Media rights group hits Nauru news blackout
WELLINGTON: group criticized Nauru on Wednesday for creating a “news black
- ed refugee center operating in the
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also accused Canberra of failing to defend journalistic freedoms in relation to the camp, which it poration from covering an international summit next month on “completely specious” grounds.
He said the ban on the public broadcaster was the latest obstacle to be thrown in front of media wanting to cover Nauru and the controversial
“This island has become a news and information black hole because of the refugee processing
government,” he said, calling for Few foreign journalists have had access to Nauru over the past few years, with many hampered by the
visa application, non-refundable even if not granted.
It has also severely limited how many journalists can cover next month’s Pacific Island Forum meeting, restricting the total number of media workers to just 30.
Nauru argues its small size means it can only accommodate a few journalists, and denies the measure amounts to “restriction of press freedom”.
However, media campaigners say preventing large numbers of journalists visiting for the summit also avoids scrutiny of the refugee detention center, which is close to the meeting venue on an island that is only 21 square kilometers.
The facility was set up under Canberra’s hardline immigration policy, which sees asylum-seekers
processed in offshore compounds.
It currently holds more than 240 men, women and children, and is an economic lifeline for the isolated nation.
case as early as late Wednesday, according to US media. Lawyers for Manafort, 69, who faces 18 counts related to tax and bank fraud, had tried to get federal Judge T.S. Ellis to throw out some or all of the charges against him, but Ellis rejected the motion. In a two-week trial that highlighted Manafort’s lavish spending on clothing, including $15,000 for an ostrich-skin bomber jacket and landscaping one of his homes with a flower bed shaped like the letter “M”, the jury heard from a former partner and a former accountant on how the longtime political consultant doctored his accounts and laundered tens of millions of dollars through offshore banks.