A judge on 7th May dismissed charges of "abusing journalistic privileges" and "publishing false information" against Collin Chiwanza, reporter for the independent Daily News, citing lack of evidence. Chiwanza appeared in court with fellow Daily News journalist Lloyd Mudiwa and Andrew Meldrum, a U.S. citizen who is the Zimbabwe correspondent for the London-based The Guardian newspaper. Meanwhile, police on 6 May arrested Pius Wakatama, another Daily News journalist, at his home on the outskirts of the capital, Harare.

Your Excellency, we are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications in 100 countries, to express our serious concern at the passing of a media law that threatens freedom of the press. According to reports, on 2 May the National Assembly approved a draft law that provides for the creation of a commission to control the media. Under the law, the commission, whose chairman will be appointed by Your Excellency, will have the powers of a court and will be charged with licensing journalists and media organs and with adjudicating in complaints brought against journalists and the private media.

The Bretton Woods Project works as a networker, information-provider, media informant and watchdog to scrutinise and influence the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Through briefings, reports and the bimonthly digest Bretton Woods Update, it monitors projects, policy reforms and the overall management of the Bretton Woods institutions with special emphasis on environmental and social concerns. Created as an independent initiative by a group of British non-governmental organisations (NGOs), it works with an extensive network to press for increased transparency and civil society participation in World Bank and IMF policies and interventions. This includes over 4000 non-governmental organisations, policy-makers, journalists, researchers and parliamentarians worldwide. By encouraging information exchange and debate, it seeks to move the Bretton Woods institutions (World Bank and IMF) away from simplistic approaches to development.

This International Telecommunications Union (ITU) study, published in 2000, is one of a series. It provides an description of Uganda, the ICT status, Internet policy, and sectoral penetration in key sectors, including government and education.

Foreign correspondents in Zimbabwe have launched a challenge in the Supreme Court against a controversial media law which they say is unconstitutional. The journalists argue that the legislation, which was introduced in March, violates freedom of expression. A total of eight journalists have so far been charged under the law, which the government insists is necessary to tackle a collapse in journalistic standards.

Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned by the recent closure of The Analyst, an independent newspaper based in the capital, Monrovia. During the early morning hours of April 25, police shut down The Analyst and ransacked the publication's offices. According to an Associated Press (AP) report, Monrovia police chief Paul Mulbah said the ban was permanent and refused to give reasons for the closure. "The paper is closed and will not print again. This is a government order," Mulbah told the AP.

The Community Development Resource Association (CDRA) is offering the several five-day courses for organisational, programme and project leaders or managers of development organisations.

The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN condemns the prison sentences handed out to journalists Mamadou Oumar Ndiaye and Pape Ndiaye in April 2002 for "defamation" and "insult". Mamadou Oumar Ndiaye and Pape Ndiaye, publication director and reporter respectively with the Dakar-based weekly Le Témoin, were each sentenced to four months' imprisonment without parole and fined a total of three million CFA francs (approx. US$4,110). The verdict stemmed from a complaint lodged by Victor Cabrita, the director of the Sainte Marie de Hann Catholic school, following a September 2001 article in Le Témoin that alleged financial malpractice at the school. The article also included remarks made by union members to the effect that Cabrita was "a slave driver and a racist". The two journalists are appealing the judgment.

Take a look at this wish-list posted on Slashdot by someone who is proposing an online community of coders to write software for civil society. A mailing list has been set up already.

NISC's Gender Studies Database Collection has added the Men's Studies Database intended to help complete the spectrum of gender engaged scholarship inside and outside academia. Multidisciplinary coverage includes empirical and theoretical scholarship encompassing the issues of men's identity and experience.

South Africa's top companies contributed about R460 000 to an education trust which would help Andrew Babeile and other pupils to further their studies, announced former president Nelson Mandela.

Recently, someone called Matt Webb (can it be his real name?) wrote an add-on for the Instant Messaging (IM) clients AIM and MSN. You can now ask Google to search the web for you by sending an IM.

Programs crash, people make mistakes, networks grow and change. That's life, and computer scientists are finally building systems that can deal with it.

The National Union for Plastic Artists (UNAP) is planning to train Angolan journalists on arts and culture enabling them to make a better coverage of the local arts’ movement. A 3-months training is aimed at providing tools to specialized journalists both from the public and the private media, particularly those who are members of the Association of Cultural Journalists(AJC). “We are conscious that journalists may do a better job if given new and right tools on arts and culture”, said Antonio Tomas "Tona", Unap’s general secretary. “The unsuccessful coverage by the journalists on arts is perfectly understandable as throughout the years the headlines were about war”, he added. Tona believes that journalists need to learn some basic arts’ concepts. The Union will count on its own trainers to set up a special program for journalists in the coming days. It is not yet clear when the training will start.

The Research Ethics Training Curriculum, a teaching aid produced by Family Health International (FHI), presents basic ethics issues that must be considered when human participants are included in research. Designed for biomedical and social science researchers, the curriculum covers the foundations, principles, responsible conduct and oversight of research involving human participants. It includes a narrative, copies of overhead slides, case studies, pre- and post-test questionnaires, audience handouts, reprints of key ethical guide-lines, and various resources and references.

The American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIST), International Information Issues Special Interest Group, is pleased to announce its third competition for papers to be submitted for the 2002 Annual Meeting, November 18-21 2002, Philadelphia, PA. The theme of the paper is: "Knowledge, Connections and Communities: the developing world perspective." Deadline for submissions is July 31, 2002.

The mass media has been urged to act freely, independently and responsibly with a view to ensure basic freedoms, human rights and democratic practices all of which are the best guarantors of freedom. In a Joint message for the World Press Freedom Day commemorated world-wide on May 3, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Director-General of UNESCO and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said "The greatest service that the media can perform in the fight against terrorism is to act freely, independently an responsibly."

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) marks World Press Freedom Day by naming the world's worst places to be a journalist-10 places whose dangers and restrictions represent the full range of current threats to press freedom.

CONTROVERSY surrounds the impending closure of Joy TV, with some industry sources describing it as a paranoid move by ZBC aimed at silencing potentially dissenting views.

PRIME Minister Hage Geingob wants the Namibian media to help resurrect the N$3,3 billion Epupa hydropower plant plan, which he says has been "stalemated" due to opposition from environmentalists and the international media. Geingob made the appeal after visiting the Maguga Dam, a joint South African-Swaziland hydropower plant at Piggs Peak in northern Swaziland, during his three-day official visit to Swaziland.