The successful applicant will provide leadership and guidance to Concern Programmes in North Sudan in achieving programme objectives through the design, application and management of information technology and knowledge assets. His/her duties will include report and proposal writing, information management, and strategic planning.

This is an invitation to join a new listserv that focuses on public-private partnership initiatives in the field of information and communication technologies (ICTs), with a particular emphasis on the economic and political dynamic usually referred to as 'development'. Following the growth of private-sector involvement in public infrastructure projects across the globe, corporate investments often have become a substitute for public funding formerly provided by intergovernmental agencies, international aid organizations, and governments. Usually considered in terms of a pooling of private and public resources, public-private partnerships aim at a cooperative provision of services and products to exploit synergy effects although they take many forms and adopt a variety of organizational, funding and governance structures. The listserv will 'go live' once an initial threshold of 50 subscribers has been reached. Online subscription will be enabled once this number has been reached. To subscribe, please contact Soenke Zehle ([email protected]) or Lisa McLaughlin ([email protected]).

Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) is pleased to announce that we are looking for qualified candidates to fill eleven new positions, one in our head office in Toronto and ten in our office in Ghana. These positions are a result of recent funding from Canada Corps, a new initiative of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Zimbabwean lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa is among the recipients of this year's International Press Freedom Awards by the Committee to Protect Journalists. The other recipients were journalists from Brazil, China and Uzbekistan. Zimbabwe has in recent years closed newspapers and introduced increasingly strict laws restricting the media.

This article looks at the possibility of taking advantage of SMS access in Africa to send requests for articles that would then be phoned back as a spoken version. "The user sends an SMS with the article title to a phone number. A few seconds later, they get a call on their cell phone with a spoken version of the article they requested."

The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned police harassment of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists' Association (EFJA), which criticized a government crackdown on the press after the opposition disputed the outcome of this year's elections. Four EFJA leaders reported this week to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in the capital, Addis Ababa, where they were questioned about the organization's activities when it was officially banned from late 2003 to the end of 2004. The Federal High Court has since ruled the ban illegal.

The African Editors Forum (TAEF) was formally launched in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, at the weekend, writes Bate Felix on www.journalism.co.za In a speech to mark the occasion, UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said editors had a crucial responsibility "in shaping both how Africa is portrayed to the world, and how world events are understood by Africans," adding that by coming together, the editors have shown utmost seriousness in tackling these questions.

Reporters Without Borders has voiced interest in statements by Sierra Leonean officials that President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah is at last ready to amend a criminal defamation law included in the Public Order Act, which dates back to colonial times. The law's victims include "For Di People" editor Paul Kamara, who was unjustly sentenced to four years in prison in October 2004. "There is an urgent need for improvement in Sierra Leone," the organisation said. "We would clearly be pleased if the country were finally to conform to democratic standards of press freedom by overhauling its retrograde legislation. To show goodwill and facilitate a calm start to talks, the authorities should begin by freeing Kamara from Pademba Road prison, where he has just completed the first year of his sentence."

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed shock and condemnation of a heavy-handed police crackdown that saw all Sud FM radio affiliates throughout the country shuttered on 17 October 2005. The stations' employees have also been arrested. At around 8:40 a.m. (local time) on 17 October, Sud FM's Dakar station was forcefully shut down by police, who proceeded to arrest all employees on site at the time. When reached by RSF, authorities at Dakar's central police headquarters refused comment.

A Zimbabwean failed asylum seeker has won his battle against deportation in a ruling that was seen as a crucial test case on this issue. The tribunal found that although the claim for asylum was unfounded, there was evidence that failed asylum seekers returning to Zimbabwe faced persecution. The Zimbabwean, who cannot be named, won his appeal on the basis that as a result of having claimed asylum in the UK in the first place, he had a "well-founded fear of persecution" if he returned to Zimbabwe.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a very useful guide for bloggers clarifying what one can and what one can't legally publish. Issues covered include Intellectual Property, Defamation and Privacy.

Journalists, human rights activists and opposition leaders took to the streets of the Togolese capital, Lome, on Wednesday to protest the recent beating of an editor of an opposition newspaper. “The government must open a serious investigation into this attack, to identify, try and punish those responsible,” Carlos Ketohou, president of Togo’s Journalists for Human Rights, said during the demonstration.

The arrest of David Ochami, a Kenyan journalist, by more than 10 policemen at the premises of Kenya Times Newspaper because of an opinion article he published in the paper was significant in two ways. It was the second major arrest of a journalist since Narc took power while it also confirmed that President Mwai Kibaki is on a downward spiral towards authoritarian dictatorship that his predecessor Daniel arap Moi spent 24 years perfecting.

With just six weeks to go before the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, a number of key issues remain unresolved, including the highly debated questions of Internet governance and civil society participation. The future of the Internet will now supposedly be decided at a meeting to be held in the Tunisian capital immediately prior to the Summit itself, which is taking place Nov. 16-18. Other matters also left pending will be addressed in coming weeks at meetings held in this same Swiss city, ahead of the gathering in Tunis.

After visiting Rwanda from 30 September to 6 October and meeting with detained Belgian priest Guy Theunis, the former editor of the Rwandan magazine Dialogue, Reporters Without Borders insisted the charges against him were politically motivated and baseless and reiterated its call for his immediate release. The press freedom organisation also reported that Father Theunis was cheerful and in good health, and the conditions in which he was being held in Kigali's main prison were acceptable.

Like many African countries in the 1990s, Zambia experienced drastic political, social and economic changes. In response to these changes, Zambia embarked on a market driven economy that has seen the privatisation of most state enterprises. These changes have proliferated in the media industry as well. However, instead of privatising state media, the government liberalised the airwaves, allowing new players to enter the media terrain. This resulted in the mushrooming of many community-based radio broadcasting stations.

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) - Tanzania chapter is concerned about the suspension of local NGO HakiElimu for allegedly "disparaging the image of our education system and the teaching profession of our country through his media promotion of self created caricatures masquerading as teachers and pupils and has repeatedly failed to conform with directives given to him by the Ministry of Education and Culture both in writing and verbally".

Last weekend, a petition signed and formulated over SMS and Email was presented to over 40 representatives from the African Union Commission, African governments and the African women’s movement, which convened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the Conference On The Protocol On the Rights of Women. The petition was in support of a campaign that urges African governments to ratify the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. The petition has over 3,615 signatures, 468 of which where submitted using SMS. 15 countries need to ratify the treaty in order for it to take effect. To date only 13 have signed. The organization behind the SMS petition is Fahamu (which means understanding or consciousness Swahili), an English & South African based organization that promotes the use of information communication technology to support the struggle for social justice in Africa.

Open source software is locally relevant, globally competitive and can make good business sense. That was the message from some of South Africa's top open source pioneers at the African Computing & Telecommunications Summit in Johannesburg on October 4, reports www.tectonic.co.za. Head of the CSIR Open Source Centre, Nhlanhla Mabaso said projects such as the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA), the East African Centre for Open Source Software, Africa Source and LinuxChix Africa, were advancing the development of open source in Africa.

This conference will focus specifically on a wide range of new and practical information, communication and technology (ICT) services, solutions and applications relevant to the work of civil society organisations in Southern Africa.