Seizing control of the state media was one of the linchpins of President Laurent Gbagbo's failed bid to recover all of Cote d'Ivoire's territory. In just one morning, on 4 November, supporters of the president and his party succeeded in hijacking Radiotélévision ivoirienne (RTI) and Radio Côte d'Ivoire (RCI). A new staff of presenters and journalists ready to take editorial orders was put in place. (French version available)

Deputy Minister of Commerce Trade and Industry Geoffrey Samukonga has caused a stir at the "Zambia Daily Mail", "Times of Zambia" and Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) by accused the news organisations of tarnishing his image. According to the "Zambia Daily Mail" of 25 November, Samukonga threatened to have the newspaper's managing editor, Godfrey Malama, fired if he did not dismiss chief reporter Patson Phiri, who he accused of writing stories against him.

Jimbi is the African slit drum, created by creating a hollow though a slit made on the side of a large log. It is an instrument with a big sound that could be heard up to 10 miles away, depending on the particular instrument and the nature of the terrain. Jimbi Media (JM) is a company that assists African visionaries, writers, leaders, artists and trendsetters of African descent to realize and to perfect their work, as well as to find and to satisfy their audiences. Visit their website to subscribe to their newsletter.

What's new in Source is a Free bi-monthly bulletin from the Source International Information Support Centre, www.asksource.info. It contains details of over 100 books, reports, articles, CD-ROMs and online resources recently added to the Source online database, covering the practice, management and communication of international health and disability.

The Southern Africa Institute of Fundraising (SAIF) is holding its 7th Biennial Convention on 18, 19 and 20 May 2005 in Cape Town, South Africa. The theme is 'Dare to be Different' and the objective of Convention 2005 is to help build the capacity of Africa's professional fundraisers. To this end, a number of dynamic and acclaimed overseas and South African speakers will be making cutting edge presentations. The keynote speaker is South African Geoff Hilton-Barber. Click on the URL provided for more information.

Free trade agreements have increasingly broadened their scope of regulation concerning telecommunications, under the pretext that these are services just like any other. This has hindered the access to communication and information as a fundamental human right as the private sector gains power through liberalization. Decisions that affect the global media system are now being taken behind closed doors, without consulting the civil society but with the support of giant media moguls that encourage corporate property of information, showing total disregard for cultural diversity issues.

As the Father of Tanzania, the late Mwalimu Nyerere will always be remembered by his famous saying: "It can be done; play your part". December 4 saw the launch of The Open Swahili Localization Project, also known as Kilinux, the first ever release of a free office suite software in Swahili, called "Jambo OpenOffice." Jambo OpenOffice is the Swahili version of OpenOffice.org, a leading international effort to provide a free and open source office suite.

In a 2 December 2004 letter to President Robert Mugabe, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed its outage over the government's continued clampdown on independent media in Zimbabwe, including proposed new legislation that could be used to jail journalists for up to 20 years. At a time when several other African countries are lifting criminal sanctions for press offences, bringing their laws in line with international standards, Zimbabwe's government is preparing to introduce penalties that are among the harshest on the continent. In the letter, CPJ said that this will only further impede Zimbabwe's media, which already face other restrictive laws.

Reporters sans frontières has urged the Algerian justice system to put an end to its harassment of "Le Matin" editor Mohammed Benchicou, who is already serving a two-year sentence and could now be convicted in two or possibly three separate libel cases on 7 December 2004. "With close to 50 cases [pending], with one trial after another, one lawsuit after another, hearings adjourned by judges and incomprehensible legal manoeuvres, Benchicou's legal ordeal is on a par with the absurdities and nightmarish procedures of the bureaucratic and partisan judicial system described in Franz Kafka's 'The Trial'," RSF said. (French version available through the link below)

The World Association of Newspapers has written to the Eritrean authorities to express concern at the continuing imprisonment of journalist Dawit Isaac and the government's ongoing suppression of press freedom. "According to reports, Mr Isaac, a journalist, author and playwright, has been held in jail since his arrest in September 2001 for publishing a call for democratic reforms in Setit, the newspaper he founded on his return to Eritrea in 1996 after living in exile in Sweden for nine years," said the organisation.

