The production of cell phones and computer chips is a factor in the Congolese civil war, which has killed 2.5 million people. What do we do when our appetite for technology leads to devastation?

A Call To Action: Media indifference leads to "skepticism, fatalism and paralysis," warns MediaChannel adviser Albina du Boisrouvray; AIDS (Un)Awareness: Media monitoring studies show how the press have politicized and distorted the issue in South Africa; The Media And The Epidemic: MediaChannel presents global
perspectives on media's role in this Special Report from November.

COVERAGE of events in the week highlighted the extent to which the state-controlled print and electronic media are now co-ordinating their output. They provided extensive coverage of the funeral of Defence Minister Moven Mahachi, and also similarly distorted interpretations of remarks by South African president, Thabo Mbeki, on the need for land reform. They both also censored his revelation that he and other senior ANC officials had met MDC officials. In the private Press during the week, The Daily News also attracted considerable attention, this time for exposing its own bias and professional incompetence.

The theme is Children and Development. It builds on drama's proven success in captivating audiences, particularly children and young people, and in informing and educating them.

More and more attention is being paid to government policy around internet user privacy (see the editorial above). This article by Dylan Tweney illustrates how important an issue this is.

Wondering what all the hype about open source software and Linux is about? This tutorial will introduce new Linux users to this free and secure operating system. New developments have made Linux more user-friendly. This step-by-step guide is especially geared towards people who are migrating from Windows to Linux.

The G8's Dot Force has reached the end of its deliberations and produced a strategy and a plan for action. Many in Africa held out great hopes of this initiative. But it's not clear how this strategy or its implementation plan
will be carried out. The USA is distancing itself from the initiative and any action is being seen as taken by individual countries. Russell Southwood looks at what's being proposed.

"President Muhammad Ibrahim Egal of Somaliland should immediately and unconditionally release former presidential candidate Suleiman Mohamed Adam,"Amnesty International reiterated today. Suleiman Mohamed Adam, 66, is considered by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, detained solely on account of his non-violent opinions and for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of expression and association.

A non governmental initiative to promote visual and eye health in Africa. One of the activities of this initiative is to disseminate optometry information to eye care staff through its newsletter in paper form. However, following
requests from eye care staff outside target region to have an access to this information we have made our newsletter online. For more information, visit our website.

Compelling stories from the Communications Initiative.

An overview of the latest developments in and applications of wireless technology, focusing on Wireless LAN and Bluetooth. Learn about connecting networks with small, cheap chips, bandwidth frequencies and no cables. Wireless is useful in urban areas only.

This project connects over 3.5 million students and teachers in 191 countries. The aim is skill-building and collaborative learning. The web site can be viewed in one of 6 languages, including Portugeuse and French. It features tools like instant translation, a world map generator, weather, chatrooms, ecards, moderated email and webmail and a searchable database of registered users.

A critical look at the advantages and disadvantages of Open Source Software. Should non-profits/ NGOs use open-source or not? This article also contains interesting links to other papers and online forums about open source, eg a previous Slashdot discussion. Recommended: the current discussion on this topic at the TechSoup web site. Follow the link below the article.

A course on Epidemology available on compact disks, updated in conjunction with Congress of Epidemiology 2001 in Toronto.

President Sam Nujoma has ordered a total ban on the purchase of The Namibian by the Government of the Republic of Namibia. This directive by the President has been issued hot on the heels of an earlier Cabinet decision to ban Government line ministries from advertising in the newspaper on grounds that it maintained an "anti-Government stance."

Society today is increasingly about information. Accurate and timely information is the new wealth, empowering decision-making and enabling action across the full range of society. In the nonprofit sector, the ability to collect, store, analyze and distribute information is a key component of building and maintaining civil society. Technology has enormous power to advance nonprofit missions. However, we believe that the majority of both nonprofit leaders and grantmakers have yet to embrace this fact and act on it. Our goals in this position paper are to help grantmakers understand that shift in attitude and to provide tools they can use to evaluate the information management portion of funding requests.

The latest issue of Dot Org continues the exploration of email newsletters for nonprofit organizations.

There's always something new, creative, and exciting in the wild world of biodiversity conservation. The Eco-Index includes scores of detailed project descriptions in its database, with more added every week and monthly updates via email.

The owner of Karora Printers, Kalera Mhango, and the editor of Malawi's independent 'Dispatch' newspaper, Martines Namingah, have been charged with "publishing false information likely to cause public fear and alarm", an offence they both denied having committed, local media reported on Tuesday.

News is one of the top reasons people go online. America Online's news director suggests what sites should do to build audiences and retain their integrity. Also: Will AOL's priorities destroy Time's journalism?