The KRG explanation of how and why journalist Sardasht Osman was murdered does not bear even cursory examination.

Harry Shearer’s New Film Decries Pres. Pinocchio’s Lies About Army Corps’s Culpability re Katrina — by NormanB

A recounting of a chilling story Mac McClelland reported on that has been featured prominently on blogs for the past few week followed by a question — What is the link between this prohibiting of media access and detaining of photographers/videographers to Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) programs?

Israel has mounted a media blitz specifically aimed at creating this belief that the Freedom Flotilla had intentions that were not exactly humanitarian. The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center is circulating talking points suggesting the IHH, which the Free Gaza Movement counts as a supporting organization, is affiliated with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and/or al Qaeda so the IDF raid was entirely justified.

Immediately following a deadly attack by Israeli commandos on the Freedom Flotilla, a humanitarian aid convoy seeking to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, Israeli authorities put in place, according to Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), a ban on media preventing any information about the dead and wounded taken to hospitals in Israel from being reported by journalists.

CBS journalists were filming a beach in South Pass, Louisiana, when, according to CBS, a “boat of BP contractors and two Coast Guard officers told them to turn around or be arrested.” The incident is thought by bloggers tracking the oil leak in the Gulf to not be the only time that BP has challenged the right of journalists to film.

Today, May 3rd, is World Press Freedom day. There is not much to celebrate.