News Alert:
Two CBS journalists missing in Iraq
11 Feb 2008 19:33:37 GMT
Source: Reuters
NEW YORK, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Two journalists working for CBS News <CBS.N> have gone missing in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the company said in a statement.
"All efforts are under way to find them and until we learn more details, CBS News requests that others do not speculate on the identities of those involved. CBS News has been in touch with the families and asks that their privacy be respected," CBS News said in a statement.
Iraq has become extremely hazardous for journalists, raising concerns about the diminished amount of information about the war that is available to the public.
The Committee to Protect Journalists in a recent report called the Iraq war "the deadliest conflict for journalists in recent history," with 125 journalists and 49 support workers killed since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion. (Reporting by Daniel Trotta, editing by Sandra Maler)
NYTimes:
in recent years, Basra has been the venue of attacks on Iraqi and Western journalists, and on Monday a semi-independent Iraqi news network, Voices of Iraq, citing Basra police officials, reported on its Web site that a British journalist, apparently a photographer, and his Iraqi interpreter were abducted by gunmen from their hotel, the Qasr al-Sultan, in Basra. CBS declined to comment on those details.
The Iraqi police said that the abductees were a reporter and a translator, and that they were taken away in what appeared to be official police vehicles.
Independed UK
A British photojournalist and his interpreter have been kidnapped in Basra, it was disclosed last night.
The journalist was reportedly near the Qasral-Sultan hotel in the southern Iraqi city on Sunday, when a group of armed men forced him and his interpreter inside a car and took them to an unknown location, according to police sources in the city.
The veteran freelance, who has covered conflicts in the Middle East and Africa and worked regularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, was said to be on assignment for the American television network CBS as well as other outlets.
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