Nigeria's federal Legislature, the National Assembly, is considering a draft law that would impose sanctions, jail-terms, fines and suspension for media outlets found guilty of sensational reporting on violent conflicts, parliamentary or inter-governmental disputes, natural disasters and other "negative trends and tendencies". The draft law, entitled the "Journalism Enhancement Bill", is presently before the House of Representatives, the lower chamber in Nigeria's bi-cameral Legislature.

Both the civil society and private sectors in Kenya have expressed their concern at being excluded from consultations on the drafting of the country's ICT policy. The new policy is intended to cover issues such as access to ICTs and the legal framework for the industry's operations. At present it is estimated that over 90% of the 30 million population are unable to access ICTs.

The latest edition of ontrac explores the challenges to NGO neutrality in the changing global context. ontrac is the newsletter of INTRAC (the International NGO Training and Research Centre). To subscribe to ontrac, please contact Tania Little at INTRAC ([email protected]).

The ICC Update keeps its readers informed with up-to-date articles and concise summaries on issues concerning the ICC. In a few pages, the Update regularly covers the regional updates, media coverage, upcoming events, and resources in the weeks since the last Update. The 40th issue is now available.

The theme for this year's "Reporting on the Information Society Award" has been announced as "Transparency, good governance and democracy - does information technology increase accountability?" The awards, which were launched by Panos and Global Knowledge Partnership in 2003, aim to encourage and bring to international recognition thoughtful and incisive reporting by journalists on the social and political impacts of ICT.

The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has received over Ushs 3 billion (USD1.7m) from the country's three telecom operators towards its Rural Communication Development Fund. Under the Communications Act each provider of ICT services has to contribute 1% of their annual revenue to the Fund. Announcing receipt of the money, the Commission's Director said that their target was for every district to have, amongst other services, an Internet point of presence and ICT training centres by the end of the year.

The World Bank infoDev program has recently published an 'Information Technology Security Handbook' for individuals, organisations and governments in developing countries.

Journalists are among around 500 striking workers in Zimbabwe's state-owned press who are being threatened with dismissal, reports Dumisani Sigogo. Industrial action began August 2 as a sit-in over grievances around salary hikes, sexual harrassment, nepotism and mismanagement. Later in the week, the action developed into a full strike that has forced managers, interns, editors and supervisors to take over the jobs of journalists and production staff.

The Writers in Prison Committee has welcomed the release from prison of Lucien Claude Ngongo, deputy editor of the weekly newspaper Fair Play. However, PEN is disturbed that Ngongo continues to face charges for "criminal defamation".

The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) has welcomed the release from prison of Anas Guennoun, director of the weekly newspaper "Al Ahali". According to reports, Guennoun was released during the first week of August 2004. On 2 April, Guennoun had received a 10-month prison sentence for defamation. The sentence appeared to stem from an article written by the journalist that allegedly defamed a politician.

On 12 August 2004, Moussa Kaka, director of the independent radio station Saraounia FM and correspondent of Radio France International, was arrested by agents of the Gendarmerie in the capital, Niamey. The security officers also searched Kaka's office and home, confiscating address books and other documents.

The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) has condemned South African telecommunications giant Telkom's threats of legal action against the owners and operators of the website http://www.hellkom.co.za. Telkom alleges that the site is an infringement of its registered trademark and, therefore, a violation of the country's trademark and intellectual property law. The corporation has demanded that the website be shut down immediately.

In a 12 August 2004 letter to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed deep concern that Tewodros Kassa, the imprisoned former editor-in-chief of the Amharic language weekly "Ethiop", has been newly convicted on a four-year-old defamation charge, delaying his scheduled release from prison.

'incommunicado' is a weblog that focuses on the spread and reappropriation of ICT across the 'Global South'.

A Panos feature article reports on the concerns held by countries in the developing world of the dominance the US has over the Internet. South Africa is amongst the countries leading the call for the formation of an intergovernmental agency within the UN to take over the functions of the American based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) which alone is responsible for administrating the Internet's domain names and address identifiers. According to South African President Thabo Mbeki if the Internet remains under the control of ICANN, 'the world continues to be governed by California law'. The South African Government recently wrested legal control of its country domain (.za) from a local ICANN-appointed Internet pioneer, without seeking ICANN approval.

Just a week after a report predicting that VoIP would be legalised first in West Africa, one of the new breed of 'independents' has had their licence revoked. Guinea Bissau's Eguitel had held a licence for nine months and was about to start carrying international traffic for the new second mobile operator, Spacetel. However, this week the company was contacted by the Regulator and told that the license was being revoked. Eguitel's CEO has vowed to continue operating, saying that the recall of the licence is not legal.

The Rhodes University's Department of Journalism and Media Studies invites Mid-career media workers and journalists who are seeking the opportunity to engage in full-time postgraduate study to apply for Scholarships.

Open Research, together with the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, is developing an open source information portal to assist non-profit organisations throughout Africa to make informed and strategic use of free and open source software (FOSS). To help highlight the challenges, benefits and obstacles to the use of FOSS, Open Research is calling for participation from all non-profit, governmental and educational initiatives that would be prepared for their experiences with FOSS to be written up and made available to the broader community.

The Kenyan Communications Appeals Tribunal has attacked the monopoly granted to Telkom Kenya to provide the Internet gateway to the country. Announcing its conclusions last Thursday, the Tribunal ruled that the Kenyan Communications regulator had acted against the provisions of the Kenya Communications Act 1998, which outlaws any form of monopoly, when it had refused to licence Fast Lane Limited to provide an alternative Internet backbone to Telkom's Jambonet. The ruling should result in more licenses being issued, bringing the cost of Internet services down and follows Telkom's announcement last week that it was increasing its Internet charges by up to 75%.

South African company, OnPoint Solutions have invented a low-cost, four-in-one PC that could lower the cost of offering ICT in learning institutions. The purpose built PCs offer internet, e-mail, phone, word processing and network facilities exclusively for educational purposes and concessions provided from Microsoft International have allowed the machines to be sold at the low cost of ?298 per system.