KATHMANDU, Mar 9 (IPS) - The climate of fear that has been growing in this Himalayan country since the murder of two media entrepreneurs and other attacks on journalists may well push them to turn to more self-censorship.

NEW DELHI, Mar 4 (IPS) - Young Indian women are taking to journalism in droves, but Ammu Joseph, author of several authoritative books on women in media, believes that these numbers do not necessarily translate into gender awareness.

BANGALORE, India, Mar 3 (IPS) - Community radio is moving from the margins to the mainstream in many countries in Asia, carving out spaces from where they respond to public needs ranging from disaster management to gender awareness, cultural identity and belonging.

MONTEVIDEO, Feb 26 (IPS) - Brazil is lobbying hard to get the rest of Latin America to adopt the Brazilian version of the Japanese digital television standard, as Argentina, Chile, Peru and Venezuela have already done.

NEW DELHI, Feb 26 (IPS) - Young Indian women are increasingly taking to careers in journalism, but this trend is restricted to the metropolises and to non-decision making positions in media organisations, leading women journalists say.

UDON THANI, Thailand, Feb 24 (IPS) - In an age when television continues to dominate national media, including Thailand’s, and gives birth to new celebrities, Kwanchai Praipana is a bit of an anomaly. His rise as a local star in this north-eastern city has been through community radio, the poor cousin of the local media.

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 23 (Asia Media Forum) - The confiscation and banning of books by Malaysian authorities is sending alarm bells ringing among activists, who want the repeal of laws that the government is using to suppress freedom of expression.

NEW YORK, Feb 22 (IPS) - If you are a U.S. resident who owns a cell phone, you should care about the outcome of a court case that "could well decide whether the government can use your cell phone to track you - even if it hasn't shown probable cause to believe it will turn up evidence of a crime."

MANILA, Feb 19 (Asia Media Forum/IPS) - Festive days are here again in the Philippine political scene as 10 presidential candidates – ranging from the son of a former president to an environmentalist, a Christian minister and a former actor – battle it out for the voters’ ‘yes’ come May 10.

JAKARTA, Feb 17 (IPS) - It is every parent’s worst nightmare in the Internet age – and for Syafei Asyhari, this happened when he found that his 16-year-old daughter, Latifa, fell into the clutches of traffickers she met online as friends.

NEW YORK, Feb 15 (IPS) - Despite President Barack Obama's pledge in his State of the Union address last month to "require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress," the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says the Obama administration has been "fighting hard to stop the release of the names of these representatives."

RAMALLAH, Feb 15 (IPS) - Female journalists worldwide complain about discrimination on the grounds of gender. However, their colleagues in Gaza also face death threats, the dangers of working in a war zone and the struggle for daily necessities as the Israeli siege on Gaza drags on.

CAIRO, Feb 14 (IPS) - Not long ago an editorial like the one that appeared in the independent Al- Dustour newspaper this week might never have made it into print.

MEXICO CITY, Feb 13 (IPS) - Journalists and human rights activists in Mexico are frantically seeking a mechanism to protect them from attacks related to their work, but the state has been slow to respond. The Colombian model might provide a solution.

BOGOTÁ, Feb 11 (IPS) - What would have happened in Colombia if the financing of former president Ernesto Samper's (1994-1998) election campaign by the Cali cartel had not been uncovered?

SANTIAGO, Feb 9 (IPS) - Criminal law should not be used against freedom of expression, nor to silence community radio stations in Chile, say activists and journalists in response to closures of community radio outlets in this South American country.

SAN DIEGO, California, Feb 5 (IPS) - Over the past two decades, Ricardo Dominguez has made a career for himself tweaking the sensibilities of government officials and developing software tools meant to disrupt the status quo.

SALVADOR DA BAHIA, Brazil, Jan 30 (IPS/TerraViva) - "Society and Governments: debates and alternatives for a post-crisis world" is the name of a Thematic World Social Forum meeting being held in the capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia.

NEW YORK, Jan 29 (IPS) - Television viewers in the United States seeking international news are starting to switch over to foreign channels to learn what is happening in the outside world, media watchers here say.

WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (IPS) - The stern warning given to China by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemning internet censorship and responding to allegations that Chinese hackers had accessed Google email addresses has received a pointed response from the Chinese government, raising questions over what the next move will be for Google, the United States, and U.S. firms that do business in China.