September 23, 2025
The centuries-long, smoldering conflict between Georgia and Russia has now turned into a paroxysm of death and destruction that threatens to fundamentally alter political and economic alignments in the East-meets-West and North-meets-South hinge area. The date 08.08.08, as most folks were awaiting the Olympic Games, will go down in history as the day that Moscow officially began to re-assert itself as an old-style world power.
While watching the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, I thought about my friend John Roderick.
Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek from 1998 to 2006, was appointed chief of NBC News’ Washington bureau in July, filling a vacancy created by the June death of Tim Russert.
Big surprise! I’ve arrived to find Beijing a ghost town during the Olympics. Where are the crowds? Rebecca Fannin is in Beijing blogging about the Olympics; catch her updates here and on her blog, www.silicondragon.blogspot.com.
Urgently, we call attention to reports of threats and harassment aimed at two journalists, Danilo López, correspondent of Prensa Libre in Suchitepéquez and Oscar Perdomo, correspondent for Emisoras Unidas, in the same department. In view of the many attacks on Guatemalan journalists, including even murder, these two incidents require the close attention of the Guatemalan government.
We write to express our satisfaction that two persons have been arrested in connection with the recent attack on journalists by a mob demonstrating against the arrest of Radon Karadzic.
To nobody’s astonishment, reporters exploring the press facilities at Beijing’s Olympic Village discovered that Internet access was blocked to Web sites disliked by the Chinese government. The OPC’s Freedom of the Press Committee has again protested China’s increasing repression of media freedom and human rights. China has increasingly repressed coverage by foreign and domestic journalists alike, cracked down on postings by bloggers, and trammeled the human rights of its citizens.
Helen Thomas was giving a speech at Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, where she was being awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in May when she collapsed on the stage.
The controversial New Yorker cover cartoon depicting Barack Obama in Islamic garb and his wife with an AK 47 in the White House Oval Office, a portrait of Osama bin Laden on the wall, drew world media attention.
Veteran foreign correspondent and OPC member Craig Smith resigned from The New York Times in July to create a financial news service in China in partnership with a Chinese business magazine.
