Cuban named 'journalist of year'

Media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has awarded its top annual prize to Cuban journalist, Ricardo Gonzalez Alfonso.Mr Gonzalez, who founded the island's first independent magazine, is serving a 20 year jail term in Havana.Awards were also given to dissident North Korean broadcasters Radio Free NK and to two jailed Burmese bloggers.RSF said the annual awards are intended to raise awareness of the right to be kept informed and to inform others.The Paris-based group said it was giving Mr Gonzalez the Journalist of the Year award for his efforts in "helping an independent press to survive in Cuba".The journalist was arrested in 2003 with dozens of other journalists, in a crackdown known as "Black Spring".He was accused of being "in the pay of the United States" and "undermining Cuba's independence and territorial integrity," and was sent to jail, said RSF.