The Gambia's efforts to provide wireless telephones to 350 villages have been hampered by insufficient funds, the country's Communications and Information Technology Minister, Nenneh Macdouall-Gaye, told parliament.

The Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, says what Africa needs at the moment is 3Es rather than 3Gs. Speaking at the recently concluded 18th annual session of the Crans Montana Forum in Monte Carlo, at the ministerial panel on Information and Communication Technology (ICT), that took place in Monaco, Dr. Spio-Garbrah said that the 3Es needed urgently by the continent is "education, empowerment and employment" of the citizenry.

Hindou Mint Ainina presses for women's rights and political reform editing a weekly paper that regularly makes enemies. With her Quill, though, she has found ways to prod for change amid censorship and a culture where women have little power.

Less than fifteen years after the genocide that destroyed much of Rwanda's human capital, infrastructure, and socio-economic fabric, the country is set to become sub-Saharan Africa's hub for information and communications technology (ICT).

Tunisian bloggers were angered recently by police intimidation of independent magazine Kalima starting May 17th, raising questions once again about the lack of press freedom in the country. In his post, "Kalima Tunisie: libérez la parole," Tunisian blogger Cos-Maux-Polis joined the World Association of Newspapers in its condemnation of "the intimidation and repression of the independent press in Tunisia".

A large study of immediate versus deferred antiretroviral treatment in South African infants has found a significant advantage to immediate treatment after just eight months of follow-up, and researchers monitoring the trial have decided that the `deferred treatment` arm of the study should be closed and all children not yet receiving treatment should be evaluated to determine whether they should start antiretroviral therapy.

The Kenya government is launching a Digital Village Project to establish information and communications technology centres throughout the country. To jump-start the process, the programme is designed to train 1,000 digital village managers to manage the centres in the 210 constituencies in the country.

Issa Shivji has long been one of the most articulate critics of the destructive effects of neoliberal policies in Africa, and in particular of the ways in which they have eroded the gains of independence.

In two extensive essays in this book, he shows that the role of NGOs in Africa cannot be understood without placing them in their political and historical context. Aid, in which NGOs play a significant role, is frequently portrayed as a form of altruism, a charitable act that enables the wealthy to help the poor. As structural adjustment programmes were imposed across Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, the international financial institutions and development agencies began giving money to NGOs for programmes to minimise the more glaring inequalities perpetuated by their policies. As a result, NGOs have flourished – and played an unwitting role in consolidating the neoliberal hegemony in Africa.

If social policy is to be determined by citizens rather than the donors, argues Shivji, African NGOs must become catalysts for change rather than the catechists of aid that they are today.

Issa Shivji is one of Africa’s most radical and original thinkers and has written frequently for Pambazuka News. He is the author of several books, including the seminal Concept of Human Rights in Africa (1989) and, more recently, Let the People Speak: Tanzania down the road to neoliberalism (2006).

ISBN: 978-0-9545637-5-2. 84pp, July 2007, Oxford: Fahamu
Price £7.95

For further information and details of how to order, please see For review or inspection copies, or any additional information, please contact Stephanie Kitchen, Publications Manager, [email][email protected]

The course runs from 19th May to 28th June 2008, and aims to strengthen the capacity of trainers, training organisers and educators working in or for the broadcast sector to assess training needs and design, develop and deliver effective and efficient training solutions. These training solutions will enable broadcast organisations to meet the challenges of increased competition, technological change and professional mobility and to improve the quality and appropriateness of their output.

As African Union ambassadors on Tuesday conclude the first of three high level meetings on Africa's proposed integration, ordinary Ghanaians are actively involved in discussions on the matter. Over 60 years ago, late Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah rallied his fellow African leaders, then members of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), to dissolve the artificial and in some cases, arbitrary borders demarcated by European colonial powers in 1884.

Twenty years since the UN convention against the use of torture came into force, a Ugandan victim of torture, who wishes to remain anonymous, tells the BBC how he was picked up in the capital, Kampala, by government security forces after being accused of robbery. He said he was tortured in a so-called "safe house" for about eight days before he passed out and woke up in a military hospital. He remained in custody for 11 months until the case against him collapsed about three years ago.

Sudan's laws governing rape expose rape victims to further abuse, shield perpetrators from prosecution, limit the ability for survivors to receive medical services and generally deny any access to justice, according to a new analysis. The Washington-based organisation Refugees International today has released a report - "Laws Without Justice: An assessment of Sudanese laws affecting survivors of rape" - looking into the Sudanese legislation.

Join author, commentator, and talk show host Tavis Smiley, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, LCCR President and CEO Wade Henderson, and other distinguished speakers for a one-of-a-kind event on the importance of media diversity to be held on June 29, 2007 at the Jack Morton Auditorium, George Washington University, 805 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC.

Telkom SA has bought Africa Online (AFOL), an Internet service provider for 125 million rands from the African Lakes Corporation. AFOL which offers dial-up, lease lines, VSAT and broadband services to both retail and corporate entities operates in eight African countries namely Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Swaziland and Cote D'Ivoire. The company however has active affiliates in South Africa, Mozambique, Mauritania, Nigeria, Malawi, Senegal, Angola and Cameroon.

The government of Seychelles shows its commitment to the use of ICTs in education despite simmering opposition to its tendering procedures. The first consignment of subsidized laptops promised to Seychellois teachers earlier this year was delivered this week. The 1500 Inspiron 1501 and 6400 Dell laptop computers are selling at only 25% of the local market price in order to popularise the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education.

Uganda's Communications Commission (UCC) is to spend a total of one million dollars (USD$1 million) to connect eighty secondary schools to the Internet. "We have worked with the ministry of education and sports and have selected eighty schools that would be connected in the next financial year," said the commission?s executive director Eng. Patrick Masambu.

A regional chairperson of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa), Thabo Thakalekola, was on Monday night released from jail in Maseru on R1 000 bail, following his arrest last Friday by the Lesotho mounted police on charges of treason.

Fathia Khaled, a presenter on state-owned Eri-TV's Arabic-language service, was arrested earlier in June 2007 and taken to one of the country's detention centres, Reporters Without Borders has learned from several Eritrean sources. One of the sources said she may have been taken to the Sawa military camp in the northwest after being in touch with one or more persons who had fled across the border into Sudan on foot.

Zambia's Information and Broadcasting Services Minister Mike Mlongoti threatened to revoke an operating license for Petauke Explorers, a local commercial radio station in Petauke district in the eastern province of Zambia for featuring the president of one of the leading political parties in an on-air paid for interview.

The second edition of the World Information Society Report was released recently, and includes some interesting findings. The Report finds, for instance, that the digital divide is shrinking in most technologies, especially mobile telephony, but that limitations in the availability and affordability of broadband remain a cause for concern.