A São Paulo court suspended payments towards a more than $335,000 defamation judgment against Debate, a daily based in Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo in São Paulo state, O Estado de S. Paulo reports. According to Estado, the court ruled that the debt must still be paid, but the newspaper can still appeal to the Superior Court of Justice, the highest court for non-constitutional questions. Judge José Magdalena sued the newspaper in 1995 for an article that claimed his house and telephone were paid for by the local mayor’s
Luis Valdez Villacorta, acquitted in February because of a lack of evidence for the killing of Alberto Rivera, was released from prison in Lima, where he had been incarcerated for 21 months, in order to wait for another trial while under house arrest, reported EFE and La República.
The editor of the newspaper Correio de Notícias, Afonso Locks, was followed and beaten last week in the city of Cerejeiras (in the state of Rondonia), by persons linked to ex-Mayor José Eugênio Zigue de Souza, reported Folha de Rondônia, where the journalist also is a correspondent.
The government of Hugo Chavez took 32 radio and two television stations off the air last year, and to remember the occasion, journalists, media workers and former employees of the closed stations participated in a demonstration that branded the government's action as "arbitrary and illegal", reported AFP.
The Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism (Abraji) concluded its annual congress last week, showing that it has become one of the world’s best and largest investigative journalism groups.
El Comercio reported that Jorge Luis Marimón Lino Montes acknowledged he brutally attacked journalist Ángel Salazar in a dance club, and he announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy for city council.
Trying to find information about a journalism program at a university in Guatemala or a journalism professor in Brazil? A new online database from the World Journalism Education Council and the Knight Foundation will help you do just that.
Robert Cox, the London-born journalist who covered Argentina’s Dirty War when other newspapers wouldn’t, has been made an “Illustrious Citizen of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires,” The Guardian reports. He received the award when visiting the city for the release of the Spanish-language edition of his son’s memoir on the experience.
Fernando Collor de Mello, a former president and current senator, threatened Hugo Marques, a reporter for IstoÉ magazine, for publishing an article about efforts to invalidate his candidacy for governor of Alagoas state, O Globo reports.
Javier Canales and Alejandro Hernández, two of the four journalists kidnapped by drug gangs in Durango state, were freed in a rescue operation Saturday, AFP reports. Cameraman Héctor Gordoa was freed Thursday and La Cronica de Hoy reports that the journalist Óscar Solís had been released last Tuesday.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) questioned a proposed law that applies harsh sanctions to media outlets that publish content that affects minors.
Martín López, a journalist and host at Canal 44 in Ciudad Juárez, has joined the ranks of media workers who have sought asylum in the U.S. border city of El Paso, after receiving threats from drug traffickers.