This year, 44 journalists have already been murdered, says the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), which launched a review of press freedom around the world during World Newspaper Week, held from 10 to 15 October in Vienna, Austria. During the events, which included its Congress and World Editors Forum, WAN-IFRA presented the Golden PEN of Freedom to Dawit Isaak, jailed in Eritrea since 2001. The Golden Pen of Press Freedom 2011 was accepted by Esayas Isaak on behalf of his brother, who has not been heard from since 2005. The Golden Pen of Press Freedom 2011 was accepted by Esayas Isaak on behalf of his brother.

In September 2001, President Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea ordered the detention of 21 senior government members and journalists who criticised him and his government. Since then, he has closed all independent media outlets and turned Eritrea into a country where arbitrary arrest, torture, disappearance, and death are rife and where it is almost impossible to leave. This Human Rights Watch paper, 'Eritrea: 10 Long Years, A Briefing on Eritrea’s Missing Political Prisoners', outlines what is known about the political prisoners, none of whom has been seen by outsiders since being detained.

A Sweden-based journalist was publicly threatened in connection with her reporting on the case of Dawit Isaac, a Swedish-Eritrean journalist who has been imprisoned in Eritrea for a decade without charge, according to news reports and CPJ interviews. A day earlier in New York, bodyguards for the Eritrean leader Isaias Afewerki pushed and threatened two Swedish journalists seeking to speak to the president about the Isaac case, the journalists said.

An Eritrean Ministry of Education statement issued in connection with International Literacy Day has found that the nation's illiteracy rate has been reduced by 45% and attributes progress to the preparation of textbooks as well as an adult education programme.

The expansion of schools in the rural areas has shown significant growth, according to the Ministry of Education. Reports indicated that the number of schools ranging from elementary to secondary level rose from about 750 in 1996/7 to 1,681 in 2010/2011, of which 1,176 are in the rural areas.

The thrust of this brief report by the International Commission on Eritrean Refugees is to bring to the attention of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Council (UNOHCHR) the problem of Eritrean refugees all over the world, in particular those found in North Africa. 'Professor Tricia R. Redeker reports that, in 2008 refugees seeking asylum from Eritrea surpassed that of Iraq and the number is increasing. It is reported that an estimated 2,000 Eritreans per month leave clandestinely to Ethiopia and Sudan. There are also those who crossed the Red Sea to request asylum in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.'

More and more Eritrean refugees, mostly educated young men, continue to arrive in Ethiopia, with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, expressing concern over the rising numbers. 'Most say they left their country [to avoid] a prolonged military conscription, but they also say they want to join their families on the road,' Moses Okello, UNHCR’s representative in Ethiopia, told IRIN. Ethiopia hosts at least 61,000 Eritrean refugees.

Eritrea was behind a plot to attack an African Union summit in Ethiopia in January and is bankrolling al Qaeda-linked Somali rebels through its embassy in Kenya, according to a UN report. A UN Monitoring Group report on Somalia and Eritrea said the Red Sea state's intelligence personnel were active in Uganda, South Sudan, Kenya and Somalia, and that the country's actions posed a threat to security and peace in the region.

The first official Eritrean refugees arrived in Sudan in 1968; today, an estimated 1,600 cross the border every month to seek refuge in Shagarab, a large camp in the east of Sudan. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that northern Sudan has more than 100,000 Eritrean refugees but in 43 years, the profile of the refugees has changed. 'The new arrivals are generally young and well educated; they come from the highlands and have no cultural or ethnic ties with local populations,' said Mohamed Ahmed Elaghbash, Sudan's Commissioner for Refugees.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has joined its African group, the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) to mark World Press Freedom Day by sending an open letter to President Issayas Afewerki of Eritrea, urging him to release all journalists detained by his government. The IFJ and FAJ say the situation of human rights and freedom of expression has been steadily deteriorating in Eritrea where it is estimated that some 30 journalists have been detained, without charges, since the Eritrean government imposed a ban on independent media in September 2001.

As scores of Eritreans drown trying to cross the Mediterranean in the hope of a better life in Europe, a new campaign is highlighting Italy’s complicity in the deaths of migrants, both through its support for dictator Iseyas Afewerki and through its agreements with Gaddafi to prevent the free movement of refugees across the sea.

An exiled Eritrean opposition force has called for Egypt and Libya-type mass protests to end the rule of the east African nation’s government, which is led by president Isaias Afeworki. The Eritrean leader has been in power since 1991, following 30 years of armed struggle that led to the country’s independence.

The Foreign Minister of Djibouti, in talks with the US Embassy, called President Issaias Afwerki of neighbouring Eritrea 'a lunatic'. He also revealed Eritrea opposes any real Somali peace talks. According to US Embassy wires leaked by Wikileaks, Djibouti's Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf in April 2008 widely distrusted the government of neighbouring Eritrea.

The jailed Eritrean-born journalist, Dawit Isaak, has won the Golden Pen of Freedom Award for 2011. Isaak, who has dual Eritrean-Swedish citizenship, was one of the founders of Eritrea's first independent newspapers, Setit. He was detained without charge in 2001 in Eritrea after his paper published letters demanding democratic reforms.

This latest report from the International Crisis Group, analyses the fragile political and economic situation following the devastating war with Ethiopia (1998-2000). Just a decade ago, Eritrea might reasonably have been described as challenged but stable. Today it is under severe stress, if not yet in full-blown crisis. While not likely to undergo dramatic upheaval in the near future, it is weakening steadily. Its economy is in free fall, poverty is rife, and the authoritarian political system is haemorrhaging its legitimacy.

The Eritrean authorities continue to gag all forms of free expression and recently arrested another journalist as he was trying to flee the country, Reporters Without Borders said, on the eve of the ninth anniversary of the start of a brutal political purge in Asmara on 18 September 2001. The organisation wrote to the British authorities yesterday urging them to prosecute one of the purge’s organisers, who now lives in Britain.

Kibrom Sebhatu, 45, is among hundreds of Eritreans expected to benefit from a recent Ethiopian government ruling allowing Eritrean refugees to live outside the camps. “I am happy that UNHCR [the UN Refugee Agency] and the government of Ethiopia agreed to let us live outside the camps. I hope this will open a new era in Ethiopia-Eritrea relations,” Sebhatu said. He joined the Shimelba Refugee camp, along the border with Eritrea, in 2006, after serving in the Eritrean army.

In 2000 President Isayas suffered his worst military defeat and humiliation but he turned the event to his personal political advantage. This is central to the continued feud between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Isolation from the rest of the world, particularly the West and hostility towards Ethiopia are fundamental pillars that prop up the current regime- the reason that this system of government came into being and what sustains it every day.

Long before he learned to dunk on warped wooden backboards, Awet Eyob nursed a dream: to play basketball in America. He is 6-foot-8, built like an oak tree, and seems to have mastered a behind-the-back dribble and crisp passes from the corner of his eye. But one big problem stood between him and his dream: his homeland, Eritrea, an isolated, secretive nation in the Horn of Africa that is refusing to let its young people leave.

Last month, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a division of the State Department, recommended that the US deter foreign mining in Eritrea following allegations of religious oppression taking place in the small African nation. "The U.S. government should...prohibit any foreign company's raising capital or listing its securities in the United States while engaged in developing Eritrea's mineral resources," the report read.