General News of Monday, 24 November 2008

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Ghana second in press freedom index

Ghana has been ranked second best in Africa and 29th position worldwide on the World Press Freedom Index.

Namibia topped at the 25th position worldwide and South Africa at 43rd was third in Africa.

Cameron has performed poorly again on the Index ranking 111 out of 169 countries classified.

Cameroon falls behind several African countries such as Togo, Mali, Benin, Kenya, Niger, Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda, Botswana, Tanzania, Madagascar, Zambia, and Senegal among others.

Eritrea replaced North Korea in the last place. Of the 20 countries at the bottom of the index, seven are Asian (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Laos, Vietnam, China, Burma, and North Korea), five are African (Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Somalia and Eritrea), four are in the Middle East (Syria, Iraq. Palestinian Territories and Iran) three are former Soviet republics) Belarus, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) and one is in the Americas (Cuba).
G8 Countries Improve Slightly
After falling steadily in the index for the past three years, the G8 members have improve by a few places. France (31st) for example, has climbed six places.
All European country members made it into the top except Bulgaria (51st) and Poland (56th). Some non-European countries made their first appearance in the top 50. They are Mauritania, which has climbed 88 places since 2004, Uruguay (37th0 and Nicaragua (47th). Other countries that traditionally held a good position have also fallen noticeably. This is the case of Benin (53rd) and Mali (52nd).