Full, normal broadcasting of the Ugandan Central Broadcasting Service (CBS)--owned by Uganda's powerful traditional Buganda kingdom--resumed Monday after nearly 14 months of silence. While CBS staff welcomed their return to work, many recounted a tough year and questioned the nature of the station's re-opening. 

New York, November 1, 2010--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a government ban on the publication of Malawian weekly tabloid The Weekend Times today. In a letter dated October 28, the National Archives of Malawi issued an immediate suspension of The Weekend Times on charges of failing to register the paper, according to news reports.

New York, October 29, 2010--The Committee to Protect Journalists calls upon authorities in Ethiopia's northeastern region of Afar to release a journalist who has been held without charge since September 11.

On Wednesday, just before South African lawmakers were scheduled to debate amendments to the controversial Protection of Information Bill, thousands of protesters marched to the gates of Parliament in Cape Town to oppose the measure, which they called an "apartheid-style secrecy bill." The marchers represented a broad coalition of media, academia, trade unions and civil society groups.

Last week marked the fourth anniversary of the murder of Brad Will, a 36-year-old American activist and journalist who was shot while covering anti-government protests in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. His murderers remain at large. 

There's been a great deal of coverage in the last day or so of Firesheep, a plugin for Firefox that lets you take over the Facebook and Twitter accounts of others on your local network. If you use Firesheep, you can pick one of the people on, say, the same open wireless at your nearby cafe, and then easily view, delete, and add comments using their name on these sites.

The line of people at the stairs leading down to the Great Hall at Cooper Union in lower Manhattan formed early and turned into an audience of 500. They came to hear prominent Mexican and U.S. writers and free expression advocates assess, denounce, and seek solutions to the wave of violence wracking Mexican media.

New York, October 20, 2010--Brazilian police on Tuesday arrested a man suspected of killing radio reporter Francisco Gomes de Medeiros in the city of Caicó, state of Rio Grande do Norte, local press reports said. Gomes was shot to death Monday in front of his house. The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the arrest and calls on Brazilian authorities to prosecute all those responsible to the full extent of the law.

November 3, 2007, was a dark day in the history of Pakistan's media. Former military dictator General Pervez Musharraf banned all private news channels, and some entertainment and sports channels, through an "oral order." He said he made the move to stop "irresponsible journalism." Many of the staff in the president's office who dealt with the media were unaware of his decision; intelligence agencies were used to tell the cable operators to pull the channels off air. Media reacted strongly. After 80 days of struggle, jailings, and legal battles, including sedition cases brought against some journalists, the government backed down from its decision and allowed the channels back on air.  

Although I refuse to say that I am guilty for violating criminal law for publishing Indonesia Playboy magazine, it never crossed my mind to run away or to try to avoid the two-year prison sentence handed down to me by the Supreme Court. I am a good citizen who respects the law in Indonesia.

On Saturday, October 9, 2010, I went to Jakarta with my lawyer, Todung Mulya Lubis, to be taken into custody and to begin my sentence. This was in compliance with an agreement made between my lawyer and the prosecution, according to which I was to be taken to the prosecutor's office that afternoon by Lubis and the Press Council.

CPJ has always been careful to avoid making accusations when journalists are abducted or killed in Pakistan. Our tactic is to call for full investigations either by the police, the courts or special investigative bodies. In many such cases, the local journalists' community blames government security agencies, including the powerful Inter Services Intelligence group (ISI), as we noted a few days ago in an alert. Umar Cheema, who was abducted and humiliated over the weekend of September 4 and 5 near Islamabad, has specifically accused the ISI of being involved in his case and has stuck with those accusations.

Bangkok, October 28, 2010--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the arrest and detention of Vietnamese blogger Le Nguyen Huong Tra. Her arrest is the latest episode in a mounting crackdown on bloggers leading up to a crucial Communist Party congress scheduled for January 2011.

Hervé Ghesquière and Stéphane Taponier, two journalists from the public television channel France 3, along with their Afghan translator, Mohamed Reza, and two assistants, Ghulam and Satar, have been held hostage for 300 days in Afghanistan.

There's been a great deal of coverage in the last day or so of Firesheep, a plugin for Firefox that lets you take over the Facebook and Twitter accounts of others on your local network. If you use Firesheep, you can pick one of the people on, say, the same open wireless at your nearby cafe, and then easily view, delete, and add comments using their name on these sites.

Dear President Aliyev: We are writing to express our strong concern regarding the continued imprisonment of Editor-in-chief Eynulla Fatullayev, which constitutes a breach of Azerbaijan's international legal obligations and a violation of Mr Fatullayev's rights.

At the end of our recent mission to Moscow, our delegation squeezed in one final official meeting. Vyacheslav M. Lebedev, the chief justice of Russia's Supreme Court, had sent word only the night before that he would receive us. The meeting had been brokered by Aleksei Venediktov, the legendary founder of the radio station Ekho Moskvy, who told us that Lebedev had a keen interest in freedom of expression issues.