Newspaperindex - the blog | Newspapers of the world, media and free speech

Google Wednesday launched a test version of a translation tool that enables people to search the Internet in any of a dozen languages and have the results converted into their chosen tongue. A beta version of Google’s ‘cross-language information retrieval’ feature is online at http://translate.google.com/translate_s. The service ‘in effect, will make the Web universal,’ Google vice-president of engineering Udi Manber said while describing it to the press at the Internet search giant’s campus in Mountain View, California, last week. ‘We have been working on translating all of the Web to all languages,’ Manber said. ‘The results are probably not perfect, but the information you want will be there.’ Google’s new software translates queries to perform multi-lingual searches of the Internet and then converts the results to a searcher’s language. The languages included in the service are French, Arabic, English, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and traditional and simplified Chinese. The service is to eventually be expanded to include other languages. (Middle East Times)

This week I will finish the translations Newspaper Index in Korean, Russian, Malay and Vietnamese. The Korean version is online now: Link

Next step, probably in june, will be to translate the site into Thai, Hindi, Polish and Finish. Later Portuguese and Dutch will be added and the site will be translated into the 23 most widespread languages on the Internet.

With jumper cables and a 12-volt battery, a Saddam era radio station roared to life last week and now four Iraqis are doing what has never been done as they launch independent radio and television in war-torn Iraq. ‘We respect the Maliki government and all religious leaders,’ says Rafed Mahmood, general manager of the Independent Radio & Television Network (IRTN). ‘But our voice is independent. No one tells us what to say.’ Four Iraqis - two Sunnis and two Shia - are becoming the voices of sectarian reconciliation, unity and freedom. Their 3000kw Italian radio transmitter is cabled up the 350-meter tower that the Japanese built for Saddam in 1986. As al Qaeda and insurgent forces gather in the neighbouring towns of Buhriz and Ba’qubah, Coalition Forces are protecting the media centre while rooting out the terrorists. On March 25th, IRTN launched their UHF television broadcasts. IRTN radio is on the air 14-hours a day and reaches nearly 11m Iraqis. They launched their website this week (www.IRTNiraq.com) and hope that through a combination of advertising sales, licensing and eCommerce they can generate enough revenue to sustain their operations while producing enough courage to unleash freedom in Iraq. (Elitestv.com)

At midnight on Tuesday, Thailand’s coup government took over the country’s only independent television station for failure to pay USD 2.8bn (EUR 2.1bn) in licensing fees. The station was to temporarily stop broadcasting and over 1000 employees were to be let go. Broadcasts were suspended, but on Wednesday morning the station was still running stories about iTV’s 10-year history and the fees it was ordered to pay, according to the website of the Bangkok Post. The station’s staff objected to the government’s plan to suspend the station’s broadcasts and filed an for an injunction until the court hears the matter on Wednesday morning. The government is facing heavy criticism for the move, which now makes all six of Thailand’s broadcast networks state-run. The station was once owned by deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, but was sold as part of the telecommunications company Shin Corp to Temasek, the investment arm of the Singapore government. The coup government has been battling with iTV for its licensing fees for some time. (Asia Media newsletter,March 07, 2007)

Zenith Optimedia has released their annual report: The top 30 global media owners.

Quick facts:
The top 30 global media owners generate a total of US$215 billion in media
Top-ranked Time Warner generates US$30 billion, 13% of the total
The US has by far the most media owners in the ranking, followed by – in
order – Japan, France and the UK, Germany, Italy and Mexico
Two new-media companies – Google and Yahoo – make the top 30.

Here is the list:

Asahi Shimbun Company
Advance Publications
Axel Springer
Bertelsmann
BSkyB
CBS Corporation
Clear Channel Communications
Cox Enterprises
DirecTV
DMGT
Fuji TV
Gannett
General Electric
Google
Grupo Televisa
Hearst Corporation
ITV plc
Lagardère
Mediaset
New York Times Company
News Corp
NTV
TF1
Time Warner
Tribune Group
Viacom
Vivendi Universal
Walt Disney Company
Yahoo!
The Yomiuri Shimbun

Read the press release here: Link

Dubai Media City, the custom built media hub that its owners hope will make the tiny emirate a major information crossroads, is keen to expand its cooperation with European companies, the City’s director Muhammad al-Mullah told Adnkronos International (AKI) in an interview. ‘European companies currently represent 35 per cent of the 1,213 companies working here’ the DMC director said. To keep standards high, the City ‘has developed a series of directives for television companies, and also for publishing houses’. Any complaints or issues are referred to an independent judicial body made up of British and Emirate jurists whose task is to assess the problems on the bases of Emirates and international law. Dubai’s media cluster has developed dramatically over the past six years. It now houses some 150 television networks and 120 publishing houses. Business friendly regulatory frameworks and a world class technological and real estate infrastructure have prompted more than 1,200 regional and international media companies to set up operations in Dubai Media City. Dubai Studio City and the International Media Production Zone are two new platforms that have been launched to further strengthen Dubai’s position on the global media scene. (AKI News,February 14, 2007)

China has reacted angrily to plans by Japanese nationalists to make a documentary describing as a myth the massacre of tens of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese troops in 1937. The film, entitled The Truth About Nanjing, will insist that the massacre never took place, despite evidence presented at the postwar Tokyo war crimes tribunals that Japanese troops slaughtered at least 142,000 people when they invaded Nanjing, then the capital of nationalist China. Tokyo’s rightwing governor, Shintaro Ishihara, is one of several leading politicians to have come out in support of the film, directed by Satoru Mizushima, who heads a nationalist satellite TV channel. The film will be funded by public donations and should appear before the end of this year, the 70th anniversary of what many historians have described as an orgy of rape, pillage and murder by Japanese imperial army troops. It is one of several films about the Nanjing massacre set for release this year. Nanking, a US production featuring Woody Harrelson, won critical acclaim earlier this month at the Sundance film festival for its first-person accounts of the massacre. In addition, Chinese authorities reportedly plan to make their own version based on Iris Chang’s bestselling book, The Rape of Nanking. (The Guardian,January 26, 2007)