That question follows the conclusion of a two-day U.N. summit, in which delegates from sundry countries such as Cuba, Ghana, Bolivia and Venezula lectured North American, Asian and European countries about how best to run the Internet. Their demands varied, but the bottom line was the same: They want a piece of the action in just about every way. The event's agenda was breathtakingly broad, taking in everything from spam and privacy to intellectual property, network security and the operation of root domain name servers.

Heeding a call from Secretary-General Kofi Annan to extend Internet connectivity to underserved populations around the world, the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Task Force and the Wireless Internet Institute has announced a series of programmes to accelerate the adoption of wireless Internet in support of universal connectivity. In his challenge to Silicon Valley in 2002, the Secretary-General said: "We need to think of ways to bring wireless-fidelity applications to the developing world so as to make use of unlicensed radio spectrum to deliver cheap and fast Internet access."

Twofoxes, a South African company, has announced the release of NGO-in-a-box, the second in its series of open source starter packs. The company says the Open Source construction kits, which can either be downloaded from the website or ordered, contain all the software required for an NGO's operation. Dror Eyal, founder of Twofoxe, says the collections are the starting points for companies wanting to shift to, or start running an Open Source solution. "You will obviously want to tailor them and/or add various bits and pieces to them as per your specific needs. However these kits are the basic building blocks to get you started putting together your Open Source NGO."

On 30 March 2004, the Luanda Provincial Tribunal sentenced Felisberto de Graça Campos, director and editor of the weekly magazine "Semanario Angolense", to 45 days in prison or a fine of US$1,200 for a series of articles published in 2003 that detailed the fortunes of prominent government officials. Campos's sentence follows defamation charges filed against him by the defence minister, General Kundy Payama, who was included in a list of 59 people believed to be millionaires. The list included politicians, economists, senior military officials, ministers and members of parliament.

Civic groups presented evidence on the delay in the entry of new players in the broadcasting sector to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communications. The Committee is investigating the delay in inviting and issuing licenses to new players in the commercial and community-broadcasting category. The meeting was held on 5th April 2004 in Harare. The groups included the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ), Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)- Zimbabwe Chapter, Radio Dialogue, Global Arts Trust, Voice of the People Trust and the Zimbabwe Association of Community Radio Stations (ZACRAS).

The course is intended for professionals, researchers, activists, defenders and trainers to broaden their knowledge and further develop their human rights expertise about the substantive and institutional aspects of the promotion and protection of economic, social and cultural rights at national, regional and international levels.

If you are a mid-level or senior programme manager, social worker, senior government officer or planner, a health care professional, or have an interest in ageing issues, then this course is for you. Topics to be covered include: Demographic situation and socio-economic implications for Africa; HIV/AIDS and its impact on older people; Gender dimension of ageing; Poverty Research and Policies on ageing.

The Nigerian authorities have banned local radio and television stations from relaying foreign news broadcasts live. This move has stopped the BBC from broadcasting news and programmes on FM in four Nigerian cities, depriving listeners across the country of a popular source of national and international news. The ban on live relay broadcasts was imposed by the government’s radio and television regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), with effect from 1 April.

The media should assist in monitoring corruption and not leave the task to public prosecutors and law enforcement officers alone, chief Government spokesperson Mutale Nalumango has said. Mrs Nalumango said corruption did not respect national boundaries and as such the media had a crucial role to play in fighting the scourge which had deepened poverty around the globe.

African leaders are busy signing agreements with major US software companies, granting them long term monopolies in return for short term donations. They are proudly announcing short-term benefits but remaining silent about any long-term costs. Foreign corporations know well how important immediate benefits are to politicians and how difficult it is for them to resist such opportunities.

CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organisations, has released a study on the legislative frameworks and country practices that governs civil space in Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda. The study relates specifically to freedom of association, expression and assembly in these four countries, with a focus on the grave and worsening situation in Zimbabwe.

mGovlab provides top quality resources for Mobile Government Technologies and services. Here you will find among other things news, short articles, forums and a library of online documentation - all on mobile government.

Mobile Government is one of the new and important developments in e-government. The high rate of mobile phone penetration opens a new channel for governments to reach their citizens fast and provide timely information to them. The features of mobile technology to be accessible anywhere, anytime make that possible.

The structure as well as the struggles for the second phase of the WSIS summit process are slowly becoming clearer. One thing is clear: It will be more complex than the first round, as it has to deal with many more loose ends. WSIS 2003 only had to deliver two pieces of paper (the declaration of principles and the action plan). This left a lot of time for endless discussions, arm-twisting on wording, sorting out friends or foes in different arenas, and for civil society to start playing inside the official UN process. Now, the negotiators from Geneva will meet the real world. And as conflicts remain, the actors are positioning themselves for the second round.

This page, developed by University of Manchester's Institute for Development Policy and Management, offers technique for analysing the success and failure of e-government projects. A gap exists for all e-government projects between the design assumptions/requirements and the reality of the client public agency. The larger this gap between design and reality, the greater the risk that the project will fail.

Much of the success of better socio-economic development in emerging economies hinges on progressive policymaking, access to finance, a culture of change, and enabling infrastructure like ICTs. Within this context, micro-finance and ICTs play an important role in developing countries, and exploring mutual benefits and synergy between the two disciplines can yield promising dividends. There are two kinds of linkages between these sectors: the use of ICTs by micro-finance organisations on the one hand, and the use of microfinance models to enable broader access to ICTs on the other.

The government of Liberia has ordered the closure of the “Informer” newspaper. A statement issued and signed by Deputy Information Minister for Administration, Bernard Warity, explained that the paper was not registered with the Ministry of Information. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) regrets that after years of repression under the Taylor regime, the fate of the press in Liberia continues to depend on the disposition and benevolence of the government of the day.

Perhaps the most ambitious step so far in the use of Internet Radio was the launch of the Workers Independent News Service (WINS), which can be found on the web at http://www.laborradio.org. WINS is a great idea, but they've limited themselves to producing a daily three minute news summary and some features, and these are made available to "real" radio stations to be played to a large audience.

HDN has announced the re-launch of the Stop-TB eForum, to mark World TB Day 2004. Over the next few days, the first postings on the re-launched forum will provide on-site reports from the Stop-TB Partners Forum, taking place this week in New Delhi, India. Details will then be provided of structured discussions that are planned to take place on the forum in the coming months. To join the Stop-TB eForum, send an email to: [email protected]

Amnesty International is calling on the government of Burundi and the leaders of all current and former armed political groups to immediately cease the use and recruitment of child soldiers and genuinely engage in the demobilisation and reintegration of child soldiers. Military leaders have fuelled Burundi's 10-year armed conflict by recruiting and abducting children, destroying their childhood and jeopardizing their future Amnesty International stated in a new report entitled 'Burundi: Child soldiers - the challenge of demobilisation'.