Columnist’s relations with some senior editorial figures said to be strained over subjects she raised in her columns

The controversial Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson is understood to be in negotiations about leaving the broadsheet as the newspaper’s new owner makes significant newsroom cuts.

Sources told the Guardian that Pearson – firmly on the right of the Telegraph’s roster – is preparing to announce her exit imminently and is crafting a statement about her future plans.

Warnings of escalating clampdown on press freedom come after Cairo court convicts Attalah of managing an unlicensed website

Lina Attalah, a prominent Egyptian journalist and the editor-in-chief of the news outlet Mada Masr, has been released from detention by Egypt’s authorities and had her website ordered to be shut down by a court amid an intensifying crackdown on independent media in the country.

Attalah was taken briefly into custody after a Cairo court convicted her of managing an unlicensed website, prompting fresh international concerns over press freedom in Egypt.