AFRICA

2010 a catalyst to strengthen relations between Africans
[Michael Appel] The 2010 FIFA World Cup must unify and strengthen the relations between ordinary Africans from across the continent, says government spokesperson, Themba Maseko. Maseko was speaking at the 2010 National Communications Partnership on Wednesday, 30 July 2008.

UGANDA

Celtel Uganda changes brand name to Zain
[Walter Wafula] Zain last week officially became the new brand name of pan-Africa telecommunication company Celtel International, as its parent company, Zain Group, seeks to fortify its African market and give it a global face. Zain is an Arabic word for beautiful, good and wonderful.

MCI continues its penetration up into Africa
MCI Consultants, distributor for the IBM Cognos TM1 product in South Africa, today announced that Banco Commercial Angolano in Angola had embraced TM1 as its management reporting tool. Angola is the latest in a string of the other African Barclays operations that are using the TM1 tool.

GHANA

Ghana to benefit from Africa's largest technology park
The non-profit group, Life for Africa will establish the continent's largest technology park in Ghana.


Kibaki roots for ICT investment
Kenya is investing heavily in information and communication technology (ICT) to build the infrastructure it needs to become a regional communication hub, President Kibaki has said.

Missed payment for IM Software could leave traders in the lurch
Reuters Messaging Network is a tool used by financial traders to help them meet the strict compliance and record-keeping standards under which they work. However, starting Friday, that service could be hobbled due to a complaint by FaceTime, the company that owns the intellectual property behind the network. Apparently, Reuters neglected to pay a $150,000 bill on time.

Virtualization for the African Enterprise
As virtualization picks up traction across the globe, companies like Sun Microsystems and VMware stand to gain, and Microsoft stands to lose.

AFRICA

Women serving Africa
With the world's attention turning to women's issues in August, it is an opportune to time to recognise and celebrate the contributions of women to the development of Africa. In light of this, the Foundation for the Development Africa (FDA) has launched an exciting women development programme and appointed Ina le Roux as director of Women Development.


Ethiopian minister, UNISA sign agreement on PhD programme
Addis Ababa: Ethiopia's Ministry of Education and the University of South Africa (UNISA) on Wednesday signed an agreement that will enable the latter to launch PhD programmes through videoconferencing.

In Africa, Scrabble is a serious matter
Dakar: To compete in the Scrabble competition, 32-year-old Elisee Poka spent five days in a bus traversing Africa's potholed roads. His competitors from France arrived by plane.


Knight's 2009 scholarships for Rhodes University's Media Leadership Institute
The Sol Plaatje Institute for Media Leadership (SPI) at Rhodes University's School of Journalism and Media Studies invites applications for three scholarships from Southern African students who wish to register for the SPI's Postgraduate Diploma in Media Management (PDMM) in 2009.

Six African acts signed for the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz
The African Diaspora is to be showcased at this year's Standard Bank Joy of Jazz in Newtown at the end of August. Representing artists from Zimbabwe, Botswana, Kenya, the DRC and Swaziland, the African line-up will be joined by top performers from South Africa, the US, Japan, Norway, Spain, Israel, Germany and Holland.

African Vibes magazine to launch digital edition
African Vibes Communications Inc will be launching the digital edition of its flagship publication, African Vibes magazine, with a free special digital issue of the magazine.

IFJ and IPI call for inquiry into journalists death
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the International Press Institute (IPI) are calling for an inquiry into the death of London "Times" photojournalist Richard Mills of Northern Ireland, found dead in his hotel room in Harare on 14 July and declared by the police to be the victim of asphyxiation by hanging.


Media blackout alarms journalists
Zimbabwe's independent media say it is in no one's interests for crucial talks to take place out of the public eye.

Media21 Global Journalism Network offers global media workshop
Experienced journalists are invited to apply for Media21 Global Journalism Network's global issues media workshop, which will focus on the challenges of migration in the 21st century from 24 November to 7 December 2008.

WEST AFRICA

Senegal ruling party calls for anti-media campaign
Dakar: Senegal's ruling party wants to crack down on media critical of the government by blocking advertising revenues, checking they pay their taxes and urging supporters to cancel subscriptions to newspapers.

NIGERIA

1st Africa Media Literacy Conference
The Youth Media and Communication Initiative (YMCI) in collaboration with the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) and the British Council, Nigeria, began its first Africa Media Literacy Conference yesterday, 29 July 2008.

Zain connects Africa to Middle East
[Walter Wafula] Mobile telecommunications company Zain formerly known as Celtel in Africa has eliminated roaming charges incurred by its subscribers when making calls between Africa and the Middle East.


TNM Mobile Company introduces free communication promotion
[Gregory Gondwe] While Celtel Malawi Limited is gearing up for brand name changes, its rival company TNM Limited has launched a promotion that will allow its subscribers make free calls from July 30 to August 31 this year.

