HAITI: Social Networks Offer News, and Comfort

On Tuesday, Jan. 12, a small story from the Associated Press came across the wires that an earthquake had hit Haiti. Almost instantly, phones began to ring as Haitian Americans started calling each other to find out if there was more to this story.

MEXICO: Journalists’ Options – Silence, Exile or the Grave

Journalists are the target of such violence in Mexico that many have been forced to seek refuge in the United States, or to give up their profession. And the outlook at the start of this year is even grimmer for media workers in this country.

MEXICO: Activists Worried About “Secret” Internet Treaty

An international treaty to combat copyright infringement and piracy, being negotiated by Mexico and other countries, could curtail expansion of the internet, violate people's rights to privacy and freedom of expression, and undermine multilateral accords on intellectual property, activists warn.

MEDIA-US: Afghanistan Dominated TV Foreign News in 2009

Afghanistan and the U.S. military escalation in the civil war there dominated foreign-related news coverage by the three major U.S. television networks in 2009, according to the latest annual review by the authoritative Tyndall Report.

DEVELOPMENT: Clinton Lays Out U.S. Strategy

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday pledged to make development, along with defence and diplomacy, "a central pillar" of U.S. foreign policy and results, rather than ideology, a guiding principle in devising development policy.

ZAMBIA: Bringing Phones to the Countryside

Cellular phones have quickly become a popular and effective means of communication in Zambia, but their use has been concentrated in urban areas. Government and NGOs are now trying to extend these services to rural people.

RIGHTS-INDIA: Hi-Tech Beats Sex Selection Ban

When a magistrate in the western port city of Mumbai convicted two doctors in November for advertising sex selection services, it showed determination to enforce laws aimed at stopping gender determination tests linked to the mass abortion of female foetuses.

RIGHTS-EGYPT: Bloggers Name and Shame Torturers

People might expect fresh-faced Noha Atef to spend a lot of time writing blogs and perusing social networking sites, but they are often surprised by the content of her posts and tweets. The 25-year-old Egyptian journalist uses the Internet to expose police abuse and torture in her home country.

US: Obama Launches Freedom of Information Initiative

Advocates for greater freedom of information are expressing approval of the Obama administration’s new ‘Open Government Directive’ - but some are sounding cautionary notes that executive agencies are still hiding behind "national security" to conceal government misconduct.

MEDIA-ARGENTINA: Fighting Stereotypes of Slums ‘From the Inside’

A group of local residents from Villa 1-11-14, a slum on the outskirts of the Argentine capital, put out a magazine aimed at breaking down the stereotypes propagated by the mainstream media, which associate neighbourhoods like theirs only with drugs, crime and marginalisation.

INDIA: Mobiles For Gender Empowerment

The Indian Government should consider providing mobile phones at a subsidy to women from the bottom of the pyramid since it helps improve their status and welfare, says a recent report.

CHILE: Media Empires Undermine Pluralistic Democracy

Chile is a classic example of the concentration of media ownership in too few hands, says Chilean journalist María Olivia Mönckeberg in her latest book "Los magnates de la prensa" (The Press Magnates). If the state does not exercise stricter regulation, democracy itself may be undermined, she warns.

MEDIA-LATIN AMERICA: Women Deserve Better Press

"The press will change when they cease to report exclusively from a masculine point of view," Peru's deputy Minister for Women, Norma Añaños, told participants at an international seminar for journalists on "Women at Work, Women as Leaders", held in the Peruvian capital.

MEDIA: The Untold Stories of Violence Against Women

"You don’t need to go far, it is all around us," said Robert Dijksterhuis, head of the gender division in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to a room mostly full of women. "Up to one in three women around the world has been abused in some way - most often by someone she knows," he added, quoting UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) numbers.

VIETNAM: Prospects of Total Facebook Blackout Loom Large

While much of the world is busy chatting with friends or posting photos via Facebook, Internet users in Vietnam are worried that government restrictions on access to this popular social networking site could soon evolve into a total blackout, assuming it isn’t so yet.

AFRICA: Growing Use of Cellphones for Family Planning

The growth of cellphone use, particularly in the developing world, is providing health experts with a new channel of communication to provide family planning information.

LATIN AMERICA: Journalistic Prize for Making Poverty News

The second "Latin America and the Millennium Development Goals" Journalism Prize, sponsored by the UNDP and IPS, was awarded Thursday in the Chilean capital in a ceremony addressed by the head of the U.N. agency, Helen Clark.

AFGHANISTAN: Poll Finds Optimism, Amid Political Disenchantment

As debate continues in Washington over what its next steps should be in Afghanistan and as the total of NATO-led coalition deaths in the country approaches 70 for the fourth straight month, a new survey says Afghans are slightly more optimistic about the future of their country than in years past.

U.S.: Public More Complacent About Climate Change

Less than two months before a key international conference on curbing climate change, a major U.S. poll has found a sharp drop in public concern about global warming.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Tech Sector Urged to Lead Green Economy

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appealed to the information and communications technology (ICT) community to help seal the deal at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.

ARGENTINA: Opposition, Media Giants to Fight New Law

While civil society groups celebrated Argentina's new broadcasting law, media giants threatened to fight it with a wave of lawsuits, and opposition lawmakers pledged to revise it after the next Congress convenes in December.