Online violence against women human rights defenders, activists and journalists has reached a tipping point, often fueling offline attacks, according to a major new international report.

Before Chris Hedges could even deliver his speech on the silencing and betrayal of Palestinian journalists, the National Press Club of Australia cancelled the Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent's invitation. Last week he delivered the speech anyway, at an event in Sydney.

Attacks on journalists – whether by military forces in conflict zones or by law enforcement during civil unrest – pose a grave threat to freedom of speech and the health of democracy.

Last week's violent attacks on journalists in Los Angeles shocked the world, but this is part of an ongoing trend in which politicians and their militarised minions in all sorts of countries seek to kill or otherwise silence those who report on their repressive behaviour.

Regional and rural papers providing public interest journalism will get financial assistance in what the Minns Labor government says is its ‘ongoing work to deliver solutions which will support regional NSW communities to thrive.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), comprising members from 46 national parliaments across Europe, has passed a resolution recognising Julian Assange as a political prisoner.

Last week Julian Assange spoke publicly for the first time since his release from solitary confinement at Belmarsh Prison, saying 'I am free today after years of incarceration because I plead guilty to journalism.'

This week the Australian journalist Julian Assange will find out whether he will be extradited from the United Kingdom to the USA, where he faces 175 years in solitary confinement for his role in revealing the truth about war crimes and the inner workings of empire, or conducting 'espionage', as America calls it.

John Shipton, father of detained Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, has returned briefly to his beloved home-away-from-home on the Northern Rivers to reunite with supporters.

As democracy advocates and journalists around the world did their best to acknowledge World Press Freedom Day on May 3, in regional Australia, The Northern Star was dimming.