Joe Lowry has got more gadgets than someone in the new media industry. He has a digital camera, a digital video camera, a laptop, a mobile phone and a PDA. The difference is that Joe Lowry is based in Cote D'Ivoire, West Africa, as the regional information delegate for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. And he's using technology to help coordinate humanitarian aid.

The United Nations has taken a major step toward bridging the digital divide with the adoption, by the General Assembly, of a resolution which welcomes the organisation of the World Summit on the Information Society. The summit is expected to promote access by all countries to information, knowledge and communications technologies for development.

The Urhobo Historical Society site offers basic information about the Urhobo Peoples of Southern Nigeria. This site was designed and constructed by Peter P. Ekeh, Ph.D. of the State University of New York at Buffalo, and it includes general information regarding Urhobo history, economy, political systems, and religion. In addition, the site offers a glimpse of various Urhobo art forms - paintings, sculptures, literature, poetry, and music.

The Contemporary Africa Database, according to its about page, will eventually be in three parts - a database of prominent Africans, a collection of information about African institutions, and a timeline of African chronology.

In partnership with MediaChannel affiliates engaged with media issues in the region, we are proud to announce MediaChannel: Africa. This project will launch in early 2002 to provide media-makers with opportunities for collaboration, information sharing, global exposure and local and international support. It will be a vital resource for analyzing the impact of the media on Africa's institutions and communities. We welcome your participation in this new project. Please join our discussions in the Forum.

In mid-December, the FBI made a startling announcement that received scant attention. A spokesman for the bureau acknowledged it was developing a controversial Internet spying software -- codenamed Magic Lantern -- that supposedly can surreptitiously enter an individual's personal computer, record every keystroke, and zap all this data back to the G-men and G-women.

Languages are today being killed at a much faster rate than ever before in human history and linguistic diversity disappears more rapidly than biological diversity. Yet, linguistic diversity is as necessary for the sustainability of our planet as is biological diversity. There is an interesting correlation: the areas in the world with the highest biodiversity also have more linguistic density and the loss of language also implies the loss of environmental knowledge.

The year 2001 turned out to be a dismal and even deadly year for the freedom of journalists in many countries to pursue their work unhindered by threats or censorship, according to the latest annual report from the Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

This online resource may help you locate the information you need about the free operating system, Linux. It's a Yahoo! style directory of applications, installation & configuration, hardware & peripherals, networking, system administration, etc.

Senegalese witnessed in August the launch of an original concept in Internet and multimedia popularization, the Joko Clubs. The project is the brainchild of famous singer and composer Youssou N'Dour who surrounded himself with a very capable team to pull this technological and social experiment feat.

Online interaction can be tough. For some of us it is challenging to engage in sustained, thoughtful interchanges in asynchronous (different time) online interactions. Between the lag time from response to response and the flat textual environment, the spark can fade. Some of us get lost wading through pages of text. Others read and then go offline to reflect, only to come back and feel it is "too late" to add a comment.

The family of Nigeria's former military ruler, General Sani Abacha, was forced to return to the government $148 million out of billions stolen when he was in power, AFP and Reuters cited the government as saying.

If the ICTR archives are ever revisited, the hearing of witness TA will stand out as a disgraceful moment in the court's history. For two weeks, from October 24 to November 8, 2001, the woman recounted the multiple rapes of which she was a victim during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Her testimony directly implicates Arsène Shalom Ntahobali and also includes accusations against his mother, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, and "the prefect." After one-and-a half days of questioning by the prosecutor, which amounted to almost 100 pages of transcripts, she was forced to undergo seven days of cross-examination by the various defence lawyers in the Butare trial, in which six people stand accused.

The southern African media was among the most challenged of any African media last year by heavy-handed governments, regional analysts and senior journalists told IRIN.

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The African Conservation Tillage Network (ACT) consists of practitioners and promoters who believe the adaptation and adoption of conservation tillage principles is a cost effective method of reducing and reversing the environmental degradation and food insecurity devastating Africa. ACT NOW! is ACT's electronic update on events and findings which may assist accelerate this process.

Governance resources available now online, which feed into the Montreal International Governance Meeting.