The US Internet Council State of the Internet Report 2000 finds that high connection costs, low incomes, poor infrastructure, illiteracy, lack of trained personnel, disinterest and a failure to understand the benefits of Internet access continue to slow the expansion of computer penetration and Internet use in Africa.

Read about IFPRI's recent work on: Thinking through Globalization; Mapping the World's Agricultural Land;Climbing out of Poverty in South Africa; and Agricultural Market Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Technology-driven innovation has for decades forced legislators to revisit intellectual property law. But in the past 12 months, Napster and its peer-to-peer brethren have made the distribution and protection of intellectual property in a digital world the most contentious legal debate in recent memory. As co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, professor Pamela Samuelson sits at the academic center of that discussion.

It sure was great while it lasted, the free Internet. Consumers could spend hours online, chatting, gathering information, all for next to nothing. Investors who bought Net stocks early even profited from the Internet–way back when tech stocks soared. Now the free ride is over. The Nasdaq crash has wrecked more than financial portfolios; it's also changed the Internet forever.

Jonathan Moyo, Zimbabwe's Minister of State in the President's Office responsible for Information and Publicity, has lost a court bid to prevent the 'Zimbabwe Independent' from publishing details of allegations of fraud at the Ford Foundation in Kenya, the 'Daily News' reported on Wednesday. Moyo was seeking a court order to prevent the weekly newspaper from reporting details of the proceedings against him in the Kenyan High Court.

The Civic Alliance for Social and Economic Progress (CASEP), a network of civic organisations working in a wide range of social sectors and representing hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans, condemns in the strongest terms the Broadcasting Services Act rushed through Parliament by Government on April 4th.

New website under development to promote open source software for use in developing country situations. We are launching at the end of May and are looking for software and other material like articles, links and case studies. If you are an open source developer, do you have any software you would like to post on the site, or links to software, pages and articles of relevance?

News, reports, resources and opinion. Featuring content from over 650 media-issues groups worldwide.

The aim of this list is to announce updates to our website and forthcoming events hosted by the Science, Technology and Innovation Program, a joint activity of the Center for International Development at Harvard University and the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.

Media Update # 2001/15 Monday 9 April to Sunday 15 April 2001.

The Africa Bureau's Office of Sustainable Development and the Global Bureau's Center for Human Capacity Development are pleased to announce the publication of the DHS EdData Education Profiles for Africa, a series of country education profiles that uses cross national comparable data from USAID's Demographic and Health Surveys. This first edition contains data for Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia. The data is used to characterize children's participation in primary and secondary schooling and adults' schooling attainment and literacy.

Public protests in South Africa and throughout the world have resulted at last in the shaming, humiliation, and climb-down of the unholy alliance of the pharmaceutical giants who thought they could prevent the South African government from ensuring that cheaper alternatives to brand drugs can be made available for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Had they gone ahead with their court challenge, these multinationals would have had to reveal their pricing policies, profit levels and extent of funding of research into anti-AIDS drugs. Clearly, they were reluctant to reveal such details, and decided not to proceed with the case.

This victory is important. It is a tribute to the outstanding campaign led by the South African Treatment Action Campaign. It is an illustration of that old saying - "Don't agonise - organise". Public protest can succeed against the might of the multinationals. It also shows that the deals quietly sown up at the World Trade Organisation in the interest of the multinationals can be challenged. The refusal of the South African government to be cowed by the WTO provides an important lesson for other third world governments. And it is a tribute to people living with HIV/AIDS who have refused to sit back as passive "patients", but shown the power of organising.

It is also, in a small way, an illustration of how the internet can be used for organising around socially useful programmes rather than being merely a tool for profiteering. The Kabissa-fahamu Newsletter was one of many electronic newsletters that helped to spread the word!

Clashes within the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) deepened yesterday as journalists intensified verbal assaults against each other over the issue of local media ownership.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. 20-21 April 2001. *Registration deadline extended to April 14* Science and technology is widely recognized as an important factor in the economic transformation of developing countries. Mobilizing this knowledge to meet the agricultural, health, communication and environmental needs of the poor has become of the most important issues in international relations. The workshop is part of an on-going effort to explore the linkages between science, technology and globalization.

This three-day series of seminars & workshops addresses key performance areas that will assist your nonprofit organization build and maintain a
realistic and effective fundraising programme.

May 16: Fundraising and Recent Legislation (The NPO Act, State Lotteries Act, Tax Reform)
May 17: Developing a Successful Fundraising Strategy
May 18: Finding the Money – Domestic & Foreign Sources of Funding
* Presenters: Judge Dennis Davis, Mary Honey, Leon Isaacson, Jetty Botes
* Contact: Joyce Gampel (Non-Profit Resource Training): TEL/FAX: +27 21 685 7726

COURSES COMING UP:
* Writing the Winning Funding Proposal (June 22 & 23 / Jill Ritchie)
* Coming to Grips with the National Qualifications Framework (July 28 / Suzanne Hattingh)

In Zimbabwe journalism is in crisis, and journalists are in danger: an in-depth report from the Media Channel.

According to Allafrica.com, the Mugabe government has begun to control Zimbabwe's media by tightening the flow of information ahead of presidential elections next year. It wants to speed through legislation in parliament aimed at controlling the dissemination of information and the conduct of journalists in executing their duties.

Ghana was amongst the first countries in Africa to get connected. Although it suffers from all the usual constraints on growth - especially the high costs of connectivity - it is estimated that around half a million people have access to the web in some form. Kwami Ahiabenu describes the development of Ghana's internet culture.

A public, unmoderated, open mailing list has been started to coordinate efforts of NGOs to steer back the USA administration to honoring its global responsibilities. Bycotting USA-products worldwide is the ultimate action that can be taken by ordinary citizens as well as governments. It may be the only
message the MBA-President George W. Bush can understand.

bYtES For aLL is a voluntary, unfunded venture. bYtES For aLL volunteers team includes: Frederick in Goa, Partha in Dhaka, Zubair in Islamabad, Archana in Goa, Zunaira in Karachi, Arun-Kumar in Darmstatd, Shivkumar in Mumbai, Sangeeta in Nepal, Daryl in Chicago and Gihan in Sri Lanka.