The Ministry of Home Affairs has officially granted journalist Jenerali Twaha Ulimwengu citizenship by naturalisation. In 2001, in a move that shocked many, the government announced that Ulimwengu, a prominent journalist and chairperson of Habari Corporation Limited, and three other individuals had been stripped of their citizenship for allegedly failing to prove their parents' citizenship.

Judes Zossé, publication director of the private daily newspaper L'Hirondelle (The Swallow) in the Central African Republic (CAR), was sentenced today to six months in prison and fined 200,000 CFA francs (US$375). He was charged with "insulting the head of state." "This harsh sentence belies the CAR government's stated commitment to press freedom," said Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). "We call on authorities in CAR to release Judes Zossé immediately and unconditionally."

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) is inviting entries for the MISA John Manyarara Investigative Journalism Award. This award is in honour of retired Judge John Oliver Manyarara, the founding Chairperson of the MISA Trust Fund Board (TFB) (1994 -2000), who retired from the TFB on September 8, 2000.

AITEC GHANA, Ministry of Communications and Technology and Leaders in West African ICT industry will host The 8th West Africa ICT conference and Exhibition to facilitate a knowledge and information sharing platform on the future of ICT in West Africa and its developmental impact.

The publications co-ordinator serves as the editor of the African Security Review, the flagship quarterly journal of the ISS, and manages the production of all other ISS publications through outsourcing arrangements with typesetters, designers and printers.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria has launched PartnersGF - an online discussion forum which will provide an opportunity to communicate ideas and suggestions about how to improve the Global Fund at all levels. This forum is open to all organisations and individuals who wish to join. To join, send an email to [email protected].

The Constitutional Court has brought government in line for the second time in less than a week with regard to the treatment of foreigners. The court held that illegal immigrants were entitled to the same rights as South African citizens when visiting SA. Justice Yacoob overturned laws that allowed illegal immigrants entering the country by ship or aircraft to be detained for more than 30 days without a court order, adding that detainees could not be held under intolerable or inhumane circumstances. This ruling, and the one last week that social grants may no longer be limited to South African citizens, has placed obligations on the state to make special provisions for foreign nationals.

The African Women's Economic and Policy Network (AWEPON) is a network founded on the principle that women have the fundamental right to shape economic policies that impinge on their lives. It has partners several African countries and works with them to strengthen the capacity of women especially at the grass root and national levels to influence the shape of economic policy. Find out more information about Awepon and other organisations by reading the Femnet bulletin.

The Research on Knowledge Systems (RoKS) initiative of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation (www.rockfound.org) is launching a competition to support research on the social equity and public policy challenges of transformative technologies faced by developing countries. The focus is on how social equity and the human condition is being affected by emerging technologies, as well as on what mechanisms and learning processes are in place - or have been developed - to assist governments and public stakeholder groups engaged in the decision-making processes associated with these new technologies.

A report from Article 19 explores the right to freedom of information, and specifically the right to access information held by public authorities in Burkina Faso. It looks at existing legal and other obstacles to free access to information. It looks into recent human rights violations where "official reluctance to provide information has prevented those responsible from being held accountable, and has denied the victims' relatives the right to truth."

Two of the world's leading press freedom groups, the International Press Institute (IPI) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), have criticised the failure of the Ethiopian government to inform the domestic media, civil society and the international community of crucial amendments to the draft press law, as well as set out a transparent legislative process for the law. According to information provided to IPI and IFJ, the Ethiopian Minister of Information, Bereket Simon, indicated on 27 February that he intended to submit the draft press law to the Council of Ministers by 5 March. As a result, unless the newly amended law is provided for external comment, there will be no discussion of the law until the bill reaches parliament.

On 14 February 2004, the Tshikapa Tribunal's Prosecutor's Office requested a 12-month prison sentence with no parole against Roger Salomon Lulemba Kiabululu, a correspondent with the Kinshasa-based weekly "L'Eveil". Lulemba was earlier charged with "defamation" against diamond entrepreneur Shamwenze Mwahindji. Tshikapa is the second largest city in West Kasai province, in the Democratic Republic of Congo's central region. In its 3 October 2003 edition, "L'Eveil" newspaper published an article written by Lulemba in which he reported on a conflict in the village of Mutshima between soldiers in the pay of Mwahindji and a group of young people commonly referred to as the "red army". Mutshima is located 110 kilometres from Tshikapa, near the Angolan border.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has called on all national and local politicians to keep the promises they made concerning press freedom as part of the January 2003 Marcoussis Agreement aimed at ending the country's civil war. The organisation said journalists still face a climate of constant lawlessness and that despite advances in the national reconciliation process, arrests, threats and physical attacks on members of the press have not diminished.

The government-controlled media's professional timidity was glaringly evident during the week when ZBC failed to get President Mugabe to answer burning questions on matters of great national importance. The interview, "President Mugabe at 80", broadcast on ZTV and Spot FM on February 22 & 23 ironically left many questions unanswered, chief among them the issue of talks between the MDC and ZANU PF, says the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe in their latest newsletter.

There is no doubt that ICTs have become central to the development agenda debate globally. The academic community should be in the forefront of this. While in the developed world, much research on ICTs in development is taking place, very little of it is happening in Africa. Critical to this relative low level of engagement with the sector in Africa in particular is the poor state of ICT accessibility in most of the academic institutions of the continent. There is the need to strengthen interest in ICTs with the hope that the institutions and their researchers would be empowered to utilize them both as tools for research and administration, as well as a subject of research. This is the focus of the conference on ICTs in Education in Nigeria being organised by the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD).

UNDP and Ethiopia's ICT for Development Authority have delivered the first batch of 1,500 computers to the Ministry of Education as part of efforts to bring information and communications technology (ICT) to more than 160 high schools around the country. UNDP has provided US$3.5 million for the initiative and is seeking support from donors for an equal amount to enable all high schools to get online. Partners include the Ministry of Capacity Building and the Ministry of Education.

Two-day preliminary discussions on the process, content and themes of the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), to be held in Tunis, Tunisia from 16 to 18 November 2005, are due to start in the Tunisian capital. The informal meeting is organized by the Government of Tunisia and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in anticipation of the preparatory meeting agreed upon in Geneva on 12 December 2003 by the Heads of State and Government.

This report argues that Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries that have not sufficiently addressed the acquisition of scientific and technological knowledge must redouble their efforts with a strategy that begins with the popularisation of science and its application to development. It also argues that the key issue should be the empowerment of individuals and groups, to be able to use scientific knowledge and technological know-how to address problems like prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and other public health crises, food security and nutrition, high unemployment, drought, and water supply.

Schools in developing countries are beginning to get computers and access to the Internet. They are using them in teaching and administration; learners can also use them to become computer and Internet literate. This report evaluates the activities of SchoolNet Namibia and argues that programmes like this should aim to provide affordable access using open platforms, pay attention to longer term cost of ownership issues, leverage change through partnerships, work closely with governments, involve school principals and teachers, and seek to ensure that necessary capacities are developed in schools themselves.

The Eritrean government has denied soliciting for Nigerian mediation in its border conflict with neighbouring Ethiopia. In a statement, the Eritrean embassy in Nigeria said contrary to reports in the Nigerian daily, The Guardian, on 3 March, the Eritrean government had not sought any assistance from that country to intervene in the matter, because it regarded the April 2002 ruling of the boundary commission as "final and binding".