MEDIA-CHILE: Community Newspapers Take to the Web

Political science student Vlado Mirosevic, 20, is the proud editor of El Morrocotudo, Chile's first community newspaper, where hundreds of people like him post news items of local interest on the Internet.

SRI LANKA: Newsprint Shortage Adds to Curbs on Media

Residents of the embattled northern Sri Lankan town of Jaffna who get to see the ‘Uthayan’ newspaper often get a copy that is thumb-worn and soiled from having passed through the hands of many avid readers.

ECONOMY-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Getting in Touch with Mobile Phones

Only a decade ago many southern Africans thought a mobile phone was a luxury reserved for rich chief executives of multinational companies.

CUBA: Snail’s-Pace Internet Is Washington’s Fault

Authorities in Cuba blame the U.S. embargo for the high local cost of Internet connections, and for the serious problems in web services in this socialist Caribbean island nation.

EGYPT: State Media Loses Billion Dollars, And Counting

Revelations in January that Egypt's state-owned press institutions had accumulated vast government debts have ignited a torrent of speculation that privatisation of the industry is in the cards.

POLITICS: Arabs Less Worried About Iran, Poll Finds

U.S. and Israeli hopes of forging of a Sunni Arab alliance to contain Iran and its regional allies may be misplaced, at least at the popular level, according to a major survey of six Arab countries released here Thursday.

MEDIA-IRAN: Self-Imposed Sanctions

Iran's nuclear programme, an undeniably serious issue for Iranians and the rest of the world, has overshadowed the country's deplorable human rights situation, including severe censorship of books and publications.

RIGHTS: Helping the World’s Most Persecuted Writers

A survivor of a secret Khmer Rouge prison where 14,000 people were brutally murdered is among the 45 recipients of this year's Hellman/Hammett grants, awarded each year to individuals who have shown extraordinary courage in the face of political persecution.

MEDIA: Iraq Leads Another Bloody Year for the Press

It was another dangerous year for the press around the world as the number of killed and imprisoned journalists rose in 2006, according to an annual report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

MEXICO: Community Radio Stations Under Fire

One of the 12 community radio stations operating legally in Mexico has literally come under fire, and its journalists have received death threats and been arrested; another has received warnings for covering the activities of social movements; and a third was closed down at gunpoint by supporters of the local government.

MEDIA: Journalists Targeted for Traveling Outside Iran

In a new blow to free expression in Iran, security forces arrested three members of a 15-woman delegation of journalists en route to a training workshop in India last week, accusing them of infringing national security interests and threatening them with trial.

CHINA: Image Makeover Timed for 2008 Olympics

With the symbolically important Beijing Olympics and other sensitive dates looming large on China's political calendar, the propaganda czars have begun a new moral campaign that focuses on creating a positive public image.

MOLDOVA: Media Struggles for Independence

Opposition members and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are accusing Moldova's communist cabinet of interfering with the work of journalists who are critical of the government.

DEVELOPMENT-MALAWI: Do the MDGs Matter?

In a country such as Malawi, where the ramifications of HIV/AIDS, perennial hunger and illiteracy are all too clear, one would expect that the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) would be familiar to many people.

POLITICS: U.S., Iranian Publics Not So Different

The people of Iran and the United States share many of the same hopes and fears about global problems but remain deeply distrustful of each other's government, according to a major survey of public opinion in both countries released here Wednesday.

ECONOMY-MAURITIUS: Globalisation “Gobbles Up the Plankton”

‘‘How much do you open, at what pace, and what measures do you take as a government to help local enterprises to restructure?’’

MEDIA-ZIMBABWE: From Turning Pages to Downloading Them

Piles of fast-selling newspapers on many a street corner, with early morning queues of commuters killing time reading and discussing the day's top stories... This scene from the 1980s and 1990s in Zimbabwe is now a distant memory, recognisable only to older urbanites.

MEDIA-MALAYSIA: Case Against Bloggers – Test for Freedom

A leading state-backed newspaper has sued two prominent bloggers, critical of the daily and the government, for alleged defamation raising fears that this represents another attack on freedom of expression in Malaysia.

POLITICS: Bush Continues to Unite the World… Against Him

Despite two years of a concentrated effort by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her public diplomacy major- doma Karen Hughes to boost Washington's global image, more people around the world have an unfavourable opinion of U.S. policies than at any time in recent memory, according to a new BBC poll released here Monday.

DEVELOPMENT-TANZANIA: Sachs Says It Is Possible to Meet MDGs

World renowned economist and director of the United Nations (UN) Millennium Project, Jeffrey Sachs, is a harbinger of good news. During his visit to Nairobi, capital of Kenya, in mid-January he emphasised that it was still possible to meet the MDGs before 2015.

MEDIA-ZIMBABWE: Last Independent Voice May Disappear

The last of Zimbabwe's independent media voices would disappear if the publisher of the country's two remaining private newspapers loses his Zimbabwean citizenship, warn civil society activists and journalists.