The Chamber of Deputies approved a bill this week that would make public information accessible to citizens. The text now passes to the Senate.
Venezuela's new minister of communication and information, Tania Díaz, swore in the first 75 "communication guerrillas," members of school youth groups formed to “democratize” information and counterattack “the power of private media." See stories (in Spanish) by El Universal and El Nacional.
Chile's Law of Transparency and Access to Public information, which took effect last April, is helping national and international organizations that are seeking information about people who disappeared during the military dictatorship. Those people include U.S. citizen Boris Weisfeiler, Inter Press Service reports (in Spanish).
In a diplomatic offensive against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Foreign Minister Jaime Bermúdez warned that the diffusion of videos by the rebel group represent an "apology for organized crime and terrorism," the AFP news service and Radio Caracol report (in Spanish).