Category Archives: Media

Nadhim Zahawi’s future threatened as Labour steps up pressure over tax affairs

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Angela Rayner says Rishi Sunak should come clean about any concerns raised with No 10 about ex-chancellor and HMRC penalty

Nadhim Zahawi’s political future appeared under increasing threat on Sunday night, after Labour pushed hard for answers about his tax issues and government colleagues offered little support for his plight.

After a weekend dominated by questions over the Conservative party chair’s tax position, Labour signalled its intention to pin the controversy on to Rishi Sunak, demanding the prime minister explain if he knew about the issue when he appointed Zahawi to his cabinet.

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Labour urges inquiry into claim BBC chairman ‘helped Boris Johnson secure loan guarantee’

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Reports Richard Sharp helped ex-PM arrange guarantee on £800,000 loan before he was recommended for job

Labour is calling for an investigation after claims that the BBC chair helped Boris Johnson arrange a guarantee on a loan of up to £800,000 weeks before he was recommended for the job by the then prime minister.

The party has written to the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, after a report in the Sunday Times that Tory donor Richard Sharp was involved in talks about financing Johnson when he found himself in financial difficulty in late 2020.

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‘English flirting’: Dimoldenberg v Garfield is real magic

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The brief encounters between an actor and an interviewer have been compared to Austen’s novels and Hollywood’s golden age

He’s a Hollywood A-lister, recently named a man of the year and routinely included among the sexiest alive. She is an awkward art-school graduate who has his shirtless photo as the wallpaper on her phone. And they just can’t seem to stop running into each other.

The television personality Amelia Dimoldenberg and the actor Andrew Garfield have been hailed as a real-life romcom in the making for their brief but memorable – and, now, heavily hyped – encounters at awards shows.

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Biden accused of hypocrisy as he seeks extradition of Julian Assange

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Ad-hoc tribunal of legal experts and supporters pressures US administration to drop ‘attack on press freedom’

Joe Biden has been accused of hypocrisy for demanding the release of journalists detained around the world while the US president continues seeking the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from Britain to face American espionage charges.

The campaign to pressure the Biden administration to drop the charges moved to Washington DC on Friday with a hearing of the Belmarsh Tribunal, an ad hoc gathering of legal experts and supporters named after the London prison where Assange is being detained.

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As independent media blossoms in Cuba, journalists face a crackdown

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‘Chilling’ new criminal law penalizing internationally funded journalism comes as repression in the country is on the rise

Since graduating from the University of Havana’s faculty of journalism in 2021, Pedro Sosa, 24, has photographed families of political prisoners and written about the chronic lack of medicine and syringes in Cuba’s fraying medical system.

It was risky work on an island that brooks little dissent, but in September things came to a head: he was interrogated by state security and told that if he didn’t renounce his work for the independent media outlets El Toque (the Touch) and El Estornudo (the Sneeze) he could face jail.

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Trump pleads with Meta to restore Facebook account

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Former president’s lawyers petition company to allow access following ban from platform in wake of 2021 Capitol attack

Donald Trump has petitioned Meta to restore his access to Facebook, as he reportedly looks to shift his 2024 presidential campaign into a higher gear.

The former president was banned from Facebook more than two years ago, after his followers attacked the US Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

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Tech bosses face jail if children not kept safe online after UK parliament deal

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Rebel Tories drop amendment after ministers agree to make managers criminally liable for persistent breaches of duty of care

Tech executives whose platforms persistently fail to protect children from online harm will face criminal charges after ministers reached a deal with Conservative backbenchers.

Rishi Sunak was facing the prospect of defeat in a Commons vote on Tuesday after a rebel amendment to the online safety bill won opposition support. However, supporters have now withdrawn the amendment after the government agreed to change the legislation.

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Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over social media use

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Court documents reveal reasons for Awad Al-Qarni’s arrest – even though rulers are major investors in social media platforms

A prominent pro-reform law professor in Saudi Arabia is facing the death penalty for alleged crimes including having a Twitter account and using WhatsApp to share news considered “hostile” to the kingdom, according to court documents seen by the Guardian.

The arrest of Awad Al-Qarni, 65, in September 2017 represented the start of a crackdown against dissent by the then newly named crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

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‘Utterly disgraceful’: new federal court rules limiting access to documents criticised by media union

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While the court says rules are designed to protect respondents from early reporting of allegations, MEAA president says decision ‘goes against the concept of open court’

New federal court rules barring media from accessing documents until the first directions hearing have been labelled “utterly disgraceful” and a breach of the concept of “open” justice.

Enacted in mid-December by federal court judges without consulting the media and published on the gazette Thursday, the rules appear designed to protect respondents against reporting of allegations at the earliest stages of a case.

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National security bill may have ‘chilling effect’ on investigative journalism in UK

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Guy Black, deputy chair of Telegraph newspapers, says draft legislation sets too low a bar on what constitutes spying

The UK’s proposed national security bill could have a “chilling effect” on investigative journalism because it sets too low a bar on what constitutes spying, the deputy chair of the Telegraph newspapers has warned.

