The Argentine government today, Aug. 24, will release a 400-page report that supposedly shows ties between the country's two largest newspapers and the military dictatorship (1976-1983), reported the news agency Télam. The document analyzes the newspapers' purchase in 1976 of Papel Prensa, Agentina's largest producer of newsprint. The newspapers share ownership of the company with the Argentine government.
The federal district attorney has opened a public civil inquiry to investigate how the press of Mato Grosso do Sul had access to documents that proved the use of a video recording system, as part of criminal investigations, in the Federal Maximum Security Prison in Campo Grande, reported Campo Grande News.
A group of comedians gathered Sunday, Aug. 22, on the beach of Copacabana, in Rio de Janeiro, to demonstrate against a law that bans parodies and jokes about candidates during election campaigns in Brazil, reported O Globo.
Cuba first digital magazine debuted earlier this month, thanks to independent blogger Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, editor of "Voces", or Voices, reported the Miami Herald (in English), and El Nuevo Herald (in Spanish).
A judge issued an order to capture Juan Alcívar, correspondent for the newspaper La Hora de Esmeraldas and the radio station El Nuevo Sol, who is accused of throwing a tear gas bomb in the compound where President Rafael Correa lead a political rally La Concordia in July, reported EFE and Radio Sucre
Even as controversy erupted in Venezuela over a ban on the publication of violent photos, in Colombia a senator from the ruling coalition has offered up a bill that would prohibit the publication of "mildly pornographic" or sensational images in print media and websites, reported El Espectador and the news agency Europa Press.
The government of Alan García backtracked and re-instituted the operating license for La Voz de Bagua (The Voice of Bagua), the small radio station closed more than a year ago after the violent unrest in this province of the Peruvian Amazon, reported La República and EFE.
The three top candidates heading into the country’s Oct. 3 election, Dilma Rousseff, José Serra, and Marina Silva, have signed onto the Chapultepec Declaration — an international charter, first signed in 1994 in México, that protects freedom of expression and information — at this week’s Brazilian Newspaper Association (ANJ) congress in Rio de Janeiro.
A Venezuelan court has partially revoked an earlier ruling that put a 30-day ban on photos depicting violence from being published in all newspapers, reported the Wall Street Journal and EFE.
In light of the investigation into the publication of a photo of dead bodies in a Caracas morgue, a Venezuelan court banned for a month the national press from publishing "violent, bloody, or grotesque images, whether of crime or not," that can affect children and adolescents, reported The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press
The release of various political prisoners does not mean Cuban authorities are tolerating any type of free expression on the island. Luis Felipe Rojas was arrested for publishing a "horror report" about abuses committed against dissidents in the eastern provinces of Cuba, reported Radio Martí and EcoDiario.
The Venezuelan prosecutor's office is investigating opposition newspaper El Nacional for publishing on its front page a photo of a dozen dead, naked bodies in a morgue, reported the Associated Press and the Latin American Herald Tribune.