JOHANNESBURG (FD for APCNews) - News reports from South Africa are shocking. Violence unseen in years was unleashed in the poorest districts of Johannesburg, a city where APC counts four of its member organisations and many staff. From neighbouring Pretoria, Tshepo Thlaku of member Ungana-Afrika decided to act, using what he knows best: technology. He started a group on the social networking website Facebook called South Africans Against Xenophobia, Racism & Tribalism. “The group is growing fast like wild fire and there is a number of people from NGOs and church groups sharing contacts and project ideas,” Tshepo declared.

HARARE (Muroro Dziruni for Connect Africa) - The wireless school connectivity project is an initiative that has connected a secondary school in a poor township of Harare to the internet, using wireless technologies. The genesis of this project was a result of the wireless skills training workshop, which took place in Pretoria, South Africa in 2005 and was facilitated by APC. Muroro Dziruni of Connect Africa in Zimbabwe tells the story of how wireless technology can work in Africa, when everyone joins in and cooperates.

JOHANNESBURG (FD for APCNews) - News reports from South Africa are shocking. Violence unseen in years was unleashed in the poorest districts of Johannesburg, a city where APC counts four of its member organisations and many staff. From neighbouring Pretoria, Tshepo Thlaku of member Ungana-Afrika decided to act, using what he knows best: technology. He started a group on the social networking website Facebook called South Africans Against Xenophobia, Racism & Tribalism. “The group is growing fast like wild fire and there is a number of people from NGOs and church groups sharing contacts and project ideas,” Tshepo declared.

KUALA LUMPUR (FD for APCNews) - The Association for Progressive Communications has been elected to the Global Knowledge Partnership’s executive committee on April 9 2008. In what has been the election with the highest turnout in GKP history, the APC network, along with four other groups, has been elected to join the committee for a duration of two years.

CAPE TOWN (Jennifer Radloff for APC-Africa-Women) - From now until June 2008, four organisations – including APC – are inviting applications for the third round of the GenARDIS small grants programme. A total of fifteen grants of 7 000 Euros will be given out to successful projects.

JOHANNESBURG (Natalie Brown for APCNews) - APC is supporting environmentalists’ calls to the South African National Committee of the IEC to vote against Clause 7 of IEC Standard 62368.
Clause 7 requires that large amounts of fire retardant chemicals be used in electronics production, despite the lack of reliable fire data showing a need for such chemicals. If passed, this clause will make it even more difficult and dangerous to recycle electronic waste, or e-waste, and may pose serious health risks to consumers.

LONDON (FD for APCNews) - A new online privacy and data protection consultancy firm called ‘80/20 Thinking’ is partnering with the internet rights network Association for Progressive Communications (APC) to support initiatives in developing countries that are working towards strengthening democratic processes and civil liberties.

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.

GENEVA (APCNews) - Meetings related to the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), on the one hand, and Internet Governance Forum consultations on the other, take place in Geneva in the second half of May. On May 23, APC in partnership with the Council of Europe and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe will hold a multi-stakeholder consultation: “Towards a code of good practice building on the principles of WSIS and the Aarhus Convention”.

KUALA LUMPUR (FD for APCNews) - The Association for Progressive Communications has been elected to the Global Knowledge Partnership’s executive committee on April 9 2008. In what has been the election with the highest turnout in GKP history, the APC network, along with four other groups, has been elected to join the committee for a duration of two years.

KUALA LUMPUR (FD for APCNews) - The Association for Progressive Communications has been elected to the Global Knowledge Partnership’s executive committee on April 9 2008. In what has been the election with the highest turnout in GKP history, the APC network, along with four other groups, has been elected to join the exective committee for a duration of two years.

STOCKHOLM (FD for APCNews) - Fantsuam Foundations community wireless internet network access project, ZittNet, has been selected a finalist in the Stockholm Challenge Award 2008.

KUALA LUMPUR (FD for APCNews) - The Association for Progressive Communications has been elected to the Global Knowledge Partnership’s executive committee on April 9 2008. In what has been the election with the highest turnout in GKP history, the APC network, along with four other groups have been elected to join the exective committee for a duration of two years.

MONTRéAL (FD for APCNews) - Fantsuam Foundations community wireless internet network access project, ZittNet, has been selected a finalist in the Stockholm Challenge Award 2008.

MONTEVIDEO (Natalia Uval for APCNews) - Mobile phones can be the way into the information society for lower income people and less developed regions. Some structural factors help: mobile phones do not require either electricity or special training and the costs of connectivity are much lower than those of landline telephones.

MINSK (Pavel P Antonov for APCNews) - Zelyonaya Set’s headquarters are no different from any other non governmental organisation (NGO) office in Central and Eastern Europe. Still, something is a little different here, where an online network for environmental groups is being set-up for Belarus.

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 (Javier Sola) - At a ceremony that took place last January, the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport presented a new information and communication technology (ICT) textbook that are to be used in all schools, universities and teacher training facilities in that country. The new textbook teaches the use of Khmer language free and open source applications, such as OpenOffice, Mekhala (Firefox) and Moyura (Thunderbird), which have been fully translated to Khmer language.

NEW YORK, UNITED STATES () - The United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UN GAID) has invited APC policy programme’s manager, Willie Currie, to participate in an ad-hoc group of experts on financing ICT for development (ICT4D). This group has been set up in preparation of the upcoming GAID Global Forum on Access and Connectivity in least developed countries and small island developing states in Asia-Pacific and innovative financing mechanisms for ICT4D, Malaysia, 18-20 May 2008 [link to UN GAID page].

OUAGADOUGOU (Ramata Soré) - The use of free software in West Africa would represent an opportunity to reduce the digital divide with the South. In this region, the low level of free software production goes hand in hand with marginal usage. Free software is present in certain businesses, in education, etc. but there is mistrust, as a result of the fact that free software is developed rapidly and is proliferating. It causes fear because there is a belief that “whatever is free is not of good quality”. IDLELO3, a panafrican conference on free software, will look at these questions and beliefs from March 16 to 20 2008 in Dakar, Senegal.

GENEVA (APC) - The first preparatory meeting for the next Internet Governance Forum (scheduled for December 2008 in India) was held in Geneva on 26 February 2008. APC issued a statement recommending the implementation of regional and national IGFs, using sustainable development as a key theme and advising on the format of working groups to address and follow up on key issues. APC also submitted a paper that identifies and documents the main areas of discussions and ‘recommendations’ that were generated under the access theme at the second IGF, held in Rio de Janeiro in November 2007.

SAN FRANCISCO (Labornet for APCNews) - LaborTech which holds a semi-annual international labor communication conference has issued a call for paper for the conference which will be held on December 4,5,6&7 at the University of San Francisco in San Francisco.

JOHANNESBURG (APCNews) - The APC stated its whole-hearted support of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) for the drafting of regulations prescribing a list of essential facilities for electronic communications which will create conditions of open access on a non-discriminatory basis to undersea-based submarine cables. APC also called on ICASA to take immediate action to counter anti-competitive behaviour of Telkom, the dominant fixed line operator. Read the full statement.

DHAKA (Ahmed Swapan Mahmud for APCNews) - A two-day training was held by VOICE on March 18th and 19th 2008 in Dhaka on information and communication technologies (ICTs). Online media and communication such as blogs and digital photography were expored. The creation, editing, optimisation and transferral of media for the web were of prime interest to the participants from non-profit organisations.

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