31 July 2007

News on the march

The US State Department tells us that press freedom is under attack in the Americas and that pariah states Cuba and Venezuela are leading the way and they cite Reporters sans frontières as their authority.

Let's do some research then shall we? RSF's most recent press freedom index does indeed list Cuba almost on the bottom at 165 and Venezuela fares little better at 115. Fair enough. Curiously however the State Department statement makes no mention of either the US's good friends Colombia and Mexico both of whom rank below Venezuela at 131 and 132 respectively. There is also no mention of the fact that the US doesn't exactly figure well in the rankings coming in at joint 53 along with Botswana, Croatia and Tonga and behind Mozambique, Macedonia and the Dominican Republic.

No comments: