Full Coverage: Media

30.01.2006 The Ekolevizja Group will organise its annual meeting on 31 January, and will discuss its role as an active force in the environmental protection and the sustainable development. The meeting will take place at the ONUFRI Room of the Tirana International Hotel.

30.01.2006 The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) estimates that the high compensations for broadcasting licences may lead to elimination of private broadcasters and restricted freedom of expression in Serbia.

27.01.2006 UNESCO has published a handbook for journalists of developing countries on the use of Internet for journalistic purposes. The handbook,The Net for Journalists, is a resource (with a printed manual and a CD) designed for both print and broadcast journalists and journalism students in developing countries around the globe.

27.01.2006 The recording of the firts radio programme in Romani language intended for broadcasting on the B&H Public Radio Service, was completed at the Media Plan Institute in Sarajevo. The Amaro Drom Project (Our Way) was prepared by ten young Roma men and women who completed the three-month training at the Institute.

25.01.2006 The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) sent an open letter to the President and the Prime Minister of Croatia, the President of the European Commission and the leadership of the Croatian Radiotelevision at the beginning of this week, to express their concern over the events surrounding Croatian journalists at the end of 2005.

25.01.2006 Unidentified assailants killed journalist Subramaniyam Sugirdharajan of the Tamil-language newspaper Sudaroli in the port city of Trincomalee on 24 January 2006, a day after he wrote an article about abuses committed by Tamil political organisations. International organisations Free Media Movement (FMM), Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have reported on the incident.

25.01.2006 Norwegian peace envoy Eric Solheim has been asked to raise issues of journalists' security in meetings with the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebel leaders this week after an unidentified gunman killed a Tamil journalist in the eastern port town of Trincomalee.

24.01.2006 Reporters Without Borders today condemned the censorship and police violence against journalists which have accompanied the Nepalese government’s crackdown on the opposition’s efforts to stage pro-democracy demonstrations in the past few days.

24.01.2006 The media have a crucial role in governance, human rights and the elimination of poverty. DFID has brought out this guidance paper, Media in Governance, to improve the quality and impact of government-media relations and media effectiveness in serving the interests of the poor and the disadvantaged.

19.01.2006 Anju Chhetri, born in a lower-middle class family in Biratnagar, in Nepal, was drawn towards women-oriented journalism when, as a student of history, she found that women were either excluded from historical accounts or grossly misrepresented. Understanding full well that she could not rewrite history in the absence of well-documented historical sources or the resources for historical research, she decided to write the 'history' that was available to her -in the form of journalism.

18.01.2006 On 6 January 2006, Prahlad Goala, a reporter who recently wrote about illegal forestry operations in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, became the first journalist murdered this year, reported the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

16.01.2006 Many Sri Lankan journalists feel that, once again, they are under threat in a country with a history of attempts to muzzle the media, says Amantha Perera.

12.01.2006 Reporters and journalists from the print media in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro are invited to apply for participation in a five-month course for specialization in investigative journalism on the topic of organized crime. The programme involves distance learning courses and work on topical stories during the regular daily work, combined with short workshops in Sarajevo. The deadline for application for the Class of 2006 expires on January 23, 2006.

11.01.2006 The Queeria LGBT and the “Reaguj” Group, protested against the rise of hate-speech and intolerance in the programmes of Serbian Radio Television’s Channel Three. The SMS (short messaging services) presented in the small hours of the night are mostly directed against the homosexual community in the country.

10.01.2006 For over a year now the EUPM’s Press and Public Information Department has trained and advised the spokespersons of the BiH police forces on all aspects of their work. As a result the first ever jointly planned and implemented PI campaign is about to kick off in January 2006.

05.01.2006 Originally sentenced to two years in prison for criticizing Islamic laws through the women's rights magazine he edited, an appeals court has reduced Ali Mohaqiq Nasab's sentence to six months and released him on probation, but he has been removed from his position at the magazine.

05.01.2006 DOWN TO EARTH is holding an exhibition of photographs taken on the eve of the first anniversary of the Tsunami in Asia. These photos are from the worst affected villages from the south Indian regions of Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu.

05.01.2006 Reporters Without Borders' annual roundup on Press Freedom finds that at last 63 journalists were killed in 2005 while doing their job or for expressing their opinions, the highest annual toll since 1995 (when 64 were killed, 22 of them in Algeria). Five media assistants were also killed.