Paralympian Gold Medallist Karolina Pelendritou and footballer Coskun Ulusoy will kick-off a four-day seminar at the Cyprus Community Media Centre (CCMC) in Nicosia’s Buffer Zone. The event, which starts on Wednesday 25 January, is organised in partnership with the Council of Europe (CoE) and the Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE).

The aim of the programme is to promote the inclusion of the principles of non-discrimination and diversity as an ongoing angle of media coverage. Organised within the framework of the joint CoE / European Union MARS - Media Against Racism in Sport - programme, this encounter will focus on sport related issues.

The issue of racism in sport has made headlines across Europe in recent months following incidents involving high-profile football players in England’s Barclays Premier League. “The cases of Luis Suarez and John Terry have highlighted the importance of understanding the nature and prevalence of racism in sport”, said Michalis Simopoulos, local coordinator of the encounter. “By encouraging professional collaboration with media actors and the exchange of media practices, CCMC hopes to enhance a diversity of perspectives and topics dealt with by the media”.

The Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS)  of the Central European University in Budapest announces the release of the new study. Led by researcher Amy Brouillette it analyses the consistency of the Hungarian media regulations with European practices and norms. It addresses a key international policy debate regarding the conformity of Hungary’s new media legislation to European and EU media-regulation standards.

The study also contributes to the ongoing policy making process regarding Hungary’s media laws—particularly in light of the recent rulings by Hungary’s Constitutional Court which requires several provisions to be amended by 31 May 2012—as well as contributing to the debate around other areas of concern that have been raised by the European Commission, European lawmakers, and domestic and international stakeholders.

Dear CMFE members, friends and colleagues,
Ourplanet-TV, is one of Japan's best known alternative media, an all-citizens based independent public access center, with distribution on the internet, and on Tokyo area cable (in a weekly program window). This non-profit non-governmental media organization in Tokyo, is collecting donations for a 2-hour TV program highlighting the voices of Japanese children, who have been affected by the Fukushima nuclear accident.

These children are exposed to much higher-than-normal radioactivity everyday. Parents are struggling to protect their children from radiation. The case of the right to evacuate has been taken to court, but still more than a half year later nothing has changed. Children living close to the epicenter of the nuclear plant still cannot play in the school yards and outside their houses without being exposed to radiation.

On behalf of the thousands of community media around Europe, the Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE) and AMARC-Europe (the European regional section of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters) wrote, on 19 December 2011, a letter to Neelie Kroes, The European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda.

The first Conference and General Assembly of the Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE) was held in Nicosia, Cyprus, from 17 to 19 November 2011, and hosted by the Cyprus Community Media Centre (CCMC). It was the first major event organised directly by CMFE and one of the key community media events of this year in Europe, bringing together over 100 conference participants from 19 European countries as well as members and guests from the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and the United States. Five plenary sessions included 24 contributions, where parallel sessions and workshops delivered a further 43 contributions. Representatives from the media regulatory authorities from Albania and the Czech Republic participated to the conference, as well as key representatives from civil society and institutions in Cyprus and Europe.