(FLIP/IFEX) - José Manuel Díaz Barrios, a journalist for the programme "Tribuna Educativa", which is broadcast by the community radio station Radiograma Estéreo, reported that the mayor of Ariguaní, Rivelino Mendoza Ballestas, forced him off the air because of reports the journalist had aired on corruption, poor management of the educational system and problems with providing public services in the municipality.

(AFMF/IFEX) - The Kenyan government has published amendments to the Communications Act seeking to dispel the controversial clause that empowers the State to raid broadcasting stations.

(MISA/IFEX) - The High Court of Tanzania has ordered the weekly newspaper "Mwanahalisi", as well as two printing companies to pay a sum of 3 billion Tanzania shilling (approx. US$2.24 million) to Igunga Member of Parliament Hon. Rostam Aziz for alleged defamatory reports that incriminate him in a corruption scandal.

(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) - 11 May 2009 - ARTICLE has been working with the Vietnamese Ministry of Justice, which is drafting a right to information law, to help ensure that the draft is as consistent as possible with international standards and best national practice. To this end, ARTICLE 19 has hosted a team of Vietnamese experts in London and participated in meetings in Vietnam, and is providing ongoing technical legal assistance to the drafting team.

(EOHR/IFEX) - The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) received a letter from the Ministry of Social Solidarity on 10 May 2009.

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, May 12, 2009 - The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the prosecution of an elected New York state official for his alleged attack on a photographer who was trying to take his picture.

(EOHR/IFEX) - The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) received a letter from the Ministry of Social Solidarity on 10 May 2009.

This morning (13 May) police surrounded and opened fire on the office of Yemen's leading independent daily, the latest target of the government's crackdown on the media, report the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), ARTICLE 19, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and other IFEX members.

IFEX members welcomed the release of U.S. Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi, whose eight-year jail term for spying for the U.S. was this week reduced to a suspended two-year sentence and a five-year ban on reporting from Iran.

Only a few journalists are left in Pakistan's restive Swat Valley to cover the government's military offensive against the Taliban, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), as well as news reports on the website of the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF).

Last week the Malaysian government under new Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak arrested nearly 80 writers, opposition members and activists who were protesting the takeover of the northern state of Perak by the ruling federal government coalition Barisan Nasional, reports IFEX interim member the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) in Malaysia.

An Uzbek journalist who dared to cover some of his country's worst environmental disasters was arrested last year on trumped-up drug charges and is now serving 10 years in jail. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Freedom House and 30 other IFEX members have sent a joint letter to the Uzbek authorities to demand that Salijon Abdurahmanov is freed and that journalists are never imprisoned for their work.

A Senegalese editor who was serving a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for defaming leading government officials has been pardoned, report the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN (WiPC) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

(Mizzima/IFEX) - New Delhi, 12 May 2009 - Burma's military government has deported two American journalists who were teaching feature writing and photography to students in the country's second largest city of Mandalay.

Global Integrity, a U.S.-based governance and anti-corruption watchdog, is looking for journalists, researchers and social scientists from around the world to prepare its 2009 edition of the Global Integrity Report.

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders is concerned to learn of the arrests of two more Iranian journalists in the past two weeks, bringing the total number of journalists and bloggers currently held in Iran to 15, including two women.

(HRW/IFEX) - New York, May 12, 2009 - Bahrain should immediately begin a thorough and impartial investigation into the abduction and torture of the human rights activist Ja'far Kadhim Ibrahim, Human Rights Watch said today. Men whom Ibrahim believed were working for a Bahraini security agency abducted him on the night of May 7, 2009, and beat him severely with batons.

(IFEX-TMG) - On 13 May 2009, the IFEX-TMG wrote to Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali urging him to end his government's interference in the work of the national journalists' union, the SNJT.

(IFEX-TMG) - On 13 May 2009, the IFEX-TMG wrote to Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali urging him to end his government's interference in the work of the national journalists' union, the SNJT.

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders condemns the 11 May 2009 decision by the Israeli internal security ministry to shut down the Palestinian media centre that had been set up in the East Jerusalem district of Sheikh Jarah in advance of the Pope's visit.