Guy Black told the House of Lords that he was concerned the draft legislation could “potentially criminalise” reporters and whistleblowers because it says simply that a crime is committed if it “may materially assist a foreign intelligence service”.

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Hopes rise for press freedom in Tanzania as number of censured journalists falls

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Media council reports progress under progressive stance of President Suluhu following years of repression by former regime

The number of journalists being censured for their work in Tanzania has fallen slightly, raising hopes that press freedom is improving in the country.

Last year, 17 “press violations”, which include threats, arrests, denial of access to information and equipment seizures, were reported in the east African nation, the Media Council of Tanzania told the Guardian. This compares with 25 in 2021 and 41 in 2020.

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Seattle public schools sue social media platforms for youth ‘mental health crisis’

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Lawsuit accuses companies behind TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube of harming young people’s mental health

Seattle’s public schools district has filed a lawsuit in the US against multiple major social media companies, accusing them of harming young people’s mental health across the country.

The lawsuit which was filed on Friday with a US district court accused the social media companies behind TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube of creating a “mental health crisis among America’s youth”.

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Six journalists arrested over footage of South Sudan president wetting himself

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State broadcaster’s staff held on suspicion of disseminating the clip of Salva Kiir at official event

Six journalists have been detained by South Sudan security forces over viral footage of the country’s president apparently urinating on himself, a press freedom watchdog has reported.

The clip, filmed during an official event, shows South Sudanese leader Salva Kiir standing for the national anthem, initially oblivious as a stain spreads on his trousers and a pool forms at his feet. The camera abruptly turns away after Kiir and his entourage appear to notice what is happening.

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UN envoy calls for release of jailed journalist on hunger strike in Senegal

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Concerns raised over health of Pape Alé Niang, detained since 20 December on charges of revealing confidential government information

Pressure is mounting on authorities in Senegal to release a journalist and human rights defender on hunger strike in detention, after reports of his deteriorating health.

Pape Alé Niang, director of the Dakar Matin news website, has refused food since he was imprisoned on 20 December and has been in hospital since 24 December. A request for his immediate conditional release was turned down on Tuesday.

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Iran warns France over ‘insulting’ cartoons depicting supreme leader Ali Khamenei

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Publication by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo ‘will not go without effective response’, says Tehran foreign minister

Iran has summoned the French ambassador over publication of caricatures of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The weekly magazine published dozens of cartoons ridiculing the highest religious and political figure in the Islamic republic as part of a competition it launched in December in support of the protest movement that began in Iran last September.

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Meta dealt blow by EU ruling that could result in data use ‘opt-in’

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Irish regulator fines Facebook owner €390m after EU rejects argument for use of data to drive personalised ads

The business model of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta empire has been dealt a blow following a ruling that its legal justification for targeting users with personalised ads broke EU data laws.

Campaigners said the move could force the Facebook and Instagram owner to ask users to “opt in” to having their data used for targeted ads.

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Iranian police detain top footballers at New Year’s Eve party

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Players briefly held after raid on mixed-gender party, as elsewhere dissident Keyvan Samimi is released from prison

Iranian police briefly detained several top-tier football players in a raid on a New Year’s Eve party east of Tehran, where men and women allegedly mingled and alcohol was served in violation of an Islamic ban, according to Iranian media reports.

News of the brief arrests of the players, who were not identified, came as the release was announced of the Iranian dissident journalist Keyvan Samimi, who was jailed in December 2020 for “plotting against national security”.

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Netflix to lose 700,000 UK customers in two years, analysts predict

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Slow uptake of ad-supported offering has meant lower than expected viewing figures, made worse by UK cost of living crisis

Netflix is expected to suffer a second year of subscriber declines in the UK in 2023 as the cost of living crisis takes its toll and the streaming giant’s new cheaper, ad-supported service takes time to win over users.

The world’s biggest streaming service is expected to have lost around 500,000 UK subscribers in 2022 and to lose another 200,000 this year, as increasingly budget conscious consumers cut back on spending.

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Barbara Walters, pioneering US TV news anchor, dies at 93

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First female network news anchor in US achieved a celebrity status on par with the rulers, royalty and entertainers she interviewed

Barbara Walters, the foremost American TV interviewer of her generation and the first woman to lead a US network evening news program, has died aged 93.

Over the course of her 50-year career, Walters was queen of the “get” – a term for securing the first interview with prominent figures making news, whether that was a movie star, politician or figure of criminal notoriety.

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Complaints about gambling ads almost double, Australian media regulator says

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Acma calls for more power to restrict advertisements on Facebook, YouTube and Google

The number of complaints about gambling advertisements almost doubled last financial year, prompting Australia’s media regulator to warn current restrictions are failing to meet community expectations.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority called for more power to restrict unlicensed gambling advertisements on Facebook, YouTube and Google to better protect children and vulnerable Australians.

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