Less than a month before Venezuela's elections, President Hugo Chavez accused media liked CNN in Spanish, The New York Times, and Grupo Prisa of Spain of orchestrating a campaign of "intrigues" and "lies" about his government and of sabotaging the coming elections, reported the news agency AFP and the magazine Semana.
The Venezuelan Supreme Court approved the request to seek extradition of Walid Makled, alleged Venezuelan drug dealer arrested in Colombia last week, reported the Associated Press. Makled is considered the mastermind behind the 2009 killing of journalist Orel Sambrano, according to El Universal.
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
Despite the global economic crisis and the migration of readers to the Internet, the circulation of printed newspapers in Latin America is projected to grow during the next five years, particularly in Brazil, Chile and Argentina, according to a Pricewaterhouse Coopers study, reported the newspaper La Nación.
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.
The Venezuelan vice president, Elías Jaua, asked the National Assembly to include in the reform of the General Bank Law a provision prohibiting shareholders of financial institutions from participating in communications enterprises, reported El Nacional.
The Prosecutor’s Office has opened a case into this week’s molotov cocktail bomb attack against the offices of the newspaper Las Noticias, El Universal reports.
The government of Hugo Chavez took 32 radio and two television stations off the air last year, and to remember the occasion, journalists, media workers and former employees of the closed stations participated in a demonstration that branded the government's action as "arbitrary and illegal", reported AFP.
Government officials and soldiers from the National Guard took over one of the farms owned by Guillermo Zuloaga, the majority shareholder of opposition TV station Globovisión, El Nacional reports.
The prosecutor’s office has charged Perla Jaimes, the lawyer who both represents Globovisión owner Guillermo Zuloaga and the opposition station itself, with allegedly obstructing a court order during the raid of the businessman’s house last May, El Carabobeño reports.
President Hugo Chavez announced that his government effectively owns more than a 45 percent stake in Globovisión, a station highly critical of his administration, and that in the next several days he would appoint a member to the channel’s board, Reuters and El Universal report.