On Monday president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner fired back at critical media sources who she accused of defamation, misinforming the public and inventing news. The president was speaking in the Patagonia town of El Calafate, Santa Cruz province, at the inauguration of a major infrastructure project surrounding Glacier National Park. The president took the opportunity to respond to recent accusations of preferential treatment during the bidding process for the construction contract of a massive hydroelectric dam.

This week Colombia celebrated the ‘Day of the Journalist’. But journalists in the country had little to celebrate. Two journalists, Hollman Morris and Claudia Julieta Duque reported on Tuesday that they have been subjected to threats, harassment and their families have been monitored by the Department of Administrative Security. In the same week Colombian weekly newspaper Cambio, which reports on cases of corruption and scandal in the country, announced that it was becoming a monthly general interest magazine.

On 10th October, a vote of 44-22 in the Senate sealed the fate of president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s controversial new media law. It took 16 hours of debate for the law to be passed without any concessions to a vociferous opposition and be celebrated by thousands of supporters outside Congress.

Yesterday, the interim government of Honduras imposed to Brazil a ten days ultimatum to define the status of Manuel Zelaya. The ousted president has now been under Brazilian protection for more than a week. An interim government press release has recently communicated that additional means will have to be taken. A decree, published this morning by the authority, restricted for 45 days the freedom of expression and forbade unauthorised public meetings.