The controversial Media Commission Bill whose presentation was postponed a couple of times before, is expected to be finally tabled for debate before week ending May 3rd by honourable members at the National Assembly.

Three journalists charged with violating Zimbabwe's new media law by reporting false information have been released by a court in Harare.

Under the proposed media law, a vendor (in, say, Nyamira District) will have to establish (heaven knows how) that the publisher in Nairobi has, on that morning, posted two copies of the newspaper to the registrar before selling the newspaper or risk breaking the law and getting jailed or fined.

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

Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa).

Media Monitor reports on the situation of freedom of the press and the media in Nigeria. It is published weekly and circulated by the Independent Journalism Centre (IJC). It is a dialogical project. We expect that its contents will elicit reactions from its readers. You are encouraged to share your feelings with one another on its pages.

The persistent phenomenon of how the Western Media have continued to treat Africa negatively is as topical today as it was nearly two decades ago when many Africans and other aggrieved proponents campaigned for the adoption of a new world information order as the best corrective approach. I suggest, not in any new way or fresh revelations, that the problem about Western media reporting on Africa goes beyond professional inadequacies and structural bias. Socio-cultural factors have continued to account significantly for the stereotyping archetype, which has remained a hallmark of Western collection and dissemination of information about Africa.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on 30th April called on the speaker of the Gambian parliament, Sheriff Mustapha Dibba, to do everything he could to block passage of a new press bill that it said would seriously endanger press freedom.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed that Kenyan attorney general Amos Wako has reintroduced a repressive media bill in Parliament.

In a letter to Justice Minister Basile Senghor, RSF expressed concern following the sentencing of Mamadou Oumar Ndiaye, publication director of the Dakar-based weekly "Le Témoin". "While not wishing to comment on the facts of the case, RSF recalls that a prison sentence with no parole for 'defamation' is viewed by international human rights bodies as 'disproportionate' to the harm suffered by the victim," stated Robert Ménard, the organisation's secretary-general.

Because 120 journalists are still in prison around the world and because 31 journalists were murdered last year, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) continues to denounce those everywhere who attack the right to inform people. On 3 May, RSF will be celebrating the 12th International Press Freedom Day so as to alert public opinion to the need to stand up for press freedom and challenge public officials, international organisations and the media about their contribution to it.

ZANU PF militia based at Bulawayo's Nketa 8 Secondary School recently stripped a freelance journalist, Rodrick Mukumbira, and his pregnant wife naked. Mukumbira was accompanying his wife to a local ante-natal clinic for a routine check-up.

Newspapers throughout Africa have reacted angrily to the success of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of the French presidential election. None more so than in the North and West African nations where many French have their origins.

Nowhere is the war against terrorism being fought more fiercely than in the arena of language. The battle of words is an attempt to wrest power and supremacy. Take the recent decision by the United Nations to send a "fact-finding mission" to the beleaguered Palestinian town of Jenin to determine exactly what happened.

ZIMBABWE is one of 61 countries in the world without a free Press, according to the Annual Survey of Press Freedom 2002 released this week by an American civil liberties watchdog Freedom House. The survey, conducted in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States which raised fears of increased repression of the world’s media, found that slight gains were made in media freedom last year.

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Many will be eagerly awaiting news of Mark Shuttleworth's arrival at the space station. Shuttleworth will be the first African to have travelled into space. Read this article to find out where to get more news about his extra-terrestrial journey, and when to watch the skie for a glimpse of the space station while he is there.

Need to look up a word or technical term? An anagram? Academic reference? Try one of the following sites.

Here are some recent observations about the Google search engine from Tara Calaishan, author of the ResearchBuzz eNewsletter.

Dot Org Media is hosting an online discussion for all who work with databases and information managements. Read more...