Seven-thousand Kwa-Masiza Hostel residents in Sebokeng have prepared for the possibility of eviction as negotiation with property owners is expected to be met with armed police, clearing the way for the hated Red Ants.

Norna Edwards, the editor of The Mirror, a Masvingo weekly newspaper, was arrested and charged for contravening Section 80 of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

Uganda's new Media Council says it will soon visit media organisations to vet the qualifications of journalists - and order the dismissal of those they deem under-qualified. The state wants staff without formal journalism qualifications barred from working in media houses.

The Daily News, Zimbabwe's leading daily paper has indicated that it would not register under the controversial law, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act but would instead fight the law in the courts.

The refusal of the publicly owned but state controlled Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) to broadcast paid adverts of a major opposition party, the National Rainbow Coalition, in the run up to the December 27 national elections, has been condemned by the organisation CREDO for Freedom of Expression and Associated Rights.

The last vestiges of the independent media in Zimbabwe face new pressure as the government prepares for next week's launch of a repressive new licensing system which will give it the power to close any newspaper and to stop any journalist working.

It is a fact that the rapid development and use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have had a direct and dramatic impact on all aspects of life. However, the pace at which the changes are taking place is unprecedented and there is a danger that 'the have and have-not' scenario of the industrial age will be replaced with 'the knows and knows-not' of the information age.

These insightful investigations into the policies, strategies and actions of the stakeholders involved in the African ICT policy-making process are the first in a series of research reports commissioned by the APC to investigate the current role of local civil society organisations (CSOs) in developing and strengthening ICT policy-making at a national level.

A reporter of Monrovia's independent Inquirer newspaper, Throble Suah, was allegedly flogged by five uniformed security personnel, reports the paper.

A recent court ruling ordering the removal of powerful cabinet minister Nicholas Biwott's name from a list of those implicated in ethnic clashes which rocked the country between 1992 and 1997 has raised questions regarding the independence of Kenya's judicial system, according to local analysts.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has deplored the failure to solve the murder of Norbert Zongo, publisher of the weekly paper "L'Indépendant", who was shot dead on a road in southern Burkina Faso on 13 December 1998.

“This system is taking us back to square one,” said Mvenda Masalas, an unemployed father of three fighting eviction from an inner city tenement in Johannesburg. He was among 150 poors, many of them already homeless, who marched on the offices of the provincial Minister of Housing last Saturday.

In the latest testimony in the trial of murdered journalist Carlos Cardosa, Mario Matola, who earlier admitted stealing the car used for Cardoso’s murder, has told the court his previous confession was false and that he had nothing to do with stealing the car. In the earlier statement, he said he worked with Anibalzinho (accused of organizing the killing, and now "escaped"), and that Anibalzinho made his living by trafficking in stolen cars between Mozambique and South Africa.

Attempts to legalize repression of the media through the enactment of blatantly unconstitutional laws were the worst developments faced by Zimbabwean media during 2002, says the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). In a report entitled 'State of the Media', MISA said laws had been used to arrest, intimidate and harass journalists and media workers. The full report is available by clicking on the link provided.

The translation of an eviction notice into the local languages has delayed the eviction of pastoralists who have illegally occupied wetlands in the Teso region, a wetlands monitoring officer, Francis Sabino Ogwal, said recently.

President Thabo Mbeki's SABC 2 interview last Thursday sounded like a highly over-rated Hallmark card. Key questions could have made this otherwise interesting interview more relevant to issues confronting the country, argues Mohau Pheko.

Chinese-American company UTStarcom has been steadily promoting the use of its wireless mobile product on the PHS standard on the continent. In terms of cost to the user, it falls somewhere between GSM and fixed line but is cheaper to set up.

Rebel authorities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) should immediately lift the ban on Radio Maendeleo, an independent radio station, Human Rights Watch says.

The purpose of this degree programme is to train and support future leaders in the field of human rights. A central objective of the course is to ensure that participants not only know but also can use human rights law. The curriculum places roughly equal emphasis on the substance of human rights law, strategic analysis of its implementation and research skills. The faculty is recruited globally and includes eminent human rights practitioners and scholars.

Geoff Brown and Tyrone Woods are on a unique cycling expedition. The Johannesburg-based AAA School of Advertising students arrived in town here on Tuesday en route to Cape Town to raise funds for burn victims. They began their journey at the Botswana border last month.