Americas

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern for the safety of Marlene Vaz, a journalist based in the northeastern Uruguayan town of Río Branco, and her family, who have been harassed as a result of her reporting the theft of a large consignment of sport shoes involving the Río Branco police in early 2006. The threats have stepped up in recent days as Vaz appeals against her one-year...

The United States military said Monday that it would release Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein who has been jailed in Iraq without trial for two years on accusations of terrorism and kidnapping. The US military initially said it had more than enough evidence to hold him under a UN mandate, but on Monday, Maj Gen Douglas Stone, deputy commanding general for detainee operations, signed the...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern at the detention and deportation from Havana of Camagüey-based independent journalist Ernesto Corría Cabrera this week. Corría Cabrera, a reporter for the Miami-based press agency Nueva Prensa Cubana, told New york-based CPJ that he travelled from his home in the eastern city of Camagüey to Havana on Saturday to print the news...

Two indigenous women radio presenters have been shot dead in Mexico. On April 7, Teresa Bautista Flores and Felicitas Martínez, working for La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (“The Voice that Breaks the Silence”), a community radio station serving the Trique indigenous community, were shot in Putla de Guerrero, in the southern state of Oaxaca. The two young women were returning from doing a report in...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the killing of a Panamanian television cameraman and photographer who was stabbed while covering a gang fight in Panama City. Eliécer Santamaría died in the early morning hours on Tuesday after he was stabbed while on assignment covering a story about gangs exchanging gunfire in the capital, according to reports. "This killing...

Two Haitian reporters were injured by rubber bullets while covering clashes between protesters and Haitian and UN forces in Port-au-Prince Tuesday, according to news reports and interviews. A third journalist was wounded by pellets that were fired by protesters, a press advocate said. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Wednesday called on Haitian and UN authorities to provide the necessary...

A Mexican reporter who has been a target of death threats, sabotage and police harassment because of her work uncovering prostitution and child pornography networks was Wednesday designated the laureate of a press freedom prize by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, will award the Guillermo Cano World...

An Iraqi judicial committee has dismissed terrorism-related allegations against Associated Press (AP) photographer Bilal Hussein and ordered him released nearly two years after he was detained by the US military, the news agency has reported. Hussein, 36, remained in custody Wednesday at Camp Cropper, a US detention facility near Baghdad's airport. A decision by a four-judge panel said Hussein's...

Gopal Raju, who founded the first successful ethnic newspaper 'India Abroad in the United States' died Thursday after a brief illness. He was 80. Raju, who was suffering from jaundice, was admitted to hospital about a week ago. He died from the complication of the disease. India Abroad popularity increased during emergency in India when it provided the outlet for the opposition leaders to vent...

Newspaper readers in the US agree with editors on the basics of what makes good journalism, but they are more apt to want looser rules for online conversations, a new study on news credibility has found. Newspapers highly discourage anonymous remarks, for instance, and editors are more likely than readers to want that principle applied to reader comments online, according to the Online Journalism...