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1 October 2012 | BBC News

Japan introduces piracy penalties for illegal downloads

Japan-based internet users who download copyright infringing files face up to two years in prison or fines of up to JPY 2m (USD 25,700) after a change to the law. Such activity has been illegal since 2010, but until now had not invoked the penalties. It follows a lobbying campaign by country's music industry. But critics said that efforts should have remained focused on stopping users making such material available. In Japan illegal uploads of copyright infringing music and videos carry a maximum 10 year prison sentence and a JPY 10m fine. Sales figures suggest the country is the world's second-largest music market after the US. In theory the new download punishments can be enforced if a user is found to have copied a single pirated file. The Recording Industry Association of Japan had pushed for the move, suggesting that illegal media downloads outnumbered legal ones by about a factor of 10. The figure is based on a 2010 study which suggested that people in the country downloaded about 4.36 billion illegally pirated music and video files and 440 million purchased ones that year. It added that the disparity was likely to have increased over the following months.

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1 October 2012 | AP

Media court in Iran convicts Reuters chief in ‘ninja’ dispute

A special media court found the Tehran bureau chief of the Thomson Reuters news agency guilty Sunday of "spreading lies" against the Islamic system for a video story that briefly included a posted description of women training as martial arts killers. The state-owned news website YJC.ir quotes Ali Akbar Kasaeian, spokesman for the court panel, as saying Iranian national Parisa Hafezi was convicted of propaganda-related offenses for a February video that initially carried a headline saying the women were training as ninja "assassins." Iran's state Press TV also reported the court decision. The Reuters headline was corrected, but it led to the suspension of the Reuters bureau in Tehran in March. Most of the Reuters staff shifted to Dubai, but Hafezi was not allowed to leave Iran. A sentence by the court is expected within a week. The media court rarely deals with international news outlets, but often issues rulings against domestic media for various violations with punishments including fines, closure or jail sentences.

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1 October 2012 | AP

2 more Somali journalists murdered; 1 is beheaded

One Somali journalist was shot dead by gunmen on Friday while a second journalist was beheaded and his body dumped in the street, officials and residents said, two attacks that bring the number of Somali journalists killed this year to 15. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the latest killings, but the deaths fit into a year-long pattern of targeted attacks against Somali journalists. Residents in an area just north of Mogadishu discovered the headless dead body of Abdirahman Mohamed Ali, a 26-year-old sports writer with his hands tied behind his back on Thursday. His body also showed signs of torture. No previous killing of a journalist has involved a beheading, and the method of death could be an indication that al-Qaida-linked militants from al-Shabab were responsible. Unidentified gunmen shot and killed Ahmed Abdulahi Fanah, a 32-year-old reporter who was working for the Yemeni news agency, the Somali journalists union said Friday. Most of the 15 deaths appear to have been targeted killings, though last week three journalists were killed when a suicide bomber detonated explosives in a cafe popular with journalists and politicians. The day after that attack gunmen shot and killed another journalist. Most of the killings have taken place in areas of Mogadishu nominally under the Somali government's control. Despite government promises of prosecutions, no arrests have yet been made for any of the killings in 2012.

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1 October 2012 | The Guardian

Al-Jazeera’s political independence questioned amid Qatar intervention

Al-Jazeera's editorial independence has been called into question after its director of news stepped in to ensure a speech made by Qatar's emir to the UN led its English channel's coverage of the debate on Syrian intervention. Journalists had produced a package of the UN debate, topped with excerpts of President Obama's speech, last Tuesday when a last-minute instruction came from Salah Negm, the Qatar-based news director, who ordered the video to be re-edited to lead with the comments from Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Despite protests from staff that the emir's comments – a repetition of previous calls for Arab intervention in Syria – were not the most important aspect of the UN debate, the two-minute video was re-edited and Obama's speech was relegated to the end of the package. There are hints at staff dissatisfaction within the film, available for viewing on al-Jazeera's website and YouTube, which notes that the emir "represents one of the smallest countries in the Arab world … but Qatar has been one of the loudest voices condemning Syria". The episode left a bitter taste among staff amid complaints that this was the most heavy-handed editorial intervention at the global broadcaster, which has long described itself as operating independent of its Qatari ownership.

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1 October 2012 | The Local

Ikea ‘erases’ women from Saudi catalogue

Swedish furniture retailer Ikea has removed out all the women from the version of the company's famed catalogue to be distributed in Saudi Arabia, prompting a stern reaction from Sweden's trade minister. Nearly 200 million copies of Ikea's forthcoming catalogue will be printed in 27 languages for distribution in 38 countries. And the catalogues will be nearly identical, save for those printed for distribution in Saudi Arabia, a country where women don't get to vote, drive cars, or move freely on the streets, the Metro newspaper reported. In the Saudi version of Ikea's annual booklet, all the women who appear in images featured in the catalogue in other countries have been removed via photo retouching. In the Swedish version of the Ikea catalogue, for example, a mother can be seen standing at a sink next to her child in a stylized bathroom. In the Saudi catalogue, however, there is no mother; the child stands at the sink alone. Attorney Claes Borgstrom, who served as Sweden's gender equality ombudsman between 2000 and 2007 also slammed Ikea's decision to remove women from the Saudi catalogue.

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1 October 2012 | CNET News

Pew study: News consumption in US up via mobile, social media

Social-networking sites grew from 9 percent to 19 percent as a source for news in the last two years, but only 3 percent of respondents say they regularly get news from Twitter. The Internet is continuing to erode TV, radio, and newspapers as the source of news for Americans. According to the latest Pew ResearchCenter survey covering the changing news landscape, the proliferation of mobile devices and social networks is accelerating the shift to online news consumption. In the survey, 39 percent said that they got their news online, up from 33 percent two years ago. Only TV surpasses online as a news source today. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, one-third watched some TV news, down from 49 percent in 2006. Among those under 30, only 13 percent read a digital or print newspaper, while 33 percent viewed news on a social network and 34 percent saw some news on TV. A majority of those surveyed (64 percent) said they preferred news sources that didn't espouse a specific point of view, while 26 percent wanted news from sources sharing their political viewpoint. Yahoo, Google, CNN, local news, and MSN were the top five online news sources named among the respondents. Social-networking sites as a source for news grew from 9 percent to 19 percent in the last two years.

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