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BANGKOK Thirty media bodies in Thailand marked World Press Freedom day on Wednesday by calling on the military government to scrap legislation that seeks to tighten control of news reporting in the Southeast Asian country.

The call came days after a junta-appointed reform panel approved a bill to regulate the media that has drawn opposition from rights groups who say it is designed to boost state interference and curb independent reporting.

If adopted, the bill could establish a regulatory panel of 15 people, including two state officials and seven media representatives, to oversee all media platforms in Thailand, whether print, broadcast or online.

"The bill is essentially designed to facilitate political interference in the media and restrict press freedom," the Thai media organizations said in a joint statement.

The military government on Wednesday called off an event hosted by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT) focusing on the as yet unsolved disappearance of a revolution plaque commemorating the end of absolute monarchy in 1932 - a subject on which the junta has largely evaded questions.

In a statement, the FCCT said, "(The club) stands by its colleagues in Thailand's domestic media as they struggle to maintain professional standards and editorial independence in particularly challenging times."

Thailand's military government, which took power in a bloodless 2014 coup, has attracted international criticism for curbing free speech and threatening press freedom.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said the government had no intention to silence media with the bill, but regulations were needed to push up the quality of the media.

The media is "an important part of the government's work", Prayuth told reporters at an event to mark World Press Freedom Day. "So I want the press to be balanced while working with the government for the people."

The government will now review the draft bill, before it goes to the National Legislative Assembly, a parliamentary body appointed by the military, for approval and passage into law, he added.

Thailand fell six places this year to rank 142 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index of the Paris-based group, Reporters Without Borders.

(Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Additional reporting by Aukkarapon Niyomyat and Panarat Thepgumpanat; Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Clarence Fernandez)

PARIS Independent centrist French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron extended his lead in the polls over his far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Friday, the final day of a tumultuous election campaign that has turned the country's politics upside down.

CARACAS Supporters of jailed Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez held a vigil outside his prison demanding to see him on Thursday after rumors about his health rattled the protest-hit country where the death toll from anti-government unrest rose to 36.

WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will travel to Saudi Arabia and Israel this month, kicking off his first foreign trip, where he will work to reinvigorate traditional alliances in the region.

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Thai news organisations urge govt. to scrap media control bill - Reuters

The lack of transparency of media ownership in Bosnia-Herzegovina contributes to a situation in which political and economic pressure limit the freedom of the media

(Originally published by Media Centar Sarajevo , media partner in the ECPMF project)

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, media ownership transparency largely remains absent of rules and limited to scant data from the most general business registers. The lack of political will and all too rare initiatives for uncovering media ownership have for years allowed diverse machinations in the advertising sector, limited the loosening of political and economic pressure on journalism, and damaged the interests of the public and the right to fair and balanced news.

There are no formal initiatives from the state to promote transparency of media ownership, while the efforts of civil organisations have mostly been limited to activities outlined for specific projects. The media itself has never launched any such initiatives on transparency, given that the screen of secrecy in the structures of ownership allow for legal and illegal activities that are often in contrast with the principles of the profession, with ethical or legal guidelines established by the media sector.

The directives of the EU for supporting media freedom in new member states, for the period of 2014-2020, stipulate that a database of media owners should be made accessible, that legal measures against monopoly and market dominance are necessary, and that the privatisation of public media should be a transparent process. It should be noted that Bosnia-Herzegovina has adopted none of these measures, says Sanela Hodi, researcher with Mediacentar Sarajevo, in the study The importance of media integrity: putting the media and journalism at the service of the public (Znaaj medijskog integriteta: vraanje media i novinarstva u slubu javnosti ).

The transparency of media ownership is in part made possible through the register of legal entities (for private and public media) and registers of associations and foundations (for those media that operate within the NGO sector), but does not provide any information about the direct and indirect owners, let alone offer information in a systematic way that would meet the desired level of transparency.

In addition to this, there is no single registry of business entities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and therefore the incomplete information about the ownership structure of businesses, to which the media belong, is scattered in various registers of the nine municipal courts in the Federation and five district courts in the Republika Srpska (RS).

Information about businesses is accessible in an online register of businesses , but there is very little information about Bosnia-Herzegovina businesses, while the RS has no such register.

Information about the media acting within associations and foundations are available on request, from those 14 registers, which makes them insufficiently accessible and searchable. The existing registers also don't have any categorization of subjects or associations, such that one could clearly distinguish between media, businesses and associations.