Population Sservices International/Mali and the country's premier cell phone company, Ikatel S.A., have launched a one-year health communication campaign, "La Santé au bout du fil" (Health On Line) that will combat HIV/AIDS, an emerging threat, and malaria, the number one cause of mortality. The campaign, one of the first NGO-private sector partnerships in the country, makes use of cellular technology to improve health in this poor, vast country of 13.4 million that extends from the savanna in the south to the Sahara Desert in the north.

Moderator summaries of a Commission for Africa e-forum which took place from Monday 15 November to Friday 3 December 2004 are now available on the Commission's website. Messages can still be posted until Friday 17 December. Note that messages posted until then will be fed into the consultation by the Secretariat, but will not be represented in the e-forum final summary report, as the moderator summaries finished on 3 December.

Arid Lands Information Network – Eastern Africa (ALIN-EA) has successfully completed a one-year pilot phase of the Open Knowledge Network (OKN) East Africa project. OKN is a global initiative linking marginalized communities and facilitating information sharing through Information Communications Technologies (ICTs). It aims at promoting the creation and exchange of local content by local people in local languages. The network encourages documentation and dissemination of local knowledge beyond the precincts of community boundaries.

A new mobile phone text message service is joining the battle against HIV/Aids in Kenya. People will be able to text questions on the subject to a special number and receive a prompt answer for free. Subscribers will also get daily tips on how to prevent the infection and to deal with the pandemic.

The Africa Education Trust is developing a training course to empower African Women involved in community or refugee organisations across England. The course will enable African women to conduct action research into the needs of their community. It will train them to present and articulate their findings and use them to articulate on behalf of African and refugee women at the community, regional and national level.

African community radio may get a boost from the formation of an international task force to investigate setting up an international fund to underwrite resources for the sector, a meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco has decided. The initiative parallels global initiatives to set up a "Digital Solidarity Fund" that flowed out of last year's United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

Freedom of expression and the freedom of journalists to exercise their profession rocketed to the top of the agenda at a conference on the role of the media in the information society, taking place in Marrakech, Morocco. But the question of the media boycotting a subsequent conference to be held in Tunisia - a country that violates free speech - seemed to have been defused. Controversy at the Marrakech conference centred around whether Tunisia would respect principles agreed by global governments at last year’s United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

Ask a typical citizen about ICT policy and s/he will probably reply with a comment like ‘what’s that?’ or ‘who cares?’ Getting involved in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy-making has not been a priority for most people, even those who are generally active in other areas of public policy. It often seems removed from our daily experience, and technically complicated. Yet new communications media are becoming so important that we cannot continue to ignore them. This book from the Association for Progressive Communications takes the mystery out of ICT policy and makes it easier to understand. Key issues are presented and explained clearly and concisely, and a basis is provided for further investigation.

On 26 November 2004, in the early evening, Delly Bonsange, Rackys Bokela and Jean-Marie Basa Ndjakolo, journalists with the newspapers "Alerte Plus", "Le Collecteur" and "Flash Info", respectively, were arrested by three judicial police inspectors and detained at the Kinshasa/Gombe High Court, where they spent the night. The journalists were released on 27 November, and were ordered to reappear before the court on 30 November. (French version available through the link provided)

Ugandan Network of AIDS Service Organizations (UNASO) and Health and Development Networks (HDN) would like to invite you to join the first e-mail based discussion forum on HIV/AIDS in Uganda. This eForum, entitled ‘Partners Uganda’ will be jointly managed and moderated by UNASO and HDN. By joining Partners Uganda, you can send and receive e-mails on HIV/AIDS related issues in the Ugandan context.