, May 4 -- Fiji has recorded a dramatic jump in its media freedom rating to be in the top 25 nations globally while Samoan government press restrictions have seen its rating plummet in the latest World Media Freedom Index.

Advocacy group Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) said globally it was the first time since the index was first compiled in 2001 that more than half of the world's countries fell into the "difficult" or "very serious" press freedom categories.

The index released annually for World Press Freedom Day covers 180 countries but reports on only four of two dozen Pacific island nations and territories, including Tonga and the lowest ranked in the region Papua New Guinea.

Three years after Fiji repealed its draconian media laws...