The Congress of South African Trade Unions deplores the attack by armed police on the press conference called by the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) on Friday 19 October. It condemns the assault on journalists and the attack on free speech that this incident represents.

The President’s official announcement that his government had “dumped” ESAP dominated Zimpapers and ZBC during the week, but none of them explained that government had effectively abandoned the policy years ago.

Amid the nationalistic furor sweeping the United States in wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, many government and private websites are yanking content that could be deemed unpatriotic or risky to national security.

An opinion piece in the Daily Trust based in Abuja, argues that "phony amendments" to the constitution of the Nigeria Union of Journalists are to blame for recent developments that "have tended to portray the union as one huge bunch of jokers and mediocrities."

The Education Development Center (EDC), a nonprofit organisation, is setting up a database of organisations that are working in the South, with each organisation providing information about its mission, achievements, plans and needs, as well as references. The database will be widely publicised to the public and to "giving" organisations, including foundations, government agencies, international organisations, etc. EDC is currently determining whether such a database would be of value to NGOs. One focus will be on organisations that are working on effective use of ICT for development. For further information, please contact Janice Brodman, Director, Center for Innovative Technologies EDC

Telecentres (or whatever else you might choose to call them) sit in the middle of most efforts to close Africa's digital divide. Their critics rightly ask what they deliver in terms of of benefits for users. Those familiar with them worry about the range of technical resources required to run them. Sheena Lutges reports from the sharp end on both of these issues.

A pilot project in South Africa is testing the use of wireless technology amongst rural doctors. The project aims to use this tool to provide improved health care.

More and more NGOs are realising that they have valuable information that can be shared by implementing an online database. This list of open-source scripts and resources for web-developers may prove useful.

Paris-based Reporters sans frontieres (RSF) has protested to the authorities in Niger against the sentencing of the publishing director of 'Le Canard Enchaine' to six months imprisonment for slander.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) will present its 2001 International Press Freedom Awards to four journalists from China, Zimbabwe, Argentina, and the West Bank who have defied death threats, braved bullets, and endured jail to report the news.

This article discusses recent strategic moves by the Regional African Satellite Communications Organisation(Rascom) to locate Internet data routing services in Africa. This would avoid payments to Europe of an annual bill of USD 400 million for intra-African traffic. This traffic has to travel via the northern continent at the moment. Implications for Africans are that service provision costs will be reduced and ISPs could open up using meter-wide, solar-powered satellite dishes.

This lecture, entitled "Activists and Spooks", presents information about about covert activities against activist groups. Interesting information about the Echelon and Carnivore intelligence-gathering systems is provided. From the Introduction:
"Activists worldwide are scrutinized by government agencies and corporate intelligence activities. Numerous organizations have been the object of surveillance and infiltration. These organizations include activist groups that advocate sabotage and violence. But most are peaceful organizations that do not advocate violence."
The article provides suggestions for dealing with surveillance and is appended by an extensive webliography.

The Digital Freedom Network (DFN) has produced this brief guide to using search engines in human rights research. The ability to find accurate information is essential to any form of research, and assuming that one can get Internet access, the only obstacle lies in the ability of the user to successfully navigate through the Web in order to find the desired information.

A wireless technology (co-invented by '30s vamp Hedy Lamarr) could offer Internet access for all and bust open broadcasting monopolies. But U.S. bureaucracy and bucks have stifled it for 60 years, writes Lisa Sousa.

Nigeria has won a significant victory in the high court in its efforts to recover more than $1bn of stolen money laundered through London banks by the family of its late military ruler Sani Abacha.

Who are the winners and losers in the ICT revolution? What are the likely consequences of the slow development of ICT infrastructure in many developing countries? As globalisation deepens, what have we learnt about the economic growth and poverty reduction potential of new information technologies?

The Scholars at Risk Network seeks a full-time project manager to develop the Student-to-Student Action Project (SSAP), a new initiative to assist students whose education has been interrupted by threats to their fundamental human rights. The project manager will be responsible for all aspects of the initiative, including (i) organizing participation of US students in campaigns for persecuted students, (ii) developing educational opportunities for refugee and other displaced students, (iii) developing advocacy projects related to threats to student leaders/activists, (iv) organizing conferences, lectures, and other awareness-building activities.

Review by Ann Bown, National President, Southern Africa Institute of Fundraising: The book is easy to read and yet approaches the topic in an academic and studious manner, which convinces the reader that there really is something professional and even scientific about fundraising and resource mobilisation. The time has come for the work to be taken as a serious occupation and not just an ad-hoc, happenstance activity of maybe the director or a volunteer board member – if non-profit organisations are really serious about staying in business then they had better purchase a copy, digest the facts, apply the methodology and appoint a fulltime fund development officer.

Jokes about the information superhighway aside, this does look like a rather interesting new concept. A brief article on iol.co.za provides the details about a new Japanese innovation: doing your email while you drive.

MySQL, the popular database programming language, has been upgraded to version 4.0.
At the moment it is only available in alpha, but the list of changes are available from the MySQL.com web site. This site will also provide morte information about SQL if you are interested in learning, and features links to discussions, help, tutorials, etc. There is also a discussion about the new version on .