The UN World Electronic Media Forum final report has been published and is now available on the World Electronic Media Forum web site. The World Electronic Media Forum (WEMF) brought together broadcasters, journalists and experts to discuss critical issues of media content relating to world violence, violence in the media, media freedom in the information society, the influence of the media in the world political agendas, etc. The report is a publication which collects the speeches and positions of the 650 broadcasters from around the world present during the UN World Summit on the Information Society(WSIS) (Geneva, December 2003).

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says it is deeply concerned about reports that two journalists have been detained in separate incidents in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeast Somalia, and the self-declared republic of Somaliland. Abdishakur Yusuf Ali, editor-in-chief of the independent War-Ogaal newspaper in Bossasso, Puntland, was arrested on April 21, because of an article accusing Puntland Finance Minister Abdirahman Mohamud Farole of corruption, said local journalists. Meanwhile Abdirahman Haji Dahir, a reporter for the independent Somaliland daily Haatuf, was arrested in the port city of Berbera because of an article that mentioned differences between Somaliland President Dahir Riyale Kahin and his vice president, said local journalists.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) says it is extremely concerned over the abrupt imprisonment of Anas Tadili, editor of the weekly "Akhbar al-Ousbouaâ", on 15 April 2004. While officially arrested over a legal matter dating back 10 years, RSF fears Tadili may have been detained for an article published in his newspaper, and that the arrest was in fact the result of political pressure. On 9 April, Tadili's paper published an article entitled "Homosexuality and the political class in Morocco", detailing the homosexual adventures of a government minister at a resort in northern Morocco.

George Bush's government is trying to persuade the US supreme court to strike down the most progressive and pro-human rights law on the American statute books - a law which allows multinational corporations to be held accountable in the US courts for human rights abuses abroad. US Attorney general John Ashcroft's justice department is attacking a statute dating back more than 200 years which lawyers have revived in recent years to bring human rights claims, first against foreign torturers but now against huge companies over their operations in repressive states.

The African Regional Youth Initiative (ARYI) invites women to participate in an on line discussion on the priorities in the fight against HIV/AIDS and its socio-economic consequences on women living in the Central Africa region. The Women's Program of the African Regional Youth Initiative seeks to empower and raise the voice of women in Central Africa through capacity building and transformative leadership. The online discussion is in both English and French. It will last two months and a document will be produced as a key output. The discussion commences on 19 April 2004. For more information, please contact the ARYI Women's Program coordinator, Sylvie N Ngoueme, [email protected]. To subscribe to the discussion group, please send a blank email to: [email protected].

For years on end technology has been taking the world by surprise. The very things that are now operating machines, controlling nuclear power plants, assembling cars and running entire factories are the ones to have brought about an industrial revolution, an economic change and most importantly a social transformation. Information technology is no exception. Its evolution, advancement and results continue to spread at a record pace. Yet the integration of such technology into human social lives remains questionable. This paper aims to address the issue of the growth of human reliance on information technology and the arguments in favour of technology-human adaptation.

Involving years of preparation, the World Summit on the Information Society was an enormously resource-intensive event, and many wonder if all this money and effort would not have been better spent on concrete actions to address - rather than talk about - the digital divide. This brief looks at what was said, and what results were actually achieved, in this first phase of WSIS.

Rejecting easy explanations of the Rwanda genocide as a mysterious evil force that was bizarrely unleashed, one of Africa's best-known intellectuals situates the tragedy in its proper context. He coaxes to the surface the historical, geographical, and political forces that made it possible for so many Hutu to turn so brutally on their neighbours.

The 24th IFC is taking place on the 12th to the 15th October 2004. The event regularly attracts over 800 fundraising professionals from 50-60 countries worldwide. This year’s programme boasts of 60 world-class speakers and practitioners who will lead over 100 cutting-edge sessions covering all aspects of fundraising from communications to major gifts and leadership to corporate fundraising.

