President Hugo Chávez might be recovering from cancer treatment in a hospital in Cuba but he is everywhere on the streets and televisions of Venezuela.
The Venezuelan government accused the international media last week of promoting a "psychological war" with their coverage of president Hugo Chávez's health, who is suffering from a serious lung infection, Venezolana de Televisión reported.
A court in Ecuador denied an injunction that sought to rescind an executive order from President Rafael Correa prohibiting his ministers and other public officials from giving interviews to private media, arguing that there was no evidence of a "violation of a constitutional right".
The Colombian Federation of Journalists (FECOLPER) called the closure of the newspaper El Liberal in the city of Popayán, Cauca on Saturday, Dec. 15, a blow to freedom of expression. The loss of the newspaper will leave the region hardest hit by unemployment, poverty and armed conflict without a newspaper, according to a statement from the organization.
The Committee for Free Expression, or C-Libre, claimed that a radio station in Honduras censored without explanation a radio spot it paid for advocating the democratization of the broadcast spectrum.
Reactions were swift to the court's decision to suspend controversial articles in Argentina's new Media Law that would have required media giant Grupo Clarín to abandon some of its broadcast licenses last Friday, Dec. 7.
El Salvador's Supreme Court declared some of President Mauricio Funes' September 2011 recommendations for the Access to Public Information Law unconstitutional, according to El Faro.
The president of Guatemala, Otto Pérez Molina, approved the reform to the General Telecommunications law, which extends leases on the current broadcast spectrum for another 20 years and weakens indigenous groups' access to radio frequencies, according to the newspaper Prensa Libre on Wednesday, Dec. 5.
Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, or PGR — which is in charge of investigating federal crimes like drug and arms trafficking — is now denying journalists access to their facilities all over the country, news weekly Proceso reported.
The Mexican organization Periodistas de a Pie launched on Dec. 2 at the International Book Fair of Guadalajara its most recent collective project, Entre las Cenizas: Historias de Vida en Tiempos de Muerte. ("From the Ashes: Tales of Life in Times of Death" in Spanish). According to the organization, the book focuses on "stories of resistance, solidarity and hope, starring anonymous women and men who suffered from the unhinged violence of the war in Mexico against drug trafficking."