European Federation of Journalists

N1 said the latest attacks happened last Thursday when a paid DDoS strike from China hit the Serbian website twice that day.

The attacks started on Tuesday and continued on Wednesday afternoon. The second attack was five times stronger, with up to 300,000 access requests hitting the portal server a second.

Albania Prime Minister Edi Rama speaking in parliament on 30 January. Photo: Malton Dibra/LSA

The head of the Socialist parliamentary group, Taulant Balla, said the vote would be postponed while the Council of Venice, the advisory body to the Council of Europe, carried out an express evaluation.

Albanian Parliamentary Commission of Laws, on November 22, 2019. Photo: Gjergj Erebara/BIRN

On Thursday, Mark Marku, Dean of the Department of Journalism and Communications in the University of Tirana, told MPs debating the laws in the parliament's Commission on Media and Education that "nobody in his right mind could possibly support such laws".

The Romanian Journalists Union launches on Friday, on its 18th anniversary, the MediaSind TV online platform, the union said in a release. "MediaSind TV, the new project to be launched today, will be an online communication platform for everyone in the big media family. MediaSind TV will be the instrument through which the voice of union members will be heard.

Media digitalisation and the independence of media organisations were among the subjects approached at the conference on Modernizing Public Service Media through Innovation and Dialogue, organized March 4 - 5 in Bucharest with the support of the European Commission, at the initiative of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), in cooperation with the Culture and Media Federation FAIR-Media

The killing and kidnapping of journalists in Kosovo in the period from 1998 to 2000, the period that encompasses the mandate of the Specialist Chambers for KLA crimes must be the topic of the investigation of the Specialist Prosecutor's Office and prosecuted at the Specialist Chambers.

The European Federation of Journalists, European Centre for Press & Media Freedom, PEN International and Reporters Without Borders criticised on Wednesday new restrictive laws on online media in Albania.

The laws were proposed by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama as part of his drive against "defamation".

This is stated in a letter the organization, representing more than 8,000 members, has sent to the Serbian State Prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac.

Macedonia's government and the opposition have used the turbulence surrounding the forthcoming 'name' referendum to reintroduce state-funded advertising, which was halted a few years ago, and introduce controls over online media - moves that watchdogs and journalists say will curb media freedom and distort the media market again.

These crimes happened between 1998 and 200, and no one has been brought to justice, the Council of Europe (CoE) has stated on its website.