For the first time ever, Reporters Without Borders is publishing a list of profiles of “100 information heroes” for World Press Freedom Day (3 May).Through their courageous work or activism, these “100 heroes” help to promote the freedom enshrined in article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the freedom to “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” They put their ideals in the service of...

Iran has built an infrastructure of terror in Central and South America in order, among other goals, to target Israelis and Jews there and have a base from which to attack the US, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday. Ya’alon, meeting with Guatemalan President Otto Fernando Perez Molina, himself a former director of military intelligence, warned that Iran, which operates the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah as a proxy, was using diplomatic cover to spread terror in the...

Former Bolivian Congressman Jose Brechner sent the photos from a South American Hezbollah website in 2007. Hezbollah is reportedly training terrorists at a base in northern Nicaragua. The Lebanese website Naharnet reported, via ROP: Hizbullah is using a training base established by Iran in northern Nicaragua near the border with Honduras, the Israeli radio reported on Thursday. “The area is cordoned off and there are around 30 members of Hizbullah being trained in the camp,”...

The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, better known by its acronym "ALBA," strongly condemned the current violence in Syria on Sunday. But the ALBA group wasn't condemning the slaughter of civilians by the Assad dictatorship, but violence that it said was being committed by "irregular groups supported by foreign powers." The ALBA group, which consists of Latin America's far-left led countries Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua and a handful of Caribbean...

Iran's president on Tuesday lauded his country's newly launched Spanish-language satellite TV channel, saying it would deal a blow to "dominance seekers" - remarks that were an apparent jab at the U.S. and the West. The launch is Tehran's latest effort to reach out to friendly governments in Latin America and follows Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's four-nation tour of the region earlier in January, which included stops in Cuba and visits to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador. It also comes...

Speaking in a ceremony where he was sworn in for a second consecutive term in office, Ortega attacked the U.S. "occupation" of Afghanistan and Iraq, condemned the killing of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and offered a brief valediction to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Ortega - flanked by his close ally, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez - defended Iran's stated intention to develop atomic energy for peaceful ends, an explanation Western powers say is a cover for a nuclear...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Nicaragua on Tuesday, the second stop of his five-day tour of Latin America. There, he will attend the inauguration of President Daniel Ortega, who cruised to a third term in November amid allegations of vote irregularities. Shortly after his arrival, Ahmadinejad praised the Nicaraguan president as a "revolutionary leader" and said he was grateful to return to the Central American nation. "Among all of you, we are at home,...

“During the tour that begins the second week of January, president Ahmadinejad will first visit Caracas to meet with President Hugo Chavez and later to Nicaragua for the taking office ceremony of President Daniel Ortega, who was recently re-elected for a second term”, said Mohamad Reza Forghani, foreign affairs director from the presidential office. In Cuba and Ecuador the Iranian president will holds talks with the leaders of both countries, adds the report. Iran in recent years...

Reporters Without Borders voices its support for Silvia González, the national daily El Nuevo Diario’s correspondent in the northern city of Jinotega, who gave a news conference on 5 August to denounce the repeated death threats to herself and her young children that she has received on her mobile phone. Backed by various groups including the Permanent Commission for Human Rights (CPDH) and the Nicaraguan Centre for Human Rights (CENIDH), González said she is no longer...

Despite almost global condemnation of the violence against demonstrators in Libya, some prominent Latin Americans are standing-by Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi, even as he declares that he'll keep fighting and will die as a 'martyr.' Nicaragua's leftist President Daniel Ortega says he has telephoned Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi on Monday to express his solidarity. Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro also weighed in on developments in the middle eastern nation on Tuesday. Castro said that unrest...