MEXICO: Drug Trade a Deadly Subject for Journalists

In the space of less than a week, a Mexican reporter was murdered, another disappeared, and a third was shot nine times, yet miraculously survived. All three crimes were perpetrated by drug traffickers, who very likely had the help of police officers eager to silence damaging information.

MEDIA-NEPAL: Living Dangerously With the Censors

For community radio broadcaster Ghama Raj Luitel, life is a daily struggle of living dangerously in emergency-ruled Nepal where jail remains a distinct possibility at every waking moment.

POLITICS-US: GI Joe vs. Zein, the Last Pharaoh

As Pres. George W. Bush's confidante Karen Hughes prepares for her confirmation hearings later this spring as the nominee for under-secretary of state for public diplomacy, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is weighing in with sharp criticism of Washington's track record on boosting its image abroad.

MEDIA-MALAYSIA: Authorities Zero In On Bloggers

''Malaysians thrive on rumours, especially when 90 percent of them seem to end up as facts in the end,'' says blogger Raja Petra at his site 'Malaysia-Today', which urges contributions and comments from the public.

MEDIA-NEPAL: Bad News From All Sides

Jail is just one threat facing Nepal's under fire journalists.

MEDIA-US: Bush Shows No Remorse for Fake Newscasts

Despite a rising chorus of condemnation from journalists and media critics, the George W. Bush administration shows no signs of abandoning its distribution of taxpayer-funded "news" to U.S. newspapers, radio and television stations.

JAPAN: Livedoor’s Horie, Man the Media Loves to Hate

The typical reaction when something jolts staid and homogenous Japan is to blame it on the insensitive foreigner. But the ongoing saga played between a new Japanese Internet business and two well established broadcasting companies is otherwise proving to be quite shocking.

MEDIA: 78 Journalists Killed Last Year

Seventy-eight journalists were killed last year in the course of their work, a survey by the Vienna-based International Press Institute shows.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/SPECIAL REPORT: Quality Could Survive Shrinking Broadsheets

"The broadsheet is dead", Jim Chisholm, strategy advisor to the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers (WAN) declared in a report 'New Designs, New Formats' published last June.

COMMUNICATIONS: New Web Site to Boost the Rights of the Child

Latin America produces more food per person than most other parts of the world, which makes it even more unacceptable for children to be dying of hunger and malnutrition, said the regional director of UNICEF, Nils Kastberg, in Brazil.

POLITICS: Zimbabwe’s State Media Give With One Hand, Take Away With Another

On the face of it, the new broadcasting regulations issued last month in Zimbabwe were groundbreaking. For the first time in the history of Zimbabwean elections, the opposition would be legally allocated time on state-owned radio and television in the run-up to a parliamentary poll, scheduled for Mar. 31.

CHILE: Rising Cell Phone Use Fuels Fears of Health Hazards from Antennas

Hundreds of Chileans are keeping watch day and night over lots next to their homes, to block plans to install mobile phone antennas, because they are worried about the possible effects they could have on human health.

MEDIA-MIDEAST: The Artful Bloggers

The growth of personal websites, known as "blogs", in the greater Middle East is raising questions about whether this technology will eventually become the area's "new, new media" and provide an antidote to the one-sided "news" carried by government-controlled presses.

MEDIA: Iraq Toll Makes 2004 Worst Year for Press in a Decade

Violence in Iraq claimed the lives of 23 journalists and 16 media support workers in 2004, making it the most deadly year for press freedom in a decade, according to the annual report of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

MEDIA-EUROPE: Forum to Review Rights

Protection of the diversity and independence of media in Europe was proclaimed as a vital goal at the seventh ministerial conference on mass media policy organised by the Council of Europe (COE) here this week.

MEDIA: European Policies Put Under the Lens

A conference took a close look Thursday at what European media can do by way of reporting issues such as terrorism and globalisation, and defending human rights in the information society.

MEDIA-RUSSIA: Glasnost Begins to Crack

Twenty years after former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev began that process of restructuring called perestroika, media freedom in Russia is under attack again from the Kremlin, media representatives and watchdogs say.

MEDIA-EAST TIMOR: A Daily Becomes the Prime Minister’s Punching Bag

Press freedom in the world's newest nation, East Timor, is under attack with a major daily newspaper being harassed by the government after it reported on famine deaths in the island.

INT’L WOMEN’S DAY: Think of These Three Women

International Women's Day asks you to think of half the world, but two writers groups asked Tuesday for attention particularly to three women "under attack for using new information technology to challenge their governments."

BALKANS: One Language Finds Many Names

The Bosnian Muslim minority in the southern Serbian area of Sandzak claim to have won the right to education in Bosnian language last month after a long battle with Serbian authorities.

DEVELOPMENT: EU Citizens Asked the Way

Question: Should poverty reduction be at the heart of the European Union's development policy?