomas Informa

A new report from Informa Telecoms & Media published today shows that satellite TV in the Asia Pacific region is starting to make inroads into cable’s dominance of the pay TV sector. The 10th edition of Informa’s Asia Pacific TVreport shows thatin 2000 satellite took a 2.7% share of the region’s pay TV homes. By the end of last year that percentage had grown to 4.2% and by 2011 it is forecast to take a 7.9% share.

Adam Thomas, author of the report, said: “The Asia-Pacific broadcast sector made more good progress in 2005; although mixed messages from China are still holding the region back from the exponential growth it is capable of achieving. Satellite is now giving cable a real run for its money, and the launch of a service in China later this year will see satellite’s share of the market grow even more quickly over the next five years. IPTV is still well-positioned to become a significant rival to both formats in the medium term, but there have been some recent signs that the technology will take a little longer to establish itself than was initially envisaged.”

Asia Pacific TV (10th edition) forecasts that the Asia Pacific region will boast 615 million TV households by 2011, an increase of 137 million since 1995. The conversion to digital is also making progress. At end-2005, the region had 21.1 million homes receiving digital signals. This is up from 13.7 million a year earlier and heralds the start of massive expansion in the second half of the decade. The number of digital homes will grow to more than 200 million by 2011. Thomas said: “Although digital TV will make major inroads over the next five years, by 2011 there will still be 40% of homes taking analogue signals. This shows that subscription and digital systems will still have plenty of room for growth well into the next decade.”

RFE/RL - Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Simmers While Peace Process Frozen - April 10, 2006

from Martins Zanvers RFE/RL

Negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh are frozen, unlike the conflict itself which threatens to erupt into armed conflict again, say two experts on the region. Sabine Freizer and Laurence Broers told a recent RFE/RL audience that the negotiation process over the disputed region should be broadened to include more "actors" particularly members of civil society in both countries, and the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh.        

Sabine Freizer, Caucasus Project Director for the International Crisis Group, said the resumption of a full-scale war is possible, because ceasefire violations have increased markedly in the last year along the "line of contact" and "the skirmishes could get out of hand." She described the situation in the Azeri-controlled territory adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh as "dire" -- "The destruction is worse than Bosnia... cities have been dismantled, scavenged... there's been no de-mining." Freizer added that if the conflict heats up again, neighbors in the region could easily be "pulled in."

Freizer attributed the failure in negotiations to a "buying time strategy" on the part of both Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Armenian government, Freizer said, believes that "the de-facto reality" of Nagorno-Karabakh as a state and the principle of self-determination, "as in the case of East Timor and Kosova," will lead the international community to acknowledge the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, while the government of Azerbaijan believes that the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity will prevail and notes that there have been "four UN Security Council resolutions supporting" them. Freizer is also concerned that the Azeri government "may possibly take military action" to reunify the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh with Azerbaijan, noting that it has increased its military spending from $135 million in 2003 to $600 million in 2006, and plans to spend $1 billion by 2009.

Laurence Broers of Conciliation Resources, a British non-governmental organization, and a research analyst for Amnesty International said the stalemate in the negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh stems from a "narrow group of stakeholders" who "can't sustain an agreement" because there's little support within the societies they represent, since the negotiations involve "only the presidents, foreign ministers and their aides." Broers also noted that "the marginalized actors -- the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh and the displaced Azeris" are not parties in the peace process.

Broers and Freizer stressed the need for civil society to play an active role in the peace process, but said this was unlikely until both countries' political systems "democratize." Currently, Broers said, the "peace process provides political legitimacy to the regimes," which are "unlikely to allow wider participation." Broers said the international community could be helpful by doing more to "advance political democratization," sponsoring "development plans inclusive of the both the de-jure and de-facto states of the region," and viewing the resolution of the conflict as a "multi-level process with medium and long-term timelines," not just focusing on "windows of opportunity."

WAN, WEF Protest Against Press Crackdown in Nepal - April 10, 2006

from Larry Kilman WAN

The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum have appealed to the King of Nepal to end his government's crackdown on the press.

"We respectfully call on you to do everything possible to ensure that your government's campaign of intimidation of the media is immediately halted, and that in future Nepal fully respects international standards of free expression," said a letter from WAN and the WEF to King Gyanendra.

At least 37 journalists were arrested in Kathmandu on 5 April during a peace rally and a subsequent protest against the arrests. In addition, newspapers and radio stations have been closed and new laws threaten to criminalise reporting on the Maoist insurgency.

Previous News From You

Week ending April 7, 2006

Week ending March 31, 2006