On 21 May 2008, the Independent Media Commission (IMC), Sierra Leone's media regulatory body, cleared Unity Radio, a station operated by the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), of four allegations of misconduct. MFWA's correspondent reported that the decision was made after Unity Radio was forcibly shut down on 8 May on the orders of the Minister of Information and Communication, Alhaji Ibrahim Ben Kargbo.

A Cabinet committee tasked to advise the government on taming critical media is considering a constitutional amendment that deletes the provision on freedom of the press. The sub-committee headed by Public Service Minister, Henry Muganwa Kajura,was formed after three separate Cabinet papers on the management of the media failed to find consensus in Cabinet

A toll-free mobile service being launched in selected remote areas in Africa promises to save lives by connecting people with emergency medical cases to health personnel. Under the initiative launched in Nairobi on Wednesday, health workers will also be trained through mobile phone sessions on day to day skills like collecting and sharing basic household health information.

SciDev.Net proudly announces its second joint IDRC–SciDev.Net Science Journalism Award and seeks applications from journalists in all developing countries. The award consists of a six-month internship giving the recipient invaluable journalistic experience and demonstrates SciDev.Net’s commitment to build capacity in science communication across the developing world.

At their next Group of Eight summit in Toyakocho, Hokkaido, in July, leaders of the world's major countries should commit themselves to helping Africa provide low-cost high-speed Internet access. African universities could be the continent's gateways into the global knowledge economy for local diffusion of new technologies. But this potential remains unrealized because universities and research institutes in Africa remain digitally isolated from the rest of the world. This is partly because of government neglect and lack of strategic policies on Internet access.

The wireless school connectivity project is an initiative that has connected a secondary school in a poor township of Harare to the internet, using wireless technologies. The genesis of this project was a result of the wireless skills training workshop, which took place in Pretoria, South Africa in 2005 and was facilitated by APC. Muroro Dziruni of Connect Africa in Zimbabwe tells the story of how wireless technology can work in Africa, when everyone joins in and cooperates.

There are close to 3.5 billion mobile phones in circulation around the world. In many countries, especially in the developing world, mobile phones are the easiest and least expensive medium to communicate, and are far more pervasive than the Internet. Mobile phones are also bridging the digital divide in developing countries at a rate much faster than most other technologies to date.

Reporters Without Borders and its partner organisation in Democratic Republic of Congo, Journalist in Danger (JED), are relieved to learn that the two friends of journalist Serge Maheshe who were with him when he was murdered last year in Bukavu, in the eastern province Sud-Kivu, have been acquitted on appeal of instigating his murder.

While Africa still lags behind other continents in telecommunications, the growth in recent years in mobile phones and internet connectivity has been extraordinary. Six countries - South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and Kenya - have more than 10 million mobile phones each, with South Africa and Nigeria each topping 40 million mobile phones. Seven countries -- Seychelles, Gabon, South Africa, Tunisia, Botswana, Mauritius, and Libya, have more than 70 mobile phones for each 100 persons, ranging from 89 percent in the Seychelles to 73 percent in Libya.

As Zimbabwe braces for what many fear will be a bloody run-off election next month, ZANU-PF’s powerful central committee has shifted into top gear to make sure President Robert Mugabe reverses the electoral defeat he suffered on March 29. In addition to widespread intimidation spearheaded by militias in areas where voters backed Morgan Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, the authorities are tightening up control over the state media.

Girls within armed groups have generally been neglected by scholars, governments and policymakers. This Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) paper traces the experiences of girls in armed conflict in Angola, Sierra Leone, Mozambique and Uganda. It finds that girls in fighting forces are rendered invisible and marginalised during and after conflict, although they are fundamentally important to armed groups. They experience victimisation, perpetration and insecurity, but are also active agents and resisters.

A group of international and Congolese human rights organizations are greatly concerned that international fair-trial standards have been violated in the trial and appeal of four men convicted in the murder of Congolese journalist Serge Maheshe.

The Supreme Court of Niger on May 15, 2008 endorsed the continued detention of Moussa Kaka, correspondent of Radio France International (RFI). Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that the decision followed the Supreme Court’s ruling that a tape recorded evidence against the journalist should be taken into consideration.

A human rights group said on Thursday that 800 000 residents of the Nigerian capital, Abuja, were forcibly evicted over a four-year period as town planners sought to clear space for the fast-growing city. The Swiss-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions said in a new report that many of those removed from their homes by authorities between 2003 and 2007 were not given due notice or afforded other usual rights. The group said some evictees were tear-gassed or beaten.

Within the vast literature on decentralisation, there is little attention on one important aspect of decentralisation – namely the creation of new sub-national administrative units. This despite the fact that governments of developing countries such as Benin, Burkina Faso, Republic of Congo, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Vietnam, among many others, have created a slew of new units since the 1990s. In an attempt to fill this gap, this paper tries to understand what underlying motives lie behind the creation of new districts in the African country of Uganda and how widely applicable these motives may be in other contexts.

Qatari satellite TV news channel Aljazeera was ordered by Moroccan officials on Tuesday (May 6th) to cease broadcast operations from its Rabat studios. The pan-Arab news station aired daily news bulletins on the Maghreb.

The absence of last mile equipment and high cost of bandwidth have been identified as the major reasons why broadband Internet access penetration is low in Nigeria. Latest figures released by Internet Statistics, a global Internet usage measurement firm, put the number of broadband users in Nigeria at just 500, compared to over 800,000 in South Africa.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the Ethiopian authorities to drop charges against Alemayehu Mahtemework, the editor of monthly entertainment magazine Enku, and three others who were arrested with him after the publication of a cover story about a jailed popular singer.

The Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Guinea, Alfred Saury Guilarogui and two of his officers on May 8, 2008 stormed Nostalgie FM, a privately-owned radio station in Conakry and forcibly interrupted the station's broadcasting.

The Director–General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Guinea, Alfred Saury Guilarogui and two of his officers on May 8, 2008 stormed Nostalgie FM, a privately-owned radio station in Conakry and forcibly interrupted the station’s broadcasting.