Just days after announcing a national dialogue on freedom of expression in response to increasing reports of incidents against the press by the authorities, Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli accused media owners of having a "shadowy agenda," TVN Noticias reports.
Journalists from TV RBA and Diário do Pará newspaper were not allowed to witness statements made in court by Rômulo Maiorana Jr. on May 18, Diário Online reports.
Spain announced that it has been negotiating on behalf on one of its jailed citizens, journalist Sebastián Martínez Ferraté, to determine why he has been held for 10 months in a Cuban prison without being formally charged, the Associated Press reports.
Two reporters were attacked by a Peruvian presidential candidate's bodyguards, while two other journalists reported threats and censorship as the tension continues to grow in the buildup to the second round of voting in the presidential election, the Press and Society Institute (IPYS) reports via IFEX.
Keeping with the domestic and international trend, the UOL news site has released a set of guidelines for social media usage by its journalists, Liberdade Digital reports.
The Mexican authorities have released journalist Jesús Lemus Barajas, the founder of El Tiempo newspaper, who had been held for three years on charges of having ties to the drug trafficking cartels he was investigating for the paper, EFE reports.
Photographer Marcela Rodíguez, a correspondent for Mapuexpress, was arrested while covering a May 13 protest in the southern Chilean city of Temuco against the construction of new hydroelectric dams, Periodistas en Español reports.
Journalist Esmael Morais, whose blog was taken down by the courts at the request of Paraná state governor Beto Richa, has launched a column that will be published via Facebook and Twitter, Blog do Miro reports.
At an indigenous mass wedding attended by Bolivian President Evo Morales and several of his ministers, police forcefully expelled a journalist covering the May 7 event in La Paz, Opinión reports.
Journalists covering police protests in the Amazon-region city of Porto Velho, Rondônia on May 7 and 8 were threatened and harassed by several demonstrating officers, Rondoniaovivo reports.
Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli is organizing a national dialogue on freedom of expression, to be held on Saturday, May 14, 2011, in response to allegations of threats and abuse perpetrated by government officials against journalists, EFE reports.
Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, ordered the country's media to show more patriotism and support the government's strategy of bringing Chile before an international court in order to obtain access to the Pacific Ocean, according to El Deber.