Farid Alilat, managing editor of the daily "Liberté", was arrested on October 7 at his newspaper's offices and brought before an Algiers court, where he was questioned for five hours about a column entitled "La fessée" ("The Spanking").The column, published on 21 August, was written by Hakim Laâlam of the daily "Le Soir d'Algérie", which was suspended at the time for having failed to pay its debts to the state printers. "Liberté" published the column as a gesture of solidarity.

A vigilante group attacked Cyril Zenda, a senior journalist with the "Financial Gazette" newspaper, on October 3, robbing him of
5000 Zimbabwe dollars (approx. US$6) and his mobile phone. Zenda told MISA-Zimbabwe that he was spotted by a vigilante group known as Chipangano when he disembarked from a bus at Harare's main bus terminus. He said the group pulled him to a secluded area and began interrogating him about the message on a MISA-Zimbabwe t-shirt he was wearing.

Following the gagging of The Daily News and its sister Sunday paper, The Standard and The Zimbabwe Independent have now clearly become the next targets of the Department of Information’s campaign to muzzle all alternative views under the pretext of “enforcing the law”. According to The Standard, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo and Media and Information Commission chairperson, Tafataona Mahoso, threatened to take action against the two papers, which Moyo described as the “running dogs of imperialism”. This is according to the latest edition of the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe weekly media update.

The African media had a bad week throughout the continent, as governments closed private radio stations and newspapers, and arrested editors, reporters and publishers in what press freedom organisations consider an effort to eliminate the free flow of information.

The latest edition contains the following: Missing files: fertile grounds for corruption; E-procurement: a means to fight corruption; Professional body to address corruption in supplies; E-government and access to information and Corruption news. Subscribe online at http://www.tikenya.org/newsletter.asp or by sending an email to [email protected]

The October edition of e-africa, the electronic journal of governance and innovation, contains the following articles: Peer Review: Who Owns the Process?; Cancun Crashed, Now What?; Becoming My Brother’s Keeper; Peer Review in Practice; How Should Civil Society Respond to Peer Review?; and The Harmful Effects Of Handouts in Africa. To subscribe, email your name, job title, organisation and country to [email protected] To unsubscribe, email to [email protected].

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. (Please note the change in dates from previous announcements.)

The Southern African Development Community has been urged to take action on threats to press freedom in the region, particularly in Zimbabwe. At a meeting with the SADC secretariat in Gaberone, the capital of Botswana, a Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) delegation raised concerns that the mandatory licensing of journalists could be open to abuse by governments.

OSISA is inviting organisations in Southern Africa to submit proposals and engage OSISA on effective proposal development. The call for proposals forms part of OSISA’s recently launched ICT Programme Guidelines.
Grants will be awarded on the following sub-categories:
- Advocacy Initiatives in the ICT area for policy development,
- Consortia Development in Knowledge Application and New Content
- Civic Networking and Community Information Systems
- Electronic Governance, E-Democracy and Cyber Liberties
For more information please contact Mr. A. Patel on email: [email protected] or tel: +27(011) 403-3414

In the course of 2002 the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) focused its energies primarily in two areas - strategic use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by civil society and engaging civil society in ICT policy processes.

Araya Tesfa Mariam, a journalist with the Amharic-language weekly newspaper "Itiop", was beaten up by unidentified individuals on 1 October 2003, while on his way home. He sustained very serious physical injuries and is receiving medical treatment at Addis Ababa's Menelik Hospital.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern over the continued imprisonment of Ibrahim Souley, the publication director of the private weekly "L'Enquêteur". Souley is expected to face trial on charges of spreading propaganda and "inciting ethnic hatred".

Government officials, as well as many in the scientific and technical community, are hailing the launch of a satellite, known as Nigersat 1, not only for its potential practical contributions to the country’s development objectives, but also as a symbol of its progress in science and technology. However others have criticised the government for investing between US$15 million and US$20 million in a 'grandiose project', which, they claim, will do little to address poverty.

Much emphasis has been placed on the need for the North to help bridge the 'digital divide' with the South. Equal emphasis is required on creating the conditions in the South that will allow individuals to exploit the full potential of information technology, says this www.scidev.net editorial.

Sixteen years after 36 communities were displaced for the construction of Shiroro Hydro-Electric Dam Station, the people are calling for proper compensation for their land. Speaking through the Gala-dima-Pogo village head, Alhaji Aliyu Dada, the affected communities said that the Federal Government and the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) - the owners of the dam - have neglected them since 1984 when they were moved from their land for the construction of the dam.

There is a new problem related to email that will long outlast the current debate over spamming. That's the sheer volume of email that people receive and actually want to read - but often don't have time for. In this situation conversations become meaningless and nobody knows what to do when or how. This article contains some basic tips for effective email use.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed deep concern over the criminal charges that have been brought against an editor from the "East African Standard", Kenya's oldest newspaper. The organisation is also concerned about the apparent pressure tactics used by Kenyan police to try to force the journalist and two of his colleagues to reveal their sources for an article in the newspaper's 28 September edition. On that date, the paper published leaked excerpts of confessions to the police by a suspected murderer of Crispin Odhiambo Mbai, who headed a key committee at Kenya's Constitutional Review Conference. The article reported that some of the suspects had accused a prominent politician in President Kibaki's governing coalition of having masterminded the murder.

Reporters Without Borders has called on the Tunisian government to stop its three-year campaign of harassment against journalist and human rights activist Néziha Rejiba ("Om Zied"), who has angered the authorities by material she has posted on the Internet and remarks she has made on foreign satellite TV stations.

Headlines in the latest edition of the Seatini bulletin include:
* African delegations leave Cancun with a sense of foreboding;
* No deal is better than a bad deal;
* Vijay Makhan speaks out on WTO;
* Editorial: A New Road Map for the WTO.
For more information and subscriptions, contact SEATINI, Takura House, 67-69 Union Avenue, Harare, Zimbabwe, Tel: +263 4 792681, Ext. 255 & 341, Tel/Fax: +263 4 251648, Fax: +263 4 788078, email: [email protected],Website: www.seatini.org

“C'mon people! Everywhere Zimbabweans are saying that they are too scared to do this or that because of this brutal regime. Stopping buying the Herald is a small sacrifice in the face of the trampling of freedom of expression in Zimbabwe. If newspapers register with the regime's media commission, the commission can then interfere in the content of the said registered paper. This is not acceptable.” This is an extract from an article on the Zvakwana website. To read the full article visit the website, where you can also subscribe to their website.