Oscar Di Vincensi, an Argentine journalist for the newspaper PerteneSer and radio station 94.1 Punto Cero, was admitted to a provincial hospital with respiratory problems on Wednesday after inhaling the agrochemical pesticide glyphosate in the countryside surrounding the provincial city of Alberti.

Di Vincensi was confronting the president of the Rural Producers of Alberti and owner of Fumigaciones Zunino, Juan Manuel Zunino.

“Why are you fumigating, Zunino? It’s prohibited to fumigate here”, Di Vincensi can be heard asking in a video he recorded of the incident.

On 15 December the Supreme Court of the Province of Buenos Aires reversed a ruling by the Criminal Appeals Court, making it illegal to fumigate within 1,000 metres of residential areas. The incident in Alberti, located southwest of the capital, took place within 50 metres of the town itself.

After telling Di Vincensi that he was on private property, Zunino proceeded to fumigate the area, spraying the journalist in the process.

Glyphosate, a weed killer discovered by Monsanto scientist John E. Franz in 1970, is more commonly known in English as Roundup. Though generally considered low in toxicity and non-carcinogenic in humans, ingesting large quantities can potentially be fatal.

Fumigaciones Zunino is one of four companies permitted to fumigate in the area surrounding Alberti. Maria Zunino, the company owner’s sister, is Environmental Chief of the city.

Honduran journalist, José Encarnación Chinchilla López, is seeking political asylum in the United States, after his son was shot by two gunmen at his house on 3rd August.

The two gunmen on motorcycles reportedly opened fired on his home with 9-millimeter pistols seriously injuring his son, 24-year-old Jose Alberto Chinchilla Bardales. Chinchilla is a reporter for Radio Cadena Voces in the city of El Progreso, Yoro and claims this is the third attempt on his life.

He asked the US embassy in Tegucigalpa for permission to travel to the US with his wife and four children, Jose is expected to make a full recovery.

A journalist working at the station told the Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ) that Chinchilla suspected an attack after he wrote a story about local gang activity. He also said that before Friday’s attack he had received threats after writing a piece about a local land dispute.

The news has gained international attention from numerous journalism organizations including the CPJ and The International Press Institute (IPI).

“In the last few years Honduras has become one of the most dangerous countries on earth for journalists. Regardless of the challenges, the Honduran authorities have an obligation to bring killers to justice and to roll back the tide of impunity. Otherwise, this deadly cycle of violence will continue,” said IPI Deputy Director Anthony Mills in statement regarding the attack.

According to IPI, three journalists have already died in 2012 with 18 others having been killed since June 2009.

Journalists at the Radio Cadena Voces have been targeted in the past. According to CPJ research, Carlos Salgado was murdered after reporting on government corruption. In that same year the radio’s director had to flee the country after his name appeared on a hit list., In 2009, journalist Rafael Mungía Ortiz was killed in what was deemed “unclear circumstances.”

The increase in attacks against journalists started after former president Manuel Zelaya was removed from office in what the Organisation of American States has called a coup d’état.

A Mexican journalist was found dead today two blocks from the Veracruz government palace, after being kidnapped from outside of his office last night.

Reports state that Víctor Manuel Báez Chino was forced into a grey van by three armed gunmen just before midnight yesterday. Mexico’s El Universal says a search begun last night, that ended when Báez’s body was found around 5am this morning.

Veracruz social communication co-ordinator Gina Domínguez Colío expressed condolences on behalf of the governor and announced full support for the family of Báez, who was the director of the Police Reports section of the daily Milenio Xalapa. She also announced that the government had begun a full inquiry.

“Those who attacked and killed Victor Báez committed a crime that hurt his family and offends the journalists’ union, and also seek to intimidate a society and make a government retract its determination to combat criminal groups that seek to undermine our right to live in peace,” the official stressed, according to El Universal.

Báez’s murder is part of a string of journalist deaths and disappearances in Mexico.

On 28 April, also in Xalapa, weekly newspaper reporter Regina Martínez was found dead in her home; the body had bruises and showed signs of strangulation. On May 3, the remains of three photographers were found on in a canal in Boca del Río, a municipality also in the state of Veracruz.

On May 17, Marco Antonio Ávila García was kidnapped by three masked gang members at a car wash in Ciudad Obregon in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. The tortured body of the journalist was later found by side of a road.

A Mexican journalist and her two-year-old son disappeared 8th June under “mysterious circumstances” in the northern city of Saltillo, located in state of Coahuila about 850km north of Mexico City. Cardoso reportedly telephoned friends at 2am to report that she had returned home safely, but she did not show up to work the following day. When relatives went to her house Friday, they discovered that the journalist and her child were not there. Everything was in disarray, and her camera was smashed on the floor.

