Today the Associated Press opened the first fully-operated news bureau in North Korea from a Western news organisation, a press release announced. The international news wire's office in Pyongyang will be the first to offer, with a full-time staff, a video and text coverage from the country. The plan to open the bureau was announced last June.

According to the Guardian, the opening arrives after months of discussions with the Korea Central News Agency, inside which the new office will be based, and it was originally planned to open last December but it has been postponed after the death of leader Kim Jong-il.

The agency already had a video office in North Korea six years ago through its London-based Associated Press Television News (APTN) and it has been the only independent foreign media news agency operating in North Korea till now, as reported on the APTN website.

Repression of uprisings makes the region the world's most dangerous place for journalists.

Sixty-four journalists and other media workers were killed world-wide because of their professional activities in 2011, with nearly half of them killed in Pakistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) said Thursday.

Ten journalists were killed in Pakistan for the second consecutive year, making it again the most deadly country for journalists.

The Arab region was the world's most dangerous region for media professionals, with twenty-two journalists killed. The brutal repression that followed widespread popular uprisings in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen cost the lives of sixteen journalists. Journalism in Iraq remains a dangerous profession, as six journalists lost their lives in the country last year.

Mexico remains the most dangerous country for journalists in the Western hemisphere, with six journalists in 2011, as coverage of organised crime and corruption have put journalists in the line of fire.

The 2011 death toll, released after an investigation into all potential media murders, compares with 66 killed in 2010, 99 killed in 2009, 70 killed in 2008, 95 killed in 2007 and 110 killed in 2006. The full lists can be found here.

What's the difference between a journalist and a blogger?

Once upon a time, this might have just been a subject to get people riled up on Twitter. Yet now it has also become a more serious legal question in the wake of the conviction of blogger Crystal Cox for defamation.

Cox, who blogs about law, industry, finance and corruption was convicted for defaming the investment firm Obsidian Finance Group in this post. Cox accuses the firm's co-founder Kevin Padrick or being a "a Thug, Thief and a Liar" and writes that he is guilty of bankruptcy fraud.

The case took place in Portland, Oregon, where the U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez ruled against Cox and awarded $2.5 million to Obsidian Finance Group.

The controversial element was not so much that Cox lost her case as the judge's reasoning behind his decision. Cox argued that the basis for her post was an anonymous whistleblower, and maintained that she was unable to prove the factual basis of her writing without revealing her source.

Oregon state has a media shield law, protecting journalists from being forced by the judiciary to divulge their sources. Yet, controversially, the judge ruled:

With 120 participants from across the Arab world and beyond, the three-day 'Forum for Media Freedom Defenders in the Arab World' kicked-off on Monday in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

The Forum was organised by the Amman-based Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ), an organisation concerned with protecting Jordanian and Arab journalists and their liberties and rights, in addition to developing the Arab media sector. The event has been funded by The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Amman.

During the first two days, the Forum has conducted open discussion sessions on the role played by the media during the uprisings in the Arab world. The goal is to identify the challenges facing the Arab media and discuss how to create a better future for freedom of expression in the region. The last day of the Forum will be a closed workshop session where participants will form working groups to discuss how to "develop strategies and plans to assist in institutionalising mechanisms of defending media freedom in the Arab world".