MEDIA-MEXICO: Supreme Court Deals Blow to Powerful Broadcasters

Mexico's Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the country's powerful and formerly untouchable biggest broadcasters, Televisa and TV Azteca, by declaring several key clauses of a 2006 law unconstitutional.

MEDIA-SRI LANKA: Building Ethnic Harmony With Community Radio

In this tea-growing hill country, about 150 km from Colombo, a state-run community radio station is creating harmony among the country's Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim ethnic groups by broadcasting from the villages and opening up the airwaves to people's participation.

EDUCATION-AFRICA: Learning at the Flick of a Switch

The role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in improving education throughout Africa has been in the spotlight over recent days at the e-Learning Africa Conference.

MEDIA-US: Religious Right Gets More Than Its 15 Minutes

Conservative religious figures are mentioned in the major U.S. news media as many as 2.8 times as often as progressive religious figures, says a new study released Tuesday in Washington.

MEDIA-LATIN AMERICA: Easy to See the Speck in the Other’s Eye

People have been collectively tearing their hair out all over Latin America because of the Venezuelan government's decision not to renew the broadcasting licence of that country's most popular television station, RCTV.

ECONOMY: Castoff E-scrap Holds Hidden Treasure

Valuable resources in every discarded product with a battery or plug - computers, televisions, phones and other household gadgets - are being trashed in rising volumes worldwide, and unless countries start recycling more of this high-tech scrap, they will soon face serious shortages, experts say.

FINANCE-AFRICA: Mobile Phones Revolutionise Banking

Mobile phone banking is expanding across the region from South Africa to Kenya and is putting the poor directly in control of their own finances like never before.

MEDIA-UAE: ‘Glamour Factor’ Can Push Social, Political Agenda

A semi-governmental media company in this most vibrant of Middle East cities is feverishly working on the much-anticipated launch of 'Arabiya MTV'.

VENEZUELA: Marches and Counter-Marches Over TV Station’s End

Hundreds of journalists and students carried a one-kilometre banner reading "S.O.S. Freedom of Expression", written in 10 languages with letters one metre high, through the Venezuelan capital Monday to protest the authorities' decision not to renew the broadcasting licence of the country's most popular TV station.

MEDIA-THAILAND: Community Radio Refuses to Go Silent

They may still be on the margins of the country's media landscape with their limited reach on the airwaves and small audiences, but Thailand's community radio stations are refusing to go silent.

Q&A: "I Was Just So Relieved the Zombie Didn't Keep a Blog"

This week marked the second annual Lulu Blooker Prize, which recognises the emerging genre of books based on weblogs. With 110 entries from 15 countries, the winners included the account of a U.S. machine-gunner in Iraq, a whimsical fiction book about the doorbells of Florence, and a memoir recounting a mother's struggle with lung cancer.

DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: Media Civil to Civil Society?

They fight for the rights of AIDS patients, lobby for fairer trade regulations, highlight environmental ills - and address a host of other pressing issues in Kenya. But, some of them feel these initiatives are being given short shrift by the media.

BOLIVIA: Faster Internet Connections – For the Few

A varied crowd of academics, civil servants, and university and high school students gathered in the hall of the vice-presidential building to celebrate Internet Day. The main event was the launching of Internet II, a project to incorporate Bolivia into the cutting-edge Latin American Cooperation of Advanced Networks (CLARA).

PORTUGAL: Some Missing Children More Equal than Others

Never before has the Portuguese idiom "para o inglês ver" (literally: for the English to see), which means putting on a front to impress outsiders and ward off criticism, been so apt as today in Portugal, when the entire country has its attention riveted on the case of a four-year-old British girl who disappeared from a hotel two weeks ago.

MEDIA-AUSTRALIA: Tightening ‘Anti-Terrorism’ Censorship

The prospective widening of Australia's censorship laws to crackdown on material that advocates terrorism has alarmed civil society groups.

POLITICS-PHILIPPINES: Candidates Prefer to Campaign Over Media

"I miss those days when candidates would go from town to town, knocking on doors and shaking hands with the people," rues 65-year-old Honorato Guevara, a retired businessman who hails from Camarines Sur in central Philippines.

ECONOMY-VENEZUELA: Nationalisation Drive Takes Broad Aim

Venezuela's nationalisation drive is moving full-steam ahead. After placing telecoms, electricity and oil companies in state hands, President Hugo Chávez has warned that he is prepared to nationalise everything from banks to the largest steel company, and even health clinics and chicken farms.

DEATH PENALTY-US: Three Newspapers Reverse 100-Year-Old Stand

Three established U.S. newspapers, two of them among the 10 largest in the country, in three different states have in the past weeks abandoned their century-old support of the death penalty and become passionate advocates of a ban on state-sponsored killing.

BIODIVERSITY: A Web Page for Each of the World’s Creatures

Scientists launched a global initiative Thursday called the "Encyclopedia of Life" that will document the Earth's 1.8 million known species and track the impacts of habitat loss and climate change.

POLITICS: Global Public Favours Stronger U.N.

According to the results of a groundbreaking 18-nation poll released Wednesday, people around the world favour dramatic steps to strengthen the United Nations, including giving it the power to have its own standing peacekeeping force, to regulate the international arms trade and to investigate human rights abuses.

US/IRAQ: ‘Pentagon Moved to Fix Iraqi Media Before Invasion’

In the run-up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon planned to create a 'Rapid Reaction Media Team' (RRMT) designed to ensure control over major Iraqi media while providing an Iraqi 'face' for its efforts, according to a ‘White Paper' obtained by the independent National Security Archive (NSA) which released it Tuesday.