The Legal Resources Foundation have published this information in light of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act [Chapter 10:27] is now in operation. If you are a citizen of Zimbabwe or lawfully resident in this country, you have a right to examine, and to obtain copies of, certain documents and information kept or controlled by "public bodies".

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has recently launched an online Africa ICT Policy Monitor website aimed at providing a central easy-to-use, linked, African regional website containing essential national and regional ICT policy information for communication advocates to promote and use the right to communicate, and for civil society and especially to understand Internet Rights issues. The website is aimed at civil society organizations, NGOs, communications advocacy organisations, human rights workers, and civil society content providers. We believe that the service will also be of benefit to mainstream and alternative media, politicians, ICT policy makers, Internet users, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and the community radio sector.

AfroGreenVision, based in Canada, seeks representatives involved in sustainable development. AfroGreenVision's mission is to plant positive seeds of change, provide new perspectives and encourage Africans to embrace sustainable development. Their website includes dedicated sections for women, teachers and kids and the plan is to persue other projects related to sustainable development. AfroGreenVision would like to contact as many African organisations as possible to exchange links so Africans are aware of where they can get information on sustainable development. As indicated on their website, AfroGreenVision desires to get African representatives, and so will appreciate hearing from African organisations in Uganda that are involved in sustainable development.

This site was set up as a response to a call for a debate concerning setting up an African Network of those working on truth, justice and reconciliation issues in Africa. With discussion papers, message board and discussion lists.

GOVERNMENT has released a draft Communications Bill for comment from the public and interested organisations. The bill seeks to create an independent regulatory body for the telecommunications and broadcasting industries. The new body will replace the Namibian Communications Commission and will have jurisdiction over Telecom as well as broadcasting licences. It also attempts to make the work of the new body more transparent and accountable to the public.

Democratisation of Nigeria has suffered setbacks because the press has not set the proper agenda for its citizens. The Governor of Enugu State, Chief Chimaroke Nnami said in Abuja on Monday, while delivering a lecture to mark the 2002 press week of the Abuja council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) pointed out that it was strange that the press could fail or deliberately refuse to appreciate the enormity of the duty in bringing up the citizenry who have just emerged from a brutalising and crushing age of prolonged militisation.

Reporters Sans Frontieres and the association of independent press editors in Niger, ANEPI, have called for the release from detention of three media bosses accused of defamation by government officials. Publisher Abarad Mouddour of La Roue de l'histoire, and the private weekly's owner, Sanoussi Jackou, were arrested on 18 May after being accused of defamation by Niger's minister of trade, Seini Oumarou. Sanoussi also heads an opposition party. The third detainee, Abdoulaye Tiemogo, was arrested on 17 May, one week after conducting a radio show on the private Tambara FM. His guest, Jackou, had accused Prime Minister Hama Amadou of ethnic and regional bias in the nomination of high-ranking government officials, media sources said.

E kú àbò - learn where I'm talking from by visiting this web site, which offers greetings in over 800 earthling languages. The bottom of the page (it's long: hit Ctrl-end on your keyboard) has links to other phrases.

Google labs showcases a few of our favorite ideas that aren't quite ready for prime time. Your feedback can help us improve them. Please play with these prototypes and send your comments directly to the Googlers who developed them.

Vodacom Foundation has pledged a further R 500,000 to the Learning, Information and Knowledge Centre within Graduate School of Public and Development Management at Wits University.

At the meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Task Force proposed 3 initiatives to be piloted in Ghana.

About two thirds of all couples around the world - or some 650 million people - use some form of contraception, according to new statistics released by the United Nations. Worldwide, 62 per cent of the more than 1 billion married or 'in-union' women of reproductive age are using contraception, but there are great variations among regions. In Africa, only 25 per cent of married women use contraception, while in Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean that figure is between 66 and 69 per cent. These statistics are featured on a new wall chart entitled "World Contraceptive Use 2001," issued by the UN Population Division as part of its ongoing monitoring of world use of family planning.

The SLPP's Ahmad Tejan Kabbah has won Sierra Leone's presidential election, beating his nearest rival, Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People's Party. But the former rebels' party, the RUFP, won no parliamentary seats and its presidential candidate Alimamy Pallo Bangura won only 1.7 per cent of the vote.

Ms. Khaddijatou Baldeh, the Principal Education Officer at the Department of State for Education, and member of The Gambia Library and Information Service Association (GAMLISA), has stated that effective dissemination of information cannot be achieved if librarians and information workers are not equipped with necessary skills to transform and ensure access to, and efficient use of all available electronic information resources in the country.

Journalists have been disallowed from covering proceedings of a 15-member Christian Peace Committee probing the death of 14 worshippers in Enugu, South East Nigeria. At the resumed sitting of the committee led by Justice Anthony Aniagolu last week, evidence from two witnesses who appeared before it including the former Governor of Old Anambra State, Chief C.C. Onoh, were taken in camera.

The New York-based rights watchdog, Human Rights Watch (HRW), has called on the Eritrean government to free immediately nine journalists detained in September 2001 following the government's imposition of a ban on all private and independent publications in the country, HRW said in a press statement on Thursday.

Human Rights Watch on 11th May condemned Kenya's parliament for passing a new law aimed at government control of newspapers. The new law imposes exorbitant publishing fees that could handicap newspapers economically and silence new voices. Human Rights Watch urged President Daniel arap Moi not to sign the law into effect.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed its concern about a bill adopted by Kenyan MPs on 8 May 2002 and called on the head of State to ask the government to drop the bill, saying it was repressive and a "clear threat" to media diversity in Kenya. "It naturally discriminates in favour of richer newspapers and introduces an ambiance of intimidation at all levels of production," said RSF secretary-general Robert Ménard in a letter to President Daniel arap Moi.