Reporters Without Borders has said it was “worried and exasperated” about the continuing threats against the members of Journalist in Danger (JED), its partner organisation in Democratic Republic of Congo, who have to endure a constant climate of fear and danger.

Reporters Without Borders has voiced deep concern about the future of press freedom and independent journalists in Rwanda after studying the very disturbing comments made by four government ministers, another senior official and two members of the security forces during a programme broadcast by the state-owned media on 9 September.

One of the millions of victims of Robert Mugabe’s chaotic campaign to forcibly clear slum areas across the country has been found dead at her make shift home, in Harare’s high-density suburb of Mbare. Sources in Zimbabwe’s capital said Wednesday that a middle-aged woman had been found dead by her neighbours in a wood-and-plastic shack she has been calling home since the Mugabe regime destroyed her’s in 2005. The cause of the death is not known.

Delegates at the China-Africa Media Conference of the Fourth Press Seminar for African Officials in Chengdu have proposed setting up a network to facilitate the exchange of information between China and African countries. The relationship between China and African countries has developed significantly in recent years, marked by the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held last year.

The civil society is piling pressure on Parliament to pass a law guaranteeing public access to official information, the Daily Nation has reported. Fifteen non-governmental organisations have started collecting signatures from the public to append on a petition to be presented to Parliament. They argue the Freedom of Information Bill 2007 had been pending in Parliament for too long and should be passed before President Kibaki dissolves the House.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the authorities of the Democratic Republic of Congo to release Noëlla Mwambikwa, a journalist with Congolese National Radio and Television station (RTNC), who has been detained since her arrest by army intelligence on Tuesday for alleged links with a rebel leader.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged the government of Zimbabwe to put and end to the ongoing crackdown on the media in the wake of increasing attacks on media professionals and the enactment of a draconian communication bill that could lead to monitoring of journalists' communications.

I am reading with delight the article by Issa Shivji on the Silences in NGO discourse and it is a brilliant pieces of work.

However, I feel that we tend to be caught in the same web of silence through our communication. Reading this document I strongly get convince that we are not talking to the people who matter in making things change. We continue talking to the CSO bureaucrats, government, academicians and the same donors who want to perpetuate the silence in the NGO discourse..... (OOPS! I am even doing it now!)

We need to communicate our views to the people and in a language they understand....We need to translate these articles haraka sana in Kiswahili and make them accessible to the wider public in East Africa. I know Issa may have written some in the Kiswahili papers in Tanzania, but we need to move beyond and make people interested in our analysis.

The West African Editors Forum (WAEF) has learnt that the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has filed a suit against three independent newspapers in Niger. The weeklies Le Canard Déchaîné and L’Evénement, as well as the bi-monthly Action, are being accused of “defamation” and “publication of false news that could undermine the honour of the leader”.

The Africancolours Artists’ Association (AAA), sponsored by the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust (CFoZT) will be conducting visual arts seminars around the country starting in Harare on 17th of September 2007 at the National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe. The main objective of the seminars is to encourage the country’s visual artists to use the various forms of Information Technology around to publicize their work to a global audience and help contribute to the growth of the country’s culture sector.

A 'Center for Commercial and Agricultural Information' (PICA) for the collection and the publication of price lists via the internet has been launched in Togo to enable farmers and traders to interact over prices and availability of products.of the products by ICT. The center is equipped with computer and Internet facilities with a web page with a strong integration of data and mobile technology.

Since its launch last year in December SW Radio Africa has become an alternative source of news and information using the short message sending (SMS) system directly to mobile phones. With many Zimbabweans struggling to get basic commodities from the shops, the short message sending system allows them to get news at any given time without having to peruse a newspaper or go to the internet.

Daniel Mashao, the chief technology officer at Sita (the South African State Information Technology Agency), has announced the launch of the government-wide free and open source programme at the GovTech conference. While many welcomed the February announcement of government's intention to adopt and promote open source software, the subsequent months saw disillusionment within the open source community that very little had actually happened.

The King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, has been scolded on press freedom violations since he took over the kingdom from his father. At a news conference in Casablanca, the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) Secretary General, Robert Ménard, told King Mohammed to understand that “one is free to comment.” he news conference was held to raise concern about the decline in press freedom in the run-up to the 7 September legislative elections. It was a follow up to a letter the RSF chief wrote to King Mohammed on 27 August.

The populations of the rural areas where telecentres exist are not sensitised enough on the importance of such technology. The multipurpose community telecentres is an infrastructure which offers telecommunication services, computer science, audiovisual and Internet services from a terminal or terminals given to a community to enable them communicate at a cheaper rate. The telecentres are associated with proximity community services. However, the existence of the multipurpose community telecentres still remains a farce for many Cameroonians, argues Kelvin Chibomba.

Scour the Net and you're sure to be deafened by a mushrooming of sites dedicated to a novel megaphone in the media world: Citizen Journalism. This advocacy tool is rapidly changing the media landscape and its potential in enabling ordinary citizens to evolve into shapers of news has been seized upon by Hivos (Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries) and SANGONet (South African NGO Network). Together they have launched the Citizen Journalism in Africa project.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has applauded Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki for rejecting a media bill that could have required reporters to reveal their sources in court. "We applaud President Kibaki's decision, which acknowledges that protection of confidential sources is a cornerstone of press freedom

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the shooting of a Somali radio journalist – the seventh killing this year - and reiterated calls for international action over the crisis in Somalia where reporters have become prime targets in spreading violence.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the dismissal of eight journalists at Congolese newspaper L’Avenir after the management said they had to cut jobs due to economic concerns and then subsequently advertised for new workers to replace them.

A new campaign, South Africa First, was launched at the GovTech 2007 conference in Cape Town with the aim of encouraging both the public and private sector to make more use of local content when spending on information technology (IT). An initiative of the SA Local Procurement Advocacy Trust, focusing initially on the IT sector, South Africa First seeks to ensure that local businesses benefit from an estimated R1-billion a week spend on products and services in SA as a result of the country's economic boom.