AFRICA

Festival of Media moves to Valencia
After two years in the city of Venice, the world's first global festival for the media industry has announced that it will be moving to a new city in 2009 - Valencia, Spain. The Festival of Media 2009 continues with its well-known “F” logo and will be held from 19-22 April 2009.


Uganda: NTV gets new advertising manager
Africa Broadcasting (U) Ltd, a subsidiary of Nation Media Group, has appointed Johnson Omolo as the new advertising manager for NTV.

SOUTH AFRICA

SA vlogger takes Highway Africa Digital Journalism award
[Simone Puterman] Khaya Dlanga, YouTube vlogger, Thoughtleader blogger and MetropolitanRepublic Johannesburg creative, has scooped the SABC-Highway Africa New Media Award in the Student/Individual category, it was announced last night, Tuesday, 9 September 2007, at the awards ceremony at the 1820 Settlers' Monument in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape. The other two winners were Nirmal Shah from Seychelles for Nature Seychelles (www.natureseychelles.org) in the Non-profit category and Togo's Noel Kokou Tadegnon for Sites Média (www.mediatogo.info) in the Corporate category.

AFRICA

Journalists important to Africa's digital revolution
[Professor Ndawonde] Grahamstown: Journalists should be at the frontline in advancing the digital revolution in Africa, Deputy Minister of Communications, Radhakrishna Roy Padayachie said on Monday, 8 September 2008.

Google backs $750m African internet project
Google has teamed up with John Malone, the media billionaire, and HSBC on a venture that will offer internet access to three billion people in Africa and other emerging markets as the US search engine continues to expand its presence across the web.

Africa tech conference on the cards
Latest developments in the broadcasting industry, such as mobile TV, interactive viewing and high-definition TV, will take centre stage at the Africa Media and Broadcasting Congress 2008, to be held in October.

ZIMBABWE

Zim journalists should lead efforts for 'fresh Start'
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists are calling for a new strategy to remove harsh media laws that have been used to intimidate and stifle independent journalism.

Developing countries struggle to give climate change coverage
[Adelia Saunders] An old man is dying. He calls his only daughter home to care for the family's farm. An educated and determined young woman, the daughter returns to find the land parched and infertile. Disputes are breaking out among the villagers. Cooking fuel is scarce. One family falls ill after burning poisonous plants.

Citizen journalism: some things will never change!
[Issa Sikiti da Silva] Despite the surge of technological innovations and its sexy gadgets doing wonders in the current media environment, spoiling us for choice, one thing that has not changed is the way we practice journalism, said Jovial Rantao, chairperson of the South African National Editors' Forum (SANEF) during his thought-provoking intervention yesterday, Monday, 8 September 2008, at Highway Africa 2008, currently taking place in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape.

ITNewsAfrica.com partners up with BlackBerry

click to enlarge

ITNewsAfrica.com and Blackberry are giving away the BlackBerry Curve 8310 smartphone, the smallest and lightest BlackBerry smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard. The publisher of ITNewAfrica.com, Abby Wakama, said the competition was the first phase in a growing relationship with RIM, makers of BlackBerry.

The competition is open to anyone who lives anywhere in Africa. To participate log onto ITNewsAfrica.com.

Schibsted's Aamot to give keynote at Beyond the Printed Word 2008
DARMSTADT: Kjell Aamot, CEO of Schibsted ASA, Scandinavian media group, will give the keynote address at the IFRA 16th World Digital Publishing Conference, Beyond the Printed Word that will take place in Hunagry, Budapest on 20 and 21 November 2008.

Government finally offers Air Malawi to Comair
[Gregory Gondwe] Malawi government has finally offered Comair 49% of Air Malawi after it snubbed the South African sky giant's bid to take over the airline in January 2008.

K300m hotel opens in Lilongwe
[Gregory Gondwe] Malawi's capital city of Lilongwe has added another hotel in its hospitality industry with the opening of a 48-room Pacific Hotel at the heart of the city centre.

SA, Mozambique to discuss aid request
Pretoria: Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota has departed for Mozambique to have talks with officials from the Mozambican Ministry of Defence on the aid it has requested from South Africa.