A certain transparency of media ownership does exist for radio and television broadcasters. Licenses for audiovisual or radio broadcasting are issued to natural and legal bodies by the Communications Regulatory Agency (RAK). It is required to submit basic information about the direct owners and gain the necessary approval for any subsequent change of ownership greater than five percent, according to Hodi, but she also says that the RAK currently does not publish information on the property, but only the names of directors, chief editors and contacts. Information about indirect owners is still hard to find, especially when it comes to owners from other countries.

The press council, a self-regulating body for online and print media, publishes the principal data about these sectors, such as titles, addresses, names and contact details for the lead editors, but no information about the ownership structure.

While print media is often considered closely tied to political interests, a particular irregularity and lack of transparency exists in the online sector , especially because many companies are not even registered as businesses.

The transparency of media ownership, in addition to the partial data in these registers, still relies on the goodwill of parts of the media to reveal who really stands behind it. The lack of transparency of media ownership reduces the possibility for the public to notice any influence on editorial policy. Political and economic pressure, which leads to the self-censorship of editors and journalists, has a fertile ground in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

For these reasons there is no information on the indirect owners and the end-users of the media in question, nor of the property relations, business and personal interests, commercial and political influences, or even the principal managers, emphasises Hodi.

In the last few years there has been a big effort on the part of civil society to promote transparency of media ownership in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The government supports them in principle, but no concrete measures have been taken.

The research of the South East Europe Media Observatory has for years helped to highlight the lack of transparency, while the Media and public reputation project, led by the Bosnia-Herzegovina Association of Journalists in collaboration with Mediacentar Sarajevo, the Council for the Press and the NGO, JaBiHuEU, will offer a detailed analysis of the current conditions and push for better solutions at the political level.

Translation: Ciaran Lawless/VoxEurop

This publication has been produced within the projectEuropean Centre for Press and Media Freedom, co-funded by the European Commission. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso and its partners and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.The project's page

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The media in Bosnia-Herzegovina: fertile ground for political control - Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso

A image from Mat-Su Animal Control warning of the loose python. They noted that the photo of the snake is the yellow and white color pattern of the snake and theyre awaiting an actual photo of the snake. (Courtesy of Mat-Su Animal Control)

Mat-Su animal control said a 100-pound python is on the loose in Meadow Lakes.

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Borough officials say the snake has been missing for two days and could be a threat to small children or pets. They say residents in the West Mallard Lane area should keep an eye on their yards and beware of any warm hiding spots on their property.

Animal control officer Darla Erskine said the yellow-and-white snakes owner lost track of it and started going door to door to warn his neighbors.

Thats when Erskine got a disturbing call.

Ill take the dogs, cats, guinea pigs and rabbits cases, but yeah, Im the one who got the call, so Im facing my fears, Erskine said. His 17-foot albino Burmese python had gotten loose out of the house. He was doing some yard work and left the door open and couldnt find the snake anywhere. This is an unusual animal. It can eat a 25-pound rabbit. It could lay in waiting. We were concerned weve needed to get the word out, because its a public safety issue in our minds.

An advisory statement from the borough says that animal control officers expect cold temperatures to weaken the snake or compel it to seek a warm place.

Mat Su Animal Control says the snake is most likely dead because of the cold.

But Erskine said the cold temps might also have caused the snake to go into hibernation.

Then he could come out, come out of hibernation, when we have a warm up to an 80 or 90 degree day, so Id really like to find him one way or the other.

Anyone who sees the snake is asked to call 911 or the Mat Su Animal Care department at 761-7501.

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17-foot python loose in Meadow Lakes, Mat-Su animal control warns ... - Alaska Public Radio Network

Two Chinese men use their laptop computers at a cafe in Beijing on Nov. 2, 2012. Wang ZhaoAFP/Getty Images

The Chinese government has tightened its grip over news distributed online and on social media, overhauling its Internet regulations for the first time in 12 years with sweeping new restrictions.

The South China Morning Post reports that Chinas Cyberspace Administration will now require most online news and media outlets to obtain a license from the government.

Outlets subject to the new provisions, effective on June 1, will include websites, applications, forums, blogs, microblogs, public accounts, instant messaging tools and internet broadcasts.

Temporary measures enacted in 2014 already required licenses for news published on instant messaging platforms such as WeChat, according to the Post , but the rules did little to curb the spread of so-called unofficial media and news discourse.

