Dutch kidney giveaway TV show was a hoax

A Dutch TV show featuring a dying woman deciding which of three candidates would receive her kidney turned out to be a hoax Friday, in a stunt to highlight the need for more organ donors. In the last minutes of the live show which had attracted worldwide attention, right before the fake donor was about to make her choice known, presenter Patrick Lodiers revealed all. ‘We are not giving away a kidney here, that is going too far, even for us,’ he told the audience. The woman, introduced as potential donor Lisa, 37, with an incurable brain tumour, was actually an actress, the BNN public channel said. The three kidney patients who were presented as candidates were real - but they were in on the hoax and wanted to cooperate to motivate people to register as donors, BNN said. The original premise of the show had sparked uproar in the Netherlands and abroad, with many condemning it as unethical to make entertainment out of a life-and-death situation. Journalists and television crews from all over the world had flocked to the Dutch television studio where the show was held. The channel, which has built up a following of predominantly young viewers through controversial programming, screened the show on the fifth anniversary of the death of its founder, Bart de Graaff, who had waited years for a kidney transplant. The publicity stunt was dreamed up by BNN and producer Endemol, the creators of the ‘Big Brother’ reality show. (AFP via Middle East Times)

Dispute over European medical TV-channel

Four of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies are considering launching an interactive TV channel in Europe. The prospect has caused outrage among some consumer groups, because advertising prescription drugs directly to patients in the European Union is illegal. They warn that the pharmaceutical giants will find it impossible to give unbiased advice about their own products. But the drug companies involved - Pfizer, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble - insist they are only interested in giving reliable high quality health information which would help patients when they were discussing their treatments with doctors. They have even made a ten-minute DVD of what the new interactive TV channel might look like - although a spokesman for one of the firms concerned said the plan was at a very early stage. ‘The European Patient Information Channel is simply a name given to an interactive information tool,’ he says. ‘It does not exist, nor is it in development. The purpose of creating this model was to provide an example of how quality information might be provided to Europeans in the future. The drug companies also insist they have no wish to challenge the current ban on advertising prescription drugs directly to patients in Europe. Those regulations are currently being reviewed by the European Commission. (BBC News)

Three Swiss journalists to be tried before military court

A Swiss military court’s announced Tuesday that it has indicted three Swiss journalists working for the weekly SonntagsBlick for publishing a leaked document on 8 January 2006 ‘dealing with supposed places of detention and interrogation methods used by the US foreign intelligence service (CIA).’ The three journalists will face up to five years in prison for ‘violating defence secrecy’ when they are tried in April. According to the indictment, publication of the leaked document caused considerable damage to Switzerland’s strategic intelligence service. Reporters Without Borders questions the legitimacy of the decision to try the journalists before a military court after the idea of a civil prosecution was abandoned. The offending SonntagsBlick article confirmed the existence of US detention centres in Europe and was based on a fax from the Egyptian foreign ministry which had been intercepted by Swiss military intelligence and then leaked to the three journalists. Classified as a ‘defence secret,’ it was the first confirmation of the existence of CIA prisons in Europe. A separate military prosecution is bring brought against the persons who allegedly leaked it. (Reporters Without Borders,February 08, 2007)

Iraq to launch investigation into clandestine execution video

Iraq to launch investigation into clandestine execution video
The Iraqi government has announced it will launch an investigation into the guards who taunted and filmed Saddam Hussein during his execution. The authorities say the video has turned his execution into a TV show which will only serve to increase sectarian violence in Iraq. The clandestine recording, which was made with a mobile phone, was posted on the internet this weekend. While Saddam Hussein was standing on the trapdoor with the noose being fastened around his neck, guards insulted him and told him he was going to hell. The Iraqi government is especially eager to find out how someone managed to smuggle in a mobile phone while this was specifically forbidden. (Radio Netherlands, January 02, 2007)

Turkish documentary slanders Sweden

A documentary shown by Turkey’s state broadcaster, TRT, earlier this week depicts Sweden as a barbarian land responsible for the genocide of Sami and Roma peoples. Sweden’s acts of ethnic cleansing are said to have continued until the 1980s. Kerstin Brunnberg from Sveriges Radio was interviewed in connection with the film. In the documentary her voice is dubbed into Turkish and she confirms Sweden’s systematic destruction of the Sami peoples. Brunnberg has described the interview as ‘absurd’. The film has come in for severe criticism from various quarters in Turkey. The Swedish embassy in Ankara and the Turkish foreign ministry have both criticised the content of the film, according to Sveriges Radio. TRT had planned to show the film a total of eight times but has now removed it from its schedule until further notice. (The Local,December 15, 2006)

CPJ report: increase in number of jailed journalists fuelled by internet

A new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists has found that the rise in Internet journalism has fuelled an increase in the number of journalists imprisoned around the world. According to the group’s new census, 134 journalists are now in prison worldwide, and one in three jailed journalists is now a blogger, online editor or web-based reporter. The annual study found that China, Cuba, Eritrea, and Ethiopia are currently the top four jailers among the 24 nations who imprison journalists. The most common charges against journalists are allegations of ‘antistate’ crimes such as subversion, divulging state secrets, and acting against the interests of the state. The largest professional category in the study continues to be print journalists, with 67 cases of imprisonment this year, but the second largest category is now that of online journalists, with 49 cases. The number of web-based journalists imprisoned has increased every year since the study recorded the first case in 1997. US video blogger Joshua Wolf is among those counted in the survey. (Editor and Publisher,December 08, 2006)

Xinhua’ s Systematic Plagiarism

The Local in Sweden has a fine post today about the Chinese news corp. Xinhua copy-pasting stories from abroad:

Yesterday The Local had this story:

Professional boxing has been illegal in Sweden since 1970, but it could be time to start booking ringside seats after the new Martial Arts Delegation has its first meeting in Örebro today, Dagens Nyheter reports.

…compare it with this from Xinhua this morning:

Professional boxing has been illegal in Sweden since 1970, but it could be time to start booking ringside seats after the new Martial Arts Delegation has its first meeting in Orebro, local media reported on Wednesday.

-And it goes on like that for more that 10 lines. But that is not all. The Local did some researh at Google News to find out if this had happened before and the result was kind of surprising:

“Xinhua have also plagiarised us in this article about Saddam Hussein, (The Local’s article), a piece about the elections (The Local’s piece), and in this piece about whaling (The Local’s piece). They’ve also done it here (TL’s piece), here (TL’s article), and here (TL’s article).”

(more…)

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•