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New York, August 29, 2006—An unidentified assailant shot and killed Venezuelan columnist Jesús Rafael Flores Rojas last week in front of his home in El Tigre in southwestern Anzoátegui province. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating whether Flores’ murder is related to his journalistic work. Flores, known locally as “El Pavo Flores,” was editorial coordinator of the Anzoátegui...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - The managing director of an Iranian daily has been acquitted of insulting Iran's Azeri minority, four months after the newspaper was banned for a cartoon that sparked protests, an official said on Monday. But in a separate case, the managing editor of a monthly publication was jailed for four years after being convicted of publishing articles against the constitution, libeling...

(dpa) ThaiDay, an English-language daily owned by a leading critic of Thai caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, is to cease publication this week because of financial problems, executives confirmed Monday. Sondhi Limthongkul, the newspaper's chairman, told ThaiDay staff that he would be forced to close down the Bangkok-based newspaper on Thursday because of political pressure on Thai banks...

Mob violence and thuggery were the leading causes of violence against the Indonesian press in 2005, a report by the Alliance for Independent Journalists (Aliansi Jurnalis Independen, AJI) has found. The organisation says close to one-third of attacks on the press were committed by mobs and thugs last year. DAMNING REPORT: Alliance for Independent Journalists (Aliansi Jurnalis Independen, AJI)

KINSHASA, Aug 26 (Reuters) - One TV channel endlessly repeats close-ups of dead policemen tortured by a presidential candidate's supporters; a rival radio station calls for foreigners supporting President Joseph Kabila to be expelled. Democratic Republic of Congo's media has become a political battleground. With the vast central African country two months away from a historic presidential runoff...

KHARTOUM, Aug 26 (Reuters) - An American journalist appeared in court in Darfur on Saturday on charges of espionage and entering the country illegally, his lawyers and other sources said. Paul Salopek, a writer on assignment for National Geographic magazine and also a staff reporter for the Chicago Tribune, was arrested last week for crossing into Sudan via Darfur's long and porous border with...

And not as a political campaign strategy to deceive people into thinking that we are making head way as a nation when in actual sense we are not. The president during a rally in Chipata, warned Dr Kaunda to stop participating in politics or risk having his pension terminated. Honestly people, can one ask a politician to the bone like KK to stop caring about Zambia, a nation he saw from birth up to...

The media is becoming a hostage in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, where teachers are leading a statewide strike that has dragged on for over three months, and the police have opened fire on demonstrators and journalists a number of times. THE STRUGGLE GOES ON: A member of a social organsation demanding the resignation of Oaxaca state governor Ulises Ruiz stands next to graffiti in Oaxaca

Two journalists and a human rights activist went on trial today in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat. The hearings lasted just a few minutes and ended with the judge handing long jail sentences to all three defendants, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported. A LAW UNTO HIMSELF:President-for-Life Saparmurat Niyazov himself decides what prison sentences are to be handed down in a country

A Guatemalan radio host was seriously injured Wednesday when unidentified assailants shot him in the face as he was jogging in Guatemala City, according to news reports and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). PENSIVE BROTHER: Brother of radio journalist Vinicio Aguilar Mancilla looks at local reporters at the Herrera LLerandi Hospital where Aguilar is recovering from a gunshot wound in