The latest edition of e-Civicus is dedicated to the Millennium Development Goals and includes a briefing on civil society and the MDG's, news briefs relating to the MDG's and a list of useful internet resources relating to the MDG's. e-CIVICUS is distributed twice monthly in MS Word, plain text, or PDF format, and is also available in Spanish. Future issues will be distributed in HTML format with new exciting sections like donor profiles, capacity building resources, and member’s news. To subscribe or unsubscribe please email [email protected]

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed concern following the disappearance of Guy-André Kieffer, an independent journalist who has been missing since 16 April 2004. "We are very concerned about Guy-André Kieffer's disappearance. In this country that remains divided and unstable, journalists continue to work in a very volatile situation; nobody can forget the tragic death of Jean Hélène," RSF said. "We urge the Ivoirian authorities to take all necessary steps to ensure that the journalist is found as quickly as possible," the organisation added.

The course will critically examine and debate the contribution of the African diaspora to Africa's development; consider the role of African diaspora organisations in terms of influencing development and practice in ways that advance the interests of African development; and critically examine contemporary issues including advocacy, sustaining small and community development groups, future strategies and development policy processes.

We at Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative are working on Access to Justice and Access to Information as the broad parameters in the advocacy of Human Rights in the Commonwealth. We bring out a report every two years on different subject matters which is tabled at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.

The report to be tabled at the next year's CHOGM is on "Police Accountability". In this regards we are researching extensively on Police Acts, articles and researches conducted on police organizations, stories from across the globe that deals with the Police in any form, civil societies, justice mechanisms and other social structures.

We shall be grateful and happy if you could send across any document, or related items that could augment and enrich our research and therefore the report.

ontrac is the newsletter of INTRAC (the International NGO Training and Research Centre). It is published three times a year. To subscribe to ontrac, please contact Natasha Thurlow at INTRAC ([email protected]) indicating whether you wish to receive it by email (English, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian or Spanish) or post (English and Russian only).

Eurodad currently offers two news services focusing on Debt and Finance and Poverty Reduction Policies. The articles posted are a combination of short analytical pieces written by Eurodad staff on key developments in each theme, and summarised documents, invitations and requests from external sources.

The Equinet Newsletter is the newsletter of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa and delivers a comprehensive round-up of equity and health issues. You will receive two issues from this mailing list per month. One will contain a briefing of Equinet's activities and the other links to information about equity and health issues in the content categories of Equity in Health; Values, Policies and Rights; Health equity in economic and trade policies; Poverty and health; Equitable health services; Human Resources; Public-Private Mix; Resource allocation and health financing; Equity and HIV/AIDS; Governance and participation in health and Monitoring equity and research policy. There are also sections that include the latest jobs, conferences and other useful resources related to equity in health. Read the newsletter online by clicking on the URL provided.

The availability of information on the impact of scientific developments - both positive and negative - is paramount to the effective functioning of democracy. But a recent survey of South Africa's leading newspapers and magazines shows that less than two per cent of editorial space in the country's leading publications is devoted to science and technology. The press is one of the most important vehicles through which science news can be distributed. Print media lends itself to investigative in-depth reporting, but unfortunately, this benefit is not being harnessed effectively, says the leader of the survey in this article.

Mathurin Constant Momet, publication director of the independent daily Le Confident, and Le Confident Editor-in-Chief Patrick Bakwa were detained last Thursday by police in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), and held for questioning. Local sources said the two were summoned to the police station at about 11 a.m. in connection with a report about a press conference by Maximilien Boganda, a Central African businessman. Le Confident reported that during the press conference, Boganda criticized his former lawyer, Pierre Ouadda-Diala, and called the CAR's judicial system confused and mafia-like.

Recent comments on press freedom from Information Minister Jonathan Moyo clearly confirmed the suspicion that repressive media laws reflect government's pathological terror of a free media environment in Zimbabwe, says the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ). According to media reports, Moyo dismissed the universally held doctrine of democratic societies that media freedom is an indivisible element of freedom of expression when he addressed diplomats at a luncheon. He told the diplomats that Zimbabwe did not believe press freedom was a basic constitutionally guaranteed human right because it was merely "the baggage of unipolarism" that "only came about after the end of the Cold War".

The main purpose of the job is to strategically manage and develop APC's Communications and Information Policy Programme (CIPP). The incumbent can be located from anywhere in the world.