Cuban leader Fidel Castro ranted against the foreign press for reporting on the Jan. 19th death of political prisoner William Villar who had been on a hunger strike while in a prison in Santiago de Cuba, according to the newspaper Diario de Cuba.
A Peruvian journalist received a death threat and was told to stop investigating Corina de la Cruz, the mayor of Tocache in the region of San Martín, according to the news agency Inforegion.
“Mexico is a magical country where there are murders, but no murderers,” said the Mexican poet Homero Aridjis, protesting the rampant impunity in crimes against journalists during an international delegation of writers -- including several Nobel laureates -- organized by the group PEN International, held Sunday, Jan. 29, in Mexico City. The group, including Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa and Toni Morrison of the United States, took out a full-page ad in the El Universal newspaper that was signed by 170 writers and celebrated the bravery of journalists in Mexico, according to the Associated Press.
A Chilean military court sentenced a police officer to 541 days in prison for attacking a photojournalist for the EFE news agency who was covering a protest in the coastal city of Valparaíso, on May 21, 2008, reported the newspaper La Nación.
Brazilian journalists covering anniversary celebrations for the city of São Paulo were intimidated and attacked by protesters in Praça da Sé, in the city center, on Jan. 25, reported the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo.
Brazilian journalist Karen Santiago was kidnapped the evening of Jan. 19 while photographing flooding in a neighborhood in the city of São Paulo, reported Jornal na Net.
A reporting team for the Venezuelan television broadcaster RCTV was attacked at the Central University of Venezuela's (UCV in Spanish) communications school while covering violence that erupted after the release of student election results on Jan. 18, reported the organization Public Space.
Reporting on the repossession of land seized in the community of Pinheirinho, in São José dos Campos in the interior of the state of São Paulo, has been marred by police brutality and the curtailment of press freedom.
A Brazilian journalist was attacked and his camera was damaged while covering a protest on the streets of Teresina, in the state of Piauí on Jan. 19, reported TV Piauí. The reporter believes his attacker was a security guard with the Union of Urban Transport Businesses of Teresina.
Police in Uruguay's second largest city, Salto, opened an internal investigation on Jan. 19 to determine responsibility for an attack on the reporter Luis Díaz for the newspaper El Pueblo, reported the publication.
U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich faced off with CNN's John King during the South Carolina debate Thursday, Jan, 19, accusing the "destructive, vicious, negative" media of making it "harder to govern this country," reported Politico. Following the debate, which King moderated, CNN’s David Gergen said on the air that Gingrich's anti-media rant represented "one of the harshest attacks that we’ve had on the press that I can remember in a long, long time,” Politico added.
Brazilian journalists received death threats over e-mail after reporting on investigations by the State Public Ministry into family members and other people connected to the city's mayor, Silvio Félix, according to Canal Rio Claro. The reporters, in the city of Limeira, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, are from the newspapers Gazeta de Limeira and Jornal de Limeira, and TV Jornal.