The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has beheaded Steven J. Sotloff, the second American executed by the Islamic militant group, and posted a video of it on the Internet, the SITE Intelligence Group, a research organization that tracks jihadist web postings, said Tuesday.
The execution of Mr. Sotloff, 31, came despite pleas from his mother aimed directly at ISIS’s top leader seeking mercy for her son, a freelance journalist who was captured in northern Syria a year ago.
Word of Mr. Sotloff’s beheading came two weeks after James Foley, 45, another American journalist, was beheaded by ISIS, which warned that Mr. Sotloff would be the next to die.
Tweaking the UX of our social media tools could help readers better understand fast-moving news.
The Boston Marathon bombings. Tornadoes in the Midwest. Now, tragically, Ferguson. When serious breaking news happens, many of us turn to social media—especially Twitter—to keep up and get the most detailed information we can as quickly as possible. But the events in Missouri these last few weeks made me think about the deficiencies of our current information tools, and how we might improve the social, breaking news experience.
Two unidentified gunmen stormed the offices of the independent news agency Online International News Network in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, killing the bureau chief Irshad Mastoi and a reporter, Ghulam Rasool Khattak. A network employee, accountant Muhammad Younis, was also killed, according tonews reports.
All three were shot several times, according to police. Khattak and Younis were killed immediately, and Mastoi was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead, reports said. The assailants fled the scene, according to reports.
A Kurdish journalist was killed in Makhmur district, south of the city of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, on Friday when shrapnel from mortar shelling hit her in the chest, according to news reports. Deniz Firat, a freelance reporter, was covering clashes between Kurdish forces and insurgents with the Islamic State, an Al-Qaeda splinter group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham, the Firat News Agency said.
Indonesian authorities have detained two French journalists since last week, according to news reports. Documentary filmmakers Thomas Dandois and Valentine Bourrat were detained after reporting on the separatist movement in the restive eastern region of Papua and have been accused of entering the country illegally on a tourist visa, the reports said.
Foreign journalists are required to obtain a journalist visa in order to work in Indonesia. For coverage of Papua and West Papua, reporters must obtain an additional permission form from the country’s foreign affairs department, which must be signed off by an array of government officials, including police and military, according to reports. Foreign journalists who are detained in the region without a journalist visa or official permitsare usually deported immediately, according to CPJ research.