China maintains tight control over the Internet, and is one of the worlds worst-ranking countries in terms of free speech. Reporters Without Borders, also called RSF, placed China fifth from the bottom in its annual Press Freedom Index, calling President Xi Jinping the planets leading censor and press freedom predator.

For more on the Internet in China, watch Fortune's video:

Popular online platforms such as Google , Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are all blocked in China, as are the websites of some major international news outlets such as TIME, the New York Times , and the BBC. According to RSF, more than 100 journalists and bloggers are currently detained in the country.

Critics say that since Xi entered office in 2012, he has pursued an aggressive crackdown on the Internet, and last year saw a number of news agencies and web portals shut down by government regulators. Many netizens use a virtual private network, or VPN, to circumvent what's known as "China's Great Firewall," though authorities this year implemented a ban on unlicensed VPN service providers.

The rest is here:
China Has Tightened Its Grip on Online News With Sweeping New Controls - Fortune

Reporters for regional news website Cornwall Live were told they were not allowed to film the Prime Ministers visit to their patch today because they were invited as print media only.

Two reporters and a photographer for the Trinity Mirror website, which includes content from its weekly newspapers across the South West, were sent down to cover Theresa Mays visit to an industrial estate in Helston as part of the Tory leaders campaign trail.

Cornwall digital editor Jacqui Merrington told Press Gazette: When we arrived there we were told we were not allowed to film anything because we were invited as print media, which seems a bit 20th century really.

She said that while their photographer was allowed to follow Theresa May on her visit and take still images, the two reporters were shut in a room for the duration and told they could only ask two questions of May in an interview at the end of her visit, which they also were not allowed to film.

Merrington said the website, which she claimed hasabout 100,000 daily page impressions, waslive blogging the tour and had hoped to do some video for Facebook Live as well.

It felt very tightly controlled, said Merrington.

I think if [May] is going to come out on visits on the campaign trail the purpose of it should be for her to, if not meet members of the public, then at least show the public that she is there and we would be able to see what shes talking about, what issues are being raised with her. We werent able to do that because we couldnt see her talking to anyone else.

Many of us here have had experiences with former leaders and while there have of course been restrictions, it didnt feel as tightly controlled as this.

She added: To think that in this day and age we were and still are a local newspaper, but we are a lot more than that. We are digital media and that is the case for most local media nowadays and to be restricted on that basis seems very archaic.

We are quite a sizeable website and a large proportion of our audience comes through digital as well as the weekly papers.

May is understood to have done televised interviews with the BBC and ITV during her visit.

Merrington said she had put a call into Number 10 ahead of the visit to try and argue our case to be able to film and said she would follow up on the matter.

If nothing else it would be nice to see, in the future, local media treated as local media and not just local newspapers, she said.

On the live blog, reporters shared updates on the press restrictions they faced at the scene.

In successive entries, one including a picture of the door to the room they had been kept in, they said: Weve been told by the PMs press team that we were not allowed to stand outside to see Theresa May arrive.

The prime minister is behind this door but we cant show you. Her press team has said print journalists are not allowed to see her visiting the company.

Theresa May is being introduced to company representatives on the shop floor, but journalists have been kept away. Well be allowed to ask her questions later in a separate room.

Conservative party press officers continue to refuse Cornwall Live access to film an interview with the PM.

Having covered several high-profile politicians and royal visits over the years, the level of media control here is far and above anything Ive seen before. Were not even allowed to show you her visiting the building.

Here is another example of the tight media control over the visit: All journalists are only allowed two questions for Mrs May, and we are not allowed to film her answering our questions.

Weve been allowed to ask our questions to the prime minister (although we are forbidden to film or photograph her answering them).

We were given at most three minutes and were refused to be allowed to ask why we were not allowed to film her.Our reporter Lyn was then ushered out of the room.

A spokesperson for the Conservative Party said: One media organisations last minute request to add a camera to a pre-arranged pool of broadcast cameras was not possible this morning.

The organisations journalists did interview the Prime Minister and their photographer accompanied the Prime Minister on a factory tour.

Theresa May has so far taken four times as many questions from journalists as floundering Jeremy Corbyn while his cabinet cant even answer basic questions about how they would pay for his nonsensical policies.

Picture: Reuters/Dylan Martinez

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Local reporters 'shut in a room' during Theresa May visit to Cornish industrial estate - Press Gazette