Malawi's Chief Justice Lovemore Munlo adjourned to 11 April hearing of a case in which the Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) is challenging the constitutionality of Section 46 of the Penal Code. The section, which was amended by parliament in November 2010, empowers the Minister of Information to ban either importation or publication of materials which, according to the minister, are not in the public interest. MHRC took the matter to court arguing that the section was inconsistent with the Constitution and therefore invalid.

An editor who openly challenged the Prime Minister on government's tendencies to censor the state radio station, the Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Services (SBIS), was covertly told to resign if he was not happy with the government policy. Welile Dlamini, a long-time news editor of SBIS, had challenged the Prime Minister, Sibusiso Dlamini on why the station was told by government what and what not to broadcast. This was during a monthly breakfast meeting between editors and the PM, which is also attended by cabinet ministers.

Zambia has frozen LAP Green Network’s 75 per cent shares in Zamtel in conformity with the international community’s decision to freeze all assets belonging to Libya following the unrest in the Arab country, Zamtel managing director Hans Paulsen said in Lusaka on 15 April. The international community has been freezing some Libyan assets dotted across the globe. Mr Paulsen said Zamtel will not be affected by the new development and there is no need for customers to worry.

It is only months since the US diplomatic cables released by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks made headlines around the world with their revelations about Nigeria. Among them, allegations that Nigeria's government dropped legal action against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which is accused of running a clinical trial that killed and disabled children, after the drugs company threatened to investigate the attorney-general. But as voters head to the polls for presidential and regional elections, how many will be influenced by the material published over the last few months, and could such revelations bring about real change?

Work has begun to lay undersea communications cable along the coast of West Africa. The cable is set to give more Africans a fast internet access for the first time. The West Africa Cable System, known by its acronyms (WACS), runs 14,000 kilometres from London to South Africa.

Information, Society & Justice (ISJ) is producing a special issue with equal emphasis on ideas, policies and practice that can liberate bodies and minds from the imposed market solutions. The special issue of (ISJ) will also mark an international exchange of library staff and students during July-August 2011. You are invited to submit articles for consideration for publication in the December 2011 issue. Click on the link for more information.

Information for Change
Digital Publishing in West Africa: Technology and the future of the book

A free whole-day workshop at the Nigeria International Book Fair, Lagos, for all interested in information for social change

Wednesday 11 May 2011. 09.00-17.00 in the Book Fair Halls

Keynote Address from Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, Cassava Republic

Panel Speakers | Case Studies | World Cafe | Participation

Organised by Oxfam, IDRC, and CTA in collaboration with the Nigerian Publishers' Association and CODESRIA.

To register for the full-day FREE workshop, go to

Registration closes 4 May 2011

For more on the Information for Change workshops, visit www.informationforchange.org

Young people have the opportunity to play an active role in monitoring and documenting Nigeria's elections for the first time in history, thanks to social media. Rosemary Ajayi looks at how Nigerians are using their new tools to participate.

Mobile phones in Africa are increasingly being used as a media to get information and use value added services, according to the Mobile Internet in Africa report. Whether it's checking market prices, transferring money or simply checking the latest news, Facebook or Wikipedia, mobile phones are transforming life in Africa. Inevitably, the African mobile Internet market is due to explode. The number of mobile Internet subscribers in Africa has increased dramatically in the last 12-18 months, particularly in East Africa.

Robert Roth describes Haiti’s joy at the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide after seven years in exile, despite the ‘bitter taste’ left by country’s ‘dismal elections’. ‘So many, in and outside of Haiti, had worked for this moment. Not because Aristide is a savior or can solve all the problems in Haiti. This was a basic issue of justice and self-determination. A democratically elected president had been illegally removed from office and banished from his homeland – and the majority of Haitians never accepted his removal. They wanted him home.’

Authorities in the kingdom of Swaziland should allow the news media to report freely on anti-government protests, the Committee to Protect Journalists said after security forces harassed at least 10 local and international journalists covering a mass demonstration demanding political and economic reform after more than two decades of rule by King Mswati III. Police stopped reporter Niren Tolsi and photographer Lisa Skinner of the South African daily Mail & Guardian, confiscated their notebooks and Swazi contact books, and threatened to deport them if the journalists reported anything negative about the country or the king, Africa's last absolute monarch, Nic Dawes, the paper's editor-in-chief, told CPJ.

As scores of Eritreans drown trying to cross the Mediterranean in the hope of a better life in Europe, a new campaign is highlighting Italy’s complicity in the deaths of migrants, both through its support for dictator Iseyas Afewerki and through its agreements with Gaddafi to prevent the free movement of refugees across the sea.

A project in South Africa supports mathematics education in schools using the web, social networking and mobile apps to deliver learning material directly to students’ cell phones. Teachers can also use the content in their classroom lessons. Students can practise mathematics exercises from a cell phone at any time and receive immediate feedback, while teaching staff only need a two-day training course to learn how to use the new service.

These days there are dozens of online news websites focusing on Zimbabwe. However, many of them are produced in exile, sometimes making them vulnerable to inaccuracies. But a growing number of reputable websites are able to publish news that would otherwise be censored, providing a voice to the voiceless, writes Vladimir Mzaca on

Political opposition parties have tabled submissions calling for the scope of the Protection of Information Bill to be whittled down after progress on the legislation appeared to stall in recent months. In its document, the Democratic Alliance called for the scrapping of entire chapters of the bill, which is widely seen as a regressive bid to prevent scrutiny and criticism of the state.

An Egyptian military court has jailed a blogger for three years for criticising the armed forces, ruling the country since president Hosni Mubarak''s ouster in February. The verdict is likely to cause concern among Egypt's large network of bloggers who had hoped the overthrow of Mubarak in a popular uprising would usher in a new era of freedom of expression.

An Angolan journalist who was convicted for reporting on a local judge has been released on bail of $2,400. The Voice of America’s Armando Chicoca was sentenced on 3 March 2011, to one year in prison for criminal defamation against a judge in the coastal town of Namibe.

The popular uprisings in the middle east and north Africa have invigorated arguments about the power of new information and communication technologies (ICT), says Armine Ishkanian on 'The new tools and technologies certainly provide unprecedented means of connecting and coordinating. But there should be caution about reproducing technologically determinist and normative arguments which are often unsupported by strong empirical evidence or rigorous research,' Ishkanian cautions.

The course objective is to improve the capacity to inform and influence national and regional policies to improve pastoral livelihoods in East Africa, particularly on issues of access to and control over natural resources, livestock health and trade and regional and global integration.

Who should attend: Leaders of pastoral civil society groups, policy makers, including government and donors at local, regional and national levels, project staff, researchers, MPs and other key actors from the public and private sectors.

For more information on the course and fees, please contact the Course Administrator at
MS-Training Centre for Dev. Cooperation
P.O.Box 254, Arusha Tanzania
[email][email protected]

The Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) at the American University in Cairo (AUC) is offering the following three short courses during the month of June 2011:

1. Introduction to Refugee Law (June 5-9, 2011):
2. Meeting the Psychosocial Needs of Refugees (June 12-16, 2011):
3. Understanding Irregular Migration (June 19-23, 2011)