Nearly two years after the bill was first introduced in the National Congress, the Brazilian Senate approved the Public Information Access Law on Oct. 25, reported G1. During the bill's long road to ratification it depended on the support of the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji in Portuguese), the NGO Article 19, and the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. Along with these organizations, journalists like Fernando Rodrigues, who led the campaign for the right to access to information in Brazil, were also critical in the bill's passage. The only step left is President Dilma Rousse
Brazilian journalist Everaldo Fogaça was threatened by the head of the Federal Police, Eduardo Brun de Souza, according to the newspaper O Globo. Fogaça was testifying at police headquarters after being indicted for publishing on his news site the manifesto from a student group on strike at the Federal University of Rondônia.
Police arrested two suspects in connection with the killing of Brazilian journalist Auro Ida on Oct. 17 in Cuiabá, the capital of Mato Grosso, reported Diário de Cuiabá.
A Brazilian photographer was arrested after refusing to delete photos of police attacking two young people participating in a gay pride parade on Oct. 16, in the city of Itabuna, Bahia, reported the newspaper Correio 24 horas.
Carlos Curcio, a columnist for the Brazilian newspaper Jornal Cidade, was found dead on the morning of Oct. 13, in his apartment in Rio Claro, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, reported the website Terra.
The Brazilian military hindered camera crews from filming in the Complexo do Alemão, a collection of 13 slums, or favelas, outside Rio de Janeiro, on Oct. 3, reported the website Consciência.net. The favelas have been occupied by the military since November 2010, after a series of attacks orchestrated by drug traffickers.
A Brazilian news team investigating an attack by a soccer fan club on a player found themselves the target of violence by the same club on Oct. 12, reported the sports newspaper UOL Esporte.
Gunmen fired six shots into the car of Brazilian reporter Sérgio Ricardo de Almeida da Luz on the morning of Wednesday, Oct. 5, in the city of Toledo in the southern state of Paraná, reported the website O Paraná. The car was parked outside the reporter's home. No one was in the car during the attack.
Yahoo! Vice President Luke Beatty announced the search engine's still nascent Yahoo! Contributor Network, a freelance collaborative news network, was coming to Brazil, IDG Now! reported.
The director-general of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, condemned the killing of Brazilian journalist Valderlei Canuto Leandro, who was shot eight times by unidentified men on Sept. 1 in the city of Tabatinga, in the Amazons, UNESCO reported on Sunday, Oct. 2.