Yesterday, while I was surfing, I stumbled upon an interesting site. So interesting in fact that I disabled the pop up blocker of Firefox, hoping for some further information. Up came a green window with shrieking red letters. It offered me assistance in obtaining a green card so that I could come to and work in the US. And something about "making my dreams come true".

The people so generously offering me a green card, without knowing me personally must know that I live in Belgium, if only because they target certain countries by IP adress. My dreams are many, but none involve emigrating to the United States. I mean, are you mad? Or do you think that I am mad? Seriously? They must be joking.

The measure of freedom the press enjoys has always been a reliable barometer for the democratic health of a country. That is what makes the yearly worldwide index of the freedom of the press that Reporters Without Borders publishes since 2002 so interesting.

The index tries to measure the state of press freedom in the world by determining the degree of freedom journalists and news organizations enjoy in each country, and the efforts made by the state to respect and ensure respect for this freedom. This was done by asking journalists, researchers and legal experts 50 questions about the whole range of press freedom violations, such as murders or arrests of journalists, censorship, pressure, state monopolies in various fields, punishment of press law offenses and regulation of the media. In 2002 the list included 139 countries. By 2006 it had grown to 168.