Dow Jones has settled an Australian claim of libel on something written and uploaded in New York.
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Article 35 of the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of speech and the press, but it is no match in court against a web of laws on libel and on revealing state secrets.
But several MPs raised concerns about it in the Commons on Thursday and are planning a debate next week on the "effects of English libel law on the reporting of parliamentary proceedings".
The report has plenty of comfort for more serious-minded journalists, as well as for the campaigning groups, scientists and others who worry about the chilling effect of libel law on press freedom.
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Such as the local laws of slander, the local laws of libel and so on.
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Coming from a president who has jailed opposition leaders on flimsy libel charges and has forced the closure of critical newspapers, the promise looks hypocritical.
Rushing through the corridors around the House of Lords, between interviews, I happened upon Lord Lester, who's been campaigning for a reform of the laws on defamation ("libel" to you and me), arguing that they are increasingly having "a chilling effect" on free speech.
In a similar development, a historian in London David Irving on Tuesday lost his long-running libel battle in the British court to defend his views on Nazi Germany.
Two sorts of legal reform are suggested, on privacy and libel.
But it would lead to a libel law agreed by lawmakers on the basis of the big issues, rather than the existing raft of precedents, all set by judges dealing with narrow points and particular cases.
The book has been banned on the order of an appeal-court judge, and this month two managers from its publishers, the local subsidiary of Planeta, a Spanish imprint, spent a couple of nights in jail charged with libel, before being released on bail.
And, in the wake of the super-injunctions rows earlier this year and the award of privacy damages to the former Formula 1 boss Max Mosley by the British and European courts, legislation on defamation, libel and privacy is also in the spotlight.
But for a century efforts to reform libel law thoroughly have foundered on a combination of lawyerly self-interest, bureaucratic timidity and a quiet belief among many lawmakers that the media is already too careless with other people's reputations (not least with politicians' good names).
The committee rejects sweeping proposals for reform, such as statutory caps on the size of libel damages.
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Every American court has required some actual evidence or sufficient allegations of libel before allowing plaintiffs to embark on these types of fishing expeditions.
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"I can confirm that I recently issued proceedings for libel against the owners of the Sun on behalf of Andrew Mitchell MP, " he said.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings last month on legislation that would deter libel tourists by barring enforcement of foreign libel judgments that violate U.S. standards.
Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors, said he sympathised with Kate and Gerry McCann and acknowledged they were correctly compensated under libel laws but disagreed with their views on new press regulation plans.
This has happened with libel: Dow Jones settled a case on something that had been written and hosted in New York but were prosecuted about under Australian law in Australia, where several people had read it.
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New Scientist editor Roger Highfield agreed the libel laws were having a "chilling effect on the discussion of medical therapies".
In one last attempt to find her, he hires Blomkvist, who has been temporarily discredited in a libel suit, and sets him up as an investigator on the island, a place that no American one-per-cent family would ever dream of owning.
At the moment the Labour peer Lord Puttnam has attached "Leveson" amendments to the Defamation Bill, and the prime minister may end up dropping that much campaigned-for measure to liberalise the libel laws, rather than allow the Commons to vote on them.
The bad guys in this are first and foremost the libel laws in the UK which have long been notorious for clamping down on the freedom of the press in that country.
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Last night on CNN, Ms. Sherrod suggested that she might consider a libel suit.
The third and final day on July 29 started with a lecture on law and the journalist, in which the principles of laws of libel and contempt of court and their possible defence were explained.
In recent years the British tabloids have gorged on his foibles: A public and messy divorce was followed by a colorful libel suit he filed against a former Italian manager (whom he had fired).
In July, a leading British book publisher warned of the 'chilling effect' the law would have on journalism, after a judge rejected its defence of qualified privilege in a libel action brought by a former police officer.
She is suing him and the county council for alleged libel over his comments, which were sent to 74 councillors and viewed 825 times after being republished on another blog.
Shortly afterwards and in direct response to the court's ruling, the NY state legislature, in an unprecedented show of cross party solidarity, unanimously voted to enact the Libel Terrorism Protection Act which prevents the enforcement of foreign libel judgments over American authors and provides the opportunity for the claim to be tried in the US, on its merits, and according to American principles of free speech.
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Leaving aside the japes about fellows of Clare College becoming MP for Cambridge, he is super-active, sitting on two select committees as well as the committee scrutinising the Draft Defamation Bill (to sort out the libel laws) while still managing to be almost omnipresent in the Chamber.
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