New York, August 31, 2009--A magistrate in Zambia issued a summons today for the entire editorial staff of the southern African country's largest independent newspaper to appear in court on Wednesday on contempt charges, according to local journalists and news reports. The ruling was prompted by an op-ed commenting on the prosecution of the paper's news editor. 

New York, August 28, 2009--A Ugandan newspaper's critical caricature of President Yoweri Museveni led police to interrogate three journalists today on allegations of sedition, according to a defense attorney and local journalists. 

New York, August 26, 2009--Two Ethiopian journalists were thrown in prison on Monday after a judge convicted them under an obsolete press law in connection with coverage of sensitive topics dating back several years, according to local journalists and news reports.

New York, August 25, 2009--Four journalists from Uganda's largest independent newspaper are facing criminal prosecutions, joining four others already charged since 2007, according to local journalists and news reports.

No doubt Stars and Stripes is a Pentagon-authorized newspaper. But no one should doubt the daily's editorial independence from the Defense Department. This week Stars and Stripes beat the rest of the press pack in breaking a story that not only made Defense Department officials uncomfortable, but that compelled veteran Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman to say he would look into the matter.

For the second time in less than a month, the lead federal investigator in the case of a journalist murdered in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, has been shot and killed in the streets of that city, according to news accounts. The second investigator, Pablo Pasillas Fong, was shot 13 times on August 26, according to the reports.

New York, August 25, 2009--Masked assailants on Monday stormed a radio station and a television outlet critical of the country's interim government, forcing the broadcasters off the air in the latest attack on the Honduran media. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Honduran authorities to ensure that all journalists can work safely in an increasingly polarized and violent environment.

New York, August 31, 2009--The Committee to Protect Journalists announced today that it will honor imprisoned Sri Lankan journalist J.S. Tissainayagam with a 2009 International Press Freedom Award. Tissainayagam, left, sentenced today to 20 years in prison on specious charges of violating anti-terror laws, is one of five journalists who will be honored by CPJ at a ceremony in November. The full slate of awardees, selected by CPJ's Board of Directors this summer, will be formally announced in September. 

A Supreme Court decision to allow a change of venue in the trial of three suspects accused of murdering journalist Dennis Cuesta, at left, in August 2008 sets a hopeful precedent in the fight against impunity in media killings in the Philippines. The decision was granted in mid-July and press freedom groups tracking the case learned about the ruling on August 28. 

PBS's "Wide Angle" aired "Eyes of the Storm" last week, a documentary on Cyclone Nargis and its aftermath. Like Anders Ostergaard's recent film "Burma VJ" on citizen reporters during the monk-led protests in 2007, which we wrote about in April, "Wide Angle" contrasts independent reports filmed at great risk with the junta's state media claims that aid was under control. 

New York, August 24, 2009--Authorities in Pakistan's northwest tribal regions must immediately investigate today's murder of Afghan journalist Janullah Hashimzada, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

New York, August 27, 2009--Azerbaijani authorities should drop all charges against video bloggers who satirized the government, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. 

New York, August 26, 2009--The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Taraz Regional Court in southern Kazakhstan to overturn on appeal a jail sentence given to Ramazan Yesergepov, the editor of the independent Almaty-based weekly Alma-Ata Info. 

New York, August 21, 2009--Prosecutors in Abakan, the capital of the Republic of Khakassia in southern Siberia, should drop their defamation charges against online editor Mikhail Afanasyev, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The charges are tied to a blog entry about Monday's explosion at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant that killed dozens of workers, according to news reports.

New York, August 18, 2009--The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for an independent investigation into the death on Monday in a Baku prison hospital of Novruzali Mamedov, editor of the now-defunct minority newspaper Talyshi Sado, who had been in state custody since February 2007.