Around 10 journalists and technicians working for three TV and radio stations owned by Sen. Jean-Pierre Bemba - Canal Kin Télévision (CKTV), Canal Congo Television (CCTV) and Radio Liberté Kinshasa (Ralik) - have had to go into hiding after the three stations were forced to close on 21 March.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/marceline.jpgFree Zim-Youth, a group of young Zimbabweans living in the UK, demonstrated outside the South African embassy in central London in protest at the ANC's silence over the Mugabe regime. Commemorating the anniversary of the Sharpeville Day massacre during apartheid rule, the youth group accuse the ANC of betraying the people of Zimbabwe. In this podcast, hear the voices of the protesters and the sounds of the demonstration. To contact Free Zim-Youth email them at [email][email protected]

For one year now, Gambians have been denied the right to read and hear alternative views in their national media. On 28 March last year, the country's leading independent voice, 'The Independent', was closed down by security forces and its editors were arrested and tortured. Since then, all news is censored in The Gambia.

Information communication technologies cannot be wished away in the current globalised economy. With the advent of the computing technology which has been able to provide a digital platform for managing text, imaging and voice into one is a great achievement for the present generation. This is according to Brown Onguko, lecturer at the Aga Khan University-Institute for Educational development, Eastern Africa in Tanzania

Technology Mentoring Opportunity for Young Nigerian Women Community Activists – The Networking for Success Project is part of the Blogs for African Women (BAWo) initiative, a technology mentoring initiative working to encourage African women to become more active users of technology. BAWo is supported by Fahamu, an organisation using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to serve the needs of organisations that aspire to progressive social change.

For further information: please send a paragraph describing your organisation’s work to oreblogging [at] yahoo.com by Friday, March 31, 2007.

While there are many studies of 19th century race theories and scientific racism, attitudes and stereotypes expressed in popular culture have rarely been examined; and only in the latter half of the century.

Theatre then was mass entertainment. These forgotten plays, hastily written, surviving only as hand-written manuscripts or cheap pamphlets, are a rich seam for the cultural historian. Mining them to discover how ‘race’ was viewed and how the stereotype of the black developed and degraded, sheds a fascinating light on the development of racism in English culture.

In the process, this book helps to explain how a certain flexibility in attitudes towards skin colour, observable at the end of the 18th century, changed into the hardened jingoism of the late 19th century.

Concentrating on the period 1830 to 1860, its detailed excavation of some 70 plays makes it invaluable to the theatre historian and black studies scholar.

Published by the Institute of Race Relations, London; ISBN-13: 9780521862622.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is urging the President of Nigeria to sign into law the freedom of information bill that will allow Nigerian citizens, researchers and the media to have access to information on government business, from government agencies or from private bodies performing public functions.

On 20 March 2007, journalists working in al-Jazeera's Nouakchott offices received death threats by phone. Then, at about 4:00 p.m. (local time), eight people marched into the premises. Journalist Mohammed Nema Oumar, head of communications for Rashid Mustapha, a failed first round candidate, was among this group. Police arrested four people and opened an investigation to find the other assailants.

On 15 March 2007, Sam Dean, publisher of "The Independent", a Monrovia- based privately-owned newspaper currently facing a ban, alleged that his life is in danger due to continuous threats on his life by agents of the state security. He has therefore been in hiding.

The Egyptian authorities have evicted hundreds of peasants from a village in southern Egypt because their mud-brick houses, which have sat atop some of the world's most treasured and ancient tombs for centuries, were leaking sewage onto priceless antiquities. The families have been resettled in a nearby planned community with running water and telephones.

The Mail & Guardian Online has created a new service that tracks the South African blogosphere.

The White African blog reports on a move by Google to provide free access to their Google Apps to Kenya and Rwanda. "Google is starting to stake a claim in Africa by giving away software applications to educational elements. I wouldn’t be surprised if this effort spreads to more African countries very quickly. This is good news for students, and will really increase awareness for Google’s non-search products in Africa. Overall, a very strong strategic move," says the blog.

Scheming by Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is killing off the few remaining independent news media while the government-controlled Media Information Commission (MIC) continues to use obligatory press accreditation as way to pressure journalists in an entirely unacceptable fashion, Reporters Without Borders have reported.

Radio Shabelle reporter Mohammed Bashir Sheik Abdirahman and his driver Osman Qoryoley were arrested at Mogadishu international airport when they arrived for a news conference which Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi was supposed to give there. Muhiadin Omar Jimale, another radio journalist, was also stopped and would probably have been arrested, but he managed to escape.

African Commonwealth countries are attending the inaugural meeting of Commonwealth ICT ministers and industry experts taking place in Delhi this week. The ministers will discuss five key areas of ICT development including policy and regulatory capacity, modernising education and skills development, entrepreneurship for poverty reduction, promoting local access and connectivity, improving regional networking and local content and knowledge.

Kenyan telecommunications operator Safaricom has reluctantly accepted the decision by the industry regulator, the Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK), to reduce mobile tariffs within the country. This is according Michael Joseph, CEO of Safaricom.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/davidodwar.jpgDavid Odwar, an artist and cultural activist from Uganda, speaks to Robtel Pailey from Pambazuka News about his experiences of growing up in Uganda and his brother's abduction by the Lord's Resistance Army. He recounts his subsequent exile in the UK. David then returned to Uganda where he set up an arts centre for the local community to explore and express the traumas of war through art, and established the project ''.

Music in this podcast is brought to you by Busi Ncube from Zimbabwe, kindly provided by Thulani Promotions.

On March 12 2007, firebrand journalist Sunsley Chamunorwa renowned for his hard-hitting editorials and commentaries at the helm of the weekly Financial Gazette was suspended over a story reportedly involving the business interests of a strong ruling Zanu-PF official.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has backed a call by the Ugandan Journalists Association (UJA) for the government to protect media covering court cases against opposition groups and put an end to police harassment of journalists.

The Alexandria Appeals Court ruled against an appeal filed by the attorney of Egypt's first convicted blogger, Abdel Kareem Suleiman, who was sentenced to four years in prison for "insulting Islam and the President of Egypt". His lawyers said they would appeal the judgment at the court of cessation.