Over a month after the FARC’s kidnapping of Romeo Langlois, a war journalist for France 24, the guerrillas have released him safely and without harm.

Negotiations with FARC for Langlois’s release involved government officials and the Red Cross. FARC representatives had issued a statement over the weekend announcing that the journalist, who has covered the civil conflict in Colombia for 10 years, would be turned over and arrive in the city of Florencia Wednesday night.

“I always knew that I was going to get out of this pretty quickly,” Langlois told a group of reporters, “but I did not think it would last as long as it did. I have been very well treated. I have received apologies from the guerrillas for having declared me a prisoner of war, for having withheld me for so long.”

Langlois was captured over a month ago while reporting alongside an operation of the Colombian military.

His release by FARC was conditioned on a ceasefire in the Caqueta area lasting until Thursday, as negotiated by Colombian Red Cross representative Jordi Raich, Deputy Defence Minister Jorge Bedoya, and French Ambassador Juan-Pierre Vandoorne.

Periodically throughout Langlois’s time as a hostage, the FARC has released statements criticising coverage of the civil conflict in Colombia as imbalanced, partly because of journalists embedded with the Colombian military.

Langlois stated in a video released this weekend that he has covered both sides of the conflict and sought the opinions of everyone. Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, however, known as a hardliner against the FARC, criticised Langlois on Twitter.

“Langlois: one thing is journalistic curiosity and another is identifying with terrorism,” Uribe’s post said.

France 24 CEO Alain de Pouzilhac rejoiced at Langlois’s release.

“The release of Romeo is a great relief…I also note the FARC has kept its word. We share the happiness of his family, friends, and relatives.”

The FARC’s insurgency, dating to the 1960s, is the longest standing confrontation of its kind in Latin America.

Weakened in recent years, the guerrilla forces have continued to use kidnappings and attacks on Colombian security forces to bolster their demand for dialogue. They have instead sharpened the government’s focus on FARC in combatting counter-terrorism and drug trafficking.

In February, FARC said it would end its practice of kidnapping civilians for money, though the non-profit Free Country Foundation reports that hundreds of civilians still remain FARC prisoners throughout Colombia.

Despite releasing 10 government hostages in the spring, FARC has not renounced capturing hostages for political purposes.

Advocates of freedom in the press, meanwhile, have criticised FARC for its capture of the journalist Langlois, calling it a setback for press freedom in Colombia.

“We urge FARC to end the unacceptable practice of taking journalists hostage, thus depriving Colombian citizens of vital, independent information about the civil conflict,” said a statement from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Police in Honduras announced they have caught a second person in connection with the kidnapping and murder of the HRN journalist Alfredo Villatoro Rivera.

Villatoro’s body was found on Tuesday in Residencial Las Uvas, a quiet neighbourhood of Honduran capital city, Tegucigalpa. He was abducted on Wednesday the 9^th May when he was intercepted between travelling from his home to his work.

Juan Ramón Fonseca, 25, who was captured today who is thought to have carried out negotiations for ransom with Villatoro’s family. Miguel Ángel Álvarez, 34, who was arrested on Wednesday, is another suspect in the case. Both men are pleading not guilty to the crime, stating they had no role in the kidnaping.

Police are transferring the two suspects under heavy guard to a maximum-security prison located in Tamara, 15 miles north of the capital. It is hoped that they will provide information about the kidnapping and killing of the journalist.

Two days ago, President Lobo Sosa offered the equivalent of US$157,400 for anyone who had any information on those responsible for the murders. Lobo and Bonilla Pompey, the security secretary, have assured that the perpetrators will be punished.

“The government is absolutely determined to regain security for Hondurans and defend their lives, we are doing everything possible to solve this crime and clarify the details,” said Lobo in a public statement.

The Honduran government and President Lobo have previously been criticised as not giving enough protection for journalists, or prosecuting perpetrators of violence towards journalists.

On Tuesday, the Colombian government rejected terms set out by the left-wing rebel group FARC for the release of the French journalist Romeo Langlois.

The group admitted to having captured the journalist on Monday. They then stated that the “the only thing you can do to hope for a full release of the journalist is conducting a real national and international debate about freedom of information.”

FARC have accused the Colombian government of manipulating information to sway public opinion of the rebel group.

Juan Carlos Pinzón, Minister of Defence has, however, rejected the proposal, naming it “absurd.”

