News: Access to information

JOHANNESBURG (Asma Hassan for ACA2K) -

As the global community marked World Intellectual Property Day 2008, last 26th of April, an eight-country African research network was launched with a mandate to investigate the relationship between copyright and education in African countries.

MELBOURNE (Grant McHerron for apc.au) -

APC member apc.au releases ten years of essays, lectures, reports and articles dealing with information communication technologies for cultural development to celebrate Document Freedom Day 2008

NEW DELHI, INDIA (Anupama Saxena & Malathi Subramanian for APCNews) -

All of us are aware of the biggest maritime disaster the world has known: the sinking of the ‘unsinkable’ HMS Titanic. But what many of us may not be aware of is that the wireless operators on the Titanic had, in fact, received alerts from other ships about massive icebergs in the vicinity. But the operators, overworked with transmitting private messages of the ship’s wealthy passengers, failed to pass that vital information onto the bridge.

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA (The Associated Press) -

Increasingly, young, tech-savvy Cambodians are embracing blogs. The trend is changing their lives and their communication with people abroad — even as electricity remains an unreachable dream for most households in this poverty-ridden nation of 14 million. "This is a kind of cultural revolution now happening here in terms of self-expression," said Norbert Klein, of the Open Institute, a close APC partner.

ROME, ITALY (Brenda Zulu) -

Anriette Esterhuysen’s opener for the first "Web2fordev" conference taking place in Italy this week on video (the organisers have provided the video viewable in Internet Explorer only!).

LONDON, UK (APCNews) -

Balancing Act, one of Africa’s most important ICTD online media, has picked up on a feasiblity study carried out by APC member Alternatives for an internet backbone for the Democractic Republic of Congo that featured in APCNews earlier this month. "For all the difficulties in Eastern Congo, the DRC has seen a number of recent developments that will form the beginning of a backbone development plan for the country," writes Balancing Act. "Canadian NGO Alternatives launched its extremely detailed feasibility study for a backbone plan and the Government has begun to look at some of the issues that will need to be addressed if it is to be implemented."

GOA, INDIA (Frederick Noronha for APCNews) -

From ‘cyberprotests’ to debates about whether cyberspace can be controlled or censored. From studying the long history of the collaborative creation of knowledge to looking closely at the social impact of mobile communications. These themes are all the focus of new books that have been published in recent months.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (Katherine Walraven for APCNews for APCNews) -

In the former Ethiopian capital of Mekelle, the Mekelle Child Centered Forum (MCCF) reaches approximately 5,840 disadvantaged children, youth, and women living in the city. The winner of one of this year’s Harambee awards, MCCF will use its grant money to expand its reach of service towards its target of 20,000 individuals.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (KW for APCNews for APCNews) -

In releasing the list of successful applicants in one of its small grants initiatives, APC’s women programme in Africa injected some real-life into the Swahili word "harambee" in March 2007. DSI.ORG, a small non-profit located in the western Ugandan district of Kabarole, was one of six Harambee small grants winners. It’s recently created Diary Project, which assists boys from child-headed families affected by HIV/AIDS to cope with grief, stigma and discrimination, share experiences and knowledge, and work together.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (APCNews) -

It’s time to stop subsidising monopolies like Telkom, argues APC’s director Anriette Esterhuysen. That’s after Telkom told South Africa daily, the Financial Mail, that too much competition in the provision of international bandwidth in Africa could be bad for business.