Satellite images captured under a pioneering program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) provide powerful evidence that the government of Zimbabwe has destroyed an entire settlement and relocated thousands of residents as part of a campaign against political opponents. The images, analyzed by the AAAS staff, show two views of the settlement of Porta Farm, located just west of the Zimbabwean capital of Harare. The first, an archived image from June 2002, shows an intact settlement with more than 850 homes and other buildings; an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 people lived in Porta Farm at the time. The second photo, taken by satellite on 6 April this year, shows that the settlement has been leveled.

The June issue of ReConnect Africa is now online. Connecting Africa to the global world, ReConnect Africa is a unique online publication and portal that provides readily accessible information, articles, interviews and jobs in Africa.

Coordinated by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), this scholarship exchange programme aims to assist individual media practitioners from Southern Africa in all areas of the media (managerial, editorial, advertising, and technical) to work on attachment in another media institution to learn new skills and develop existing ones.

The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, opened the Inaugural Meeting of the Nigerian Science and Technology Education Funds Mobilizing Committee at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 16 May 2006. Nigeria’s Education Minister, Chinwe Nora Obaji, also attended. In his speech, Mr Matsuura called all education planners and teachers to actively engage in promoting interest in science among youth, especially girls.

The cabinet has dismissed claims that SA was "sliding towards dictatorship", as it moved to defend President Thabo Mbeki from increasingly strident criticism from his left-wing allies. Last week the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) warned against a "slide towards dictatorship" and the use of "state resources to settle political contradictions".

The Zimbabwe government last Thursday said it will evict about 4 000 black farmers who illegally occupied commercial farms and conservancies in the southern Masvingo province. The announcement represents a major policy U-turn by the Harare authorities who have in the past ignored calls by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono to restore order on former commercial farms.

Three more websites (Ethiomedia.com, Freeourleaders.org and Nazret.com) have become inaccessible within Ethiopia. Information minister Hailu Berhan insisted that his government was not involved but he failed to explain why almost all of the opposition websites suddenly cannot be accessed.

The government of Swaziland has agreed to hire a legal expert from the Commonwealth secretariat to begin a review of its controversial media laws, reports the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). The review is scheduled to begin in June 2006. It follows the adoption last February of a new constitution, which granted limited freedoms to citizens.

Three journalists, Pa Modou Faal of the national television GRTS, Musa Sheriff of Gambia News & Report Magazine and Malick Mboob, Communication Officer of Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital were arrested last Friday by the Gambia security forces. Lamin Cham, the BBC stringer in the Gambia was equally arrested today by security forces.

The world is again recognising the importance of the Nigerian telecoms market in the development of the African digital age as it shifts attention to Lagos, Nigeria between July 31 and August 3, 2006 for the third annual African VoIP Forum.

The Rift Valley Institute (RVI) and the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) have launched the Sudan Open Archive, an open-access digital library for Sudan, containing documents that until now were largely unavailable in digital form. The first phase of the archive involved the digitisation of around 500 documents drawn from the records of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), the international relief effort that started in 1989.

There was a heavy police presence at Lilongwe Magistrates’ Court Monday as two Blantyre Newspapers Limited (BNL) journalists appeared before the court to answer criminal libel charges. BNL General Manager Jika Nkolokosa and Lilongwe Bureau Chief Maxwell Ng’ambi are accused of publishing an article in Malawi News last year that allegedly defamed Health and Population Minister Hetherwick Ntaba, reports Malawi's Daily Times newspaper.

Patrice Booto, the editor of the tri-weekly Le Journal and its supplement Pool Malebo, has been sentenced to six months in prison and a fine of 500 dollars that must be paid within a week or his prison term will be extended by three months. The sentence was passed by a lower court in Assossa after it found him guilty of insulting the president and government.

"The FXI is deeply disturbed about recent reports regarding the SABC's decision not to flight a documentary on Thabo Mbeki scheduled for last week Wednesday. We have also just learnt that another documentary, this time on Irvin Khoza, was altered by removing the most controversial part from the film."

According to a report prepared by members of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) Tunisia Monitoring Group (TMG), violations of freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of association and other basic human rights are still rampant following the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), held in Tunisia in November 2005.

The Canadian NGO Development Workshop (DW-Angola) has launched an online library, reports Balancing Act. The library will have three databases available for research, with emphasis on media information that give access to articles of Angolan newspapers published since January 2003.

Exclusive exposure of high level scandals by the Nation Media Group (NMG) has steered the company into the billionaire's club but its power to reveal matters of public concern is still under threat, according to group chief executive officer Wilfred Kiboro. Addressing shareholders during the company's 43rd annual general meeting, he said Kenya has come a long way in embracing press freedom and creating a well informed society, but the proposed Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Bill was an attempt by the government to interfere with media independence, curtail the right to free flow of information, and reduce investment in the media.

East African countries are leading the African continent in the growth of Internet connections, with Tanzania recording a 150 per cent rise in users in the past year, a new report says. In Kenya, this figure is 200 per cent with the number of Internet users having now hit the 1.5 million mark, up from 500,000 users just a year ago. Uganda's are well over 200,000. Tanzania's Internet connections now stand at 300,000. Across Africa, Internet penetration has now reached 4 per cent, up from just 2.6 per cent in 2005.

The African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) represent an unprecedented collective political effort by African governments at the beginning of the 21st century to address issues of democracy and good governance on a continental scale within an emerging framework of institutions and instruments designed to assist in this effort. The contributions to this publication trace these recent developments from a policy perspective and explore the scope and limitations of current democratisation efforts.

Open Letter to Nigerian Environment Minister: Request for information on activities on cassava production in Nigeria

We are writing to you in recognition of the fact that your ministry is the National Focal Point on Biosafety in Nigeria. We are encouraged to write because the policy stance of Nigeria on biosafety issues is in consonance with the tenets of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to which Nigeria is a Party. One of the primary elements of that Protocol that is universally valuable is the Precautionary Principle. We also note that our national as well as international biosafety instruments place a premium on access to information and public participation in decision making processes on biosafety matters.