Tuesday November 21, 2006

A daily review of media coverage of media and communications issues

Missing Journalist

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2006/11/061120_
dilawar_update.shtml

BBC reporter missing in Islamabad

Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned about the disappearance in Islamabad of Dilawar Khan, a reporter for the Urdu-language section of the BBC World Service and the daily "Dawn" in the South Waziristan tribal area. RSF fears he may have been kidnapped.

http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/79245/

Journalist missing

A tribal journalist working for the BBC World Service and an English newspaper in South Waziristan was reported “mysteriously missing” since Monday afternoon after he left Islamabad for Dera Ismail Khan. Zulfiqar Ali told Daily Times that his brother Dilawar Khan “went missing” on Monday after spending a night with him. He said that around 10 “suspicious men” visited the Islamic University where he is a student of the Law Faculty and asked him to go with them, but his friends advised him not to do so. Zulfiqar said that after the men left, he called Dilawar on his cell phone but a person identifying himself as Dr Jamshed told him that his brother had been injured in a road accident and was in a hospital. Zulfiqar said that he made the call on his brother's phone an hour after Zulfiqar left for Dera Ismail Khan.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\11\21\story_21-11-2006_pg1_7

Dawn's Wana correspondent missing in Islamabad

Dilawar Khan Wazir, Dawn's correspondent in South Waziristan, who also worked for the BBC Urdu service, went missing from Islamabad on Monday afternoon. His younger brother Zulfiqar Ali, a final year student at the International Islamic University, told Dawn that after meeting him on Monday, Mr Wazir said he was returning to Dera Ismail Khan, but since then he had been untraceable.

http://www.dawn.com/2006/11/21/top3.htm

Fata journalist goes missing in Islamabad

A Pakistani journalist working for the BBC in a restive tribal area has disappeared, his brother and the media agency's website said on Monday. No-one has heard from Dilawar Khan Wazir, a correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation in the restive South Waziristan agency, since Monday noon after he left Islamabad , his brother Zulfiqar Khan said. The reporter had come to the capital to meet Khan on Sunday. Wazir then left for home in Dera Ismail Khan on Monday morning. But Khan said shortly after he left about “a dozen suspicious men” arrived at his hostel, although he refused to meet them.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=4305

Journalist goes missing 

A Waziristan-based journalist went missing in Capital on Monday shortly after visiting his younger brother in International Islamic University. The 38-year old Dilawar Ali Wazir works for BBC-Urdu Service and came to Islamabad to see his brother, Zulfiqar Ali Wazir, only the other day. Wazir was last seen leaving the university hostel in a cab for Dera Ismail Khan. The mysterious disappearance of Dilawar surfaced when some plain-clothed persons, apparently operatives of some secret agency, reached the University hostel and asked for his brother Zulfiqar, said Ejaz Mehr, a colleague of the missing journalist at BBC. The suspected visitors initially met friends of Zulfiqar and told them that Dilawar has been injured in an accident near Peerwadhai and taken to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Mehr added.

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/nov-2006/21/index11.php

BBC reporter new addition to list of missing

Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned about the disappearance in Islamabad of Dilawar Khan, the BBC-Urdu correspondent in South Waziristan , and fears that he may have been kidnapped. Dilawar Khan went missing on Monday after visiting one of his brothers, Zulfiqar Ali, studying law at Islamabad 's Islamic University.
http://www.thepost.com.pk/MainNews.aspx?bdtl_id=
4067&fb_id=2&catid=14

Significant press freedom in country: Pervez Elahi

Punjab Chief Minister, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi said the significant freedom has been given to media during the regime of present government. He was ingurgitating a journalist coolly for the media persons of Rawalpindi and Islamabad at Loi Bher. He said the government would initiate more welfare projects for journalists…. Daily Express, Front Page

CM inaugurates housing scheme for journalists

Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi on Monday laid the foundation stone of journalists' housing colony and announced that development work would be completed within a year. Addressing a ceremony after unveiling the plaque, the chief minister said that the total development charges for each plot would be Rs 350,000 to Rs 400,000. Earlier, the Punjab government had estimated the development charges at Rs 600,000 per plot.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\11\21\story_21-11-2006_pg11_1

Global media evince special interest in coverage on China

The global news and media organisations including international wire services have started focusing on China as news consumers all over the world are more interested in knowing events and developments occurring inside the Asian superpower. Besides the coverage of common happening political and economic developments taking place in China, the global news and media giants will be fielding more of their journalistic and television staff on the coverage of Summer Olympics 2008 in Beijing, said Paul Holmes, who is Global Editor of political and general news of Reuters news agency speaking at a programme here on Monday.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=32687

LETTER TO EDITOR

Ban on Sindh TV

THIS is with reference to the letter by Qazi Kashif Naeem (Nov 20). The letter writer justifiably questions the action against a popular Sindhi TV channel by a government that in his words is “engaged in the so-called tall claims of promoting tolerance and equality in society”.  Pemra banned the channel on Nov 8 without giving any reason. There have been widespread protests in Sindh and elsewhere but the government has not taken back its orders so far, nor has it offered any explanation in the face of the Sindh TV officials' statements that they were not in violation of any of the Pemra rules and regulations.  

http://www.dawn.com/2006/11/21/letted.htm#3

COMPILED by: Sajid Gondal, Media Monitor, Internews Pakistan (www.internews.org.pk)

DISCLAIMER: The contents, including news and headlines, in this newsletter are reproduced from their respective publications ad verbatim as a public service. Internews does not author the contents and these, therefore, do not necessarily reflect organizational policy.