“No way will we engage in any kind of debate,” he stated, while also criticising the group’s criminal activity, stating that their involvement in kidnappings, terrorism and drug trafficking make them unfit to impose such conditions.

The Colombian government has been in communication with the French embassy in Colombia over the kidnapping. Pinzón also stated: “They must free him as soon as possible.”

Langlois, 35, was kidnapped on 28^th April during a clash between the Colombian army and the rebel group. He was in Colombia reporting for French television channel France 24.

 Journalist, María Luz Villalobos Paz, 39, was shot dead in the city of Tegucigalpa. There are no suspects as of yet.

According to local media, the informer and her companion were killed on their way to the Honduran Radio Cadena de Noticias (CHN).

Preliminary information from the national police force indicates that two people with guns stopped the car Paz was travelling in and fired repeatedly.

The Journalists’ Association of Honduras (CPH) have condemned the killing. The murder came just a day after the local newspaper La Tribuna, owned by former Honduran President Carlos Flores, was attacked with gun shots.

Various media associations have spoken out against the shooting, fearing further attacks on press.

The murder follows the death of 17 journalists since President Porfirio Lobo took office in 2010. The president has declared his mourning of the death of the journalist.

Courtesy of Pulsar Agency

The Ecuadorian justice suspended the sentence against journalist Emilio Palacio, who along with three owners of El Universo newspaper, was sentenced to three years in prison and compensation of 40 million dollars to president Rafael Correa, who sued for libel.

An appeal was filed by the defense and the national court of justice is revising the case.

The case originated from an article written by Palacio, in which was said that Correa ordered “fire at will” at a hospital full of civilians during his rescue from a police rebellion, which resulted from an attempted coup, on September 30th 2010.

The bodies of two Mexican correspondents were found today in a park in Mexico City.

The naked corpses of Ana María Marcela Yarce Viveros and Rocío González Trápaga were found hidden in a park in Iztapalapa, a popular neighbourhood in the capital’s south east.

Yarce Viveros, founder of and reporter for the Mexican weekly Contralínea, was last seen outside the paper’s PR offices. González Trápaga was working as a Television reporter and an independent journalist for the same publication.

The paper’s editorial team called authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Speaking to Radio Fórmula de México this morning, Contralínea’s director Miguel Badillo described the crime as a “terrible act”, perpetrated with “horrific brutality”.

Mexico City’s district attorney Miguel Ángel Mancera reported the deaths had been caused by asphyxiation.

The Federal District’s Comission for Human Rights demanded an immediate and exhaustive investigation to bring those behind the murder to justice

The murders come just a week after the discovery of the body of Humberto Millán in Culiacán, Sinaloa, in the north of the country.

In 2009, the news agency Púlsar reported that Badillo had been detained. A month later, their offices were raided.

The Organisation of American State (OEA) and the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights (CIDH) described Mexico as the most dangerous region to practice journalism in the whole of Latin America.

According to figures released by the Mexico’s National Commission for Human Rights, since 2000, 64 journalists have been murdered, and 11 are missing.

Story Courtesy of Agencia Pulsar

Over a hundred journalists, press workers, syndicates and delegates joined today in front of Clarín’s office at 2pm in Buenos Aires to mark Argentine Journalists’ day. More than a reunion, it was a way for journalists and press workers to raise ongoing issues in the national media.

The corner of Finochietto and Tacuarí streets was once again flooded by protesters. Known as “Ana Ale’s corner”, it is named in reference to Clarín’s internal commission general secretary who died in 2002. After her death, dozens of delegates were made redundant.

Ten years on, press workers are still denouncing Clarín’s “continuing unfair employment policies and hindering of free trade-union activity”. Their message today was clear: “Not one press company without delegates and internal commission” and “not one press worker working in precarious conditions”.

Protesters included members of press syndicates and delegates from dozens of different media groups.

Journalist day was established in remembrance of Mariano Moreno’s first publication La Gaceta on 7^th June 1810. Today, it is “a day in which it mostly necessary to underline the importance of journalism as a profession and of journalistic work” according radio journalist Nelson Castro, but it also seems to be a loud manifestation about the state of the media in Argentina.

As La Nación’s columnist Joaquín Morales Solá said “this is one of the most delicate Journalists’ days and potentially the most complicated since restoration of democracy in 1983. Today there is nothing to celebrate, only assume that it is a time in which there are a lot of risks.”

Nelson Marinelli, a delegate from BAE, argues this day helps to remember “the everyday struggle of journalists in this country, and I think everywhere in the world, in expressing their ideas in the mainstream media, is truly, truly, very important”.