Turkmenistan President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov fired 30 employees of the main state television channel after a cockroach crawled across the studio desk during the 9pm news programme, Vatan, the news website Kronika Turkmenistan reported on 21 February.
Former USA Today reporter Toni Locy has been found in contempt for violating a court order to reveal her confidential sources. Locy is being pressed to reveal her sources in Dr Steven Hatfill’s civil case against the federal government.
A Tunisian comic may have paid a high price for making fun of the country’s leader, writes Rohan Jayasekera
Index on Censorship is calling for the release of Tunisian comedian Hédi Ouled Baballah, who has been jailed on the basis of suspect evidence, apparently in punishment for mimicking the country’s president.
The trigger seems to have been a private recording (available here) of comedian Hédi Ouled Baballah’s satirical imitation of Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali that has spread across the country by mobile phone.
Index on Censorship, together with fellow members of the Tunisian Monitoring Group (TMG) of international free speech groups, believes that Ouled Baballah was targeted by police and framed for drugs and currency charges as punishment for the popular satire.
The release of a draft of the British government’s dossier on Iraqi weapons confirms suspicions but also raises more questions, writes Chris Ames
Monday’s release of the John Williams draft of the Iraq “weapons of mass destruction” dossier shows why the government fought for so long to suppress it. It proves what I have always suspected: that a spin doctor was in the thick of sexing up the document that took Britain to war. At the same time, Williams himself has shattered the Foreign Office case for not releasing the draft under the Freedom of Information Act.
We learn two things from the document. Firstly, Williams produced what became the dossier’s executive summary, which purported to set out the Joint Intelligence Committee’s (JIC) “judgments”. Secondly, and consequently, the draft is proved to have led to JIC chairman John Scarlett’s “first draft” the next day and therefore to the published dossier. The first shows that the government misled parliament in making the case for war. The second shows that the government misled the Hutton and Butler inquiries, and parliament again, to cover this up.