Take aim for celebrity and fame
Oscar-nominated film director Mike Figgis and Sony Ericsson are inviting anyone who wants to showcase their life to submit a storyboard consisting of five mobile phone snapshots in a competition which celebrates the launch of the Sony Ericsson C902 Cyber-shot.


Malawi: MACRA unveils bidders for 4th mobile licence
[Gregory Gondwe] Barely a few days after awarding a third mobile cellular services licence to Global Advanced Integrated Networks Limited (GAIN), the Malawi Communication Regulatory Authority (MACRA) has unveiled six bidders for a fourth mobile service provider.

NORTH AFRICA

Sudan: Authorities block YouTube
On 29 July 2008, ANHRI denounced the government's decision to block the YouTube website. Since 22 July, internet users in Sudan have been unable to access the site, instead receiving an error message stating that the site was blocked by the National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC).

Link Research appoints Advanced Media its distributor in UAE
Advanced Media, a major supplier of video equipment and accessories in the UAE, Middle East and Africa, has been appointed by Link Research as its UAE distributor. The company supplies professional video equipment and accessories and delivers solutions for broadcast production, post-production, studios and TV stations.

Changing Lives: Making research real
Journalists love 'human interest' stories - because audiences love them. But finding the human interest stories in long-term research programmes is often rather tricky.

ZIMBABWE

Zimbabwe: Govt calls emergency meeting as prices skyrocket
[Dumisani Ndlela] Government, today moved swiftly to curtail a rapid escalation of prices which threatened to erode the embattled new currency introduced on Friday.

New Delhi: Govt may allow exports of non-basmati rice to Africa
With the area under paddy cultivation increasing, the government is mulling at allowing exports of about three million tonnes of non-basmati rice to African countries after November.

ADB to double funds for Malawi
[Gregory Gondwe] African Development Bank Group (ADB) President Dr. Donald Kaberuka who has been visiting Malawi since earlier this week, has announced that the bank will be doubling its financial assistance to Malawi.

ZIMBABWE

Zimbabwe: Banks move towards automating payments system
[Dumisani Ndlela] Zimbabwe' banks have moved significantly towards automating the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system, as the sector sought to curtail delays associated with manual and human intervention.

Fina Bank to promote free flow of East Africans
[Walter Wafula] Fina Bank, a newly licenced commercial bank in Uganda, is set to encourage the movement of workers amongst East African countries, to facilitate the transfer of skills among members of the community.


Zimbabwe: Children follow shoppers to South Africa
Musina: Zimbabwean children are being drawn to South Africa to run errands and perform piecemeal jobs for shoppers from their own country - who are heading south because of the unavailability of basic goods in their own country.


Guinea-Bissau: Fishermen turn to trafficking as fish profits drop
Bubaque: As the profits to be made from fishing diminish with rising fuel costs and poor management of the sector, fishermen are increasingly turning to drugs and people trafficking to boost their meagre incomes, fishermen in Bissau and the Bijagos islands told IRIN.


Social Security Fund doubles savers' interest rate
[Walter Wafula] Uganda's National Social Security Fund has doubled the annual interest rate at which it pays its members, to 14% in a bid to reward them with the fund's enormous profit.

South Africa-Zimbabwe: Sex for soap, salt and sugar
The border between South Africa and Zimbabwe is more than an international boundary; it also determines the method of payment for sex workers, because on one side cash is taken, while on the other, goods are bartered.

Calls to reduce taxes and controls on food aid
The World Food Programme (WFP) has welcomed a call by the World Bank for a UN resolution to scrap taxes and export controls on food aid purchases, but experts say there is little chance of such a resolution being effected.

Meet Wally - The Heart and Stroke Foundation SA
Less than two weeks after his 52nd birthday, a Gauteng businessman will give South African television viewers a rather unconventional gift of his own: the opportunity to learn some very important lessons from his own difficult journey of cardiovascular disease.

Powerful sponsorships - Exp
Kim Skildum-Reid, who heads up Power Sponsorship and is one of the world's top corporate sponsorship consultants, trainers, speakers, and authors, will be presenting a keynote speech on Last Generation Sponsorship at the African Experiential Marketing Summit on 3 September 2008, in Johannesburg.

Experiential marketing guru Bernd H. Schmitt in SA - Exp
Founder and director of Columbia Business School's Center on Global Brand Management, Bernd H. Schmitt brings his wealth of expertise to South Africa at the 2nd African Experiential Marketing Summit in September.

Gateway Broadcast Services selects MediaHighway Middleware and EPG for its African pay-TV service
NDS, provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, today announced that Gateway Broadcast Services (GBS), the new pan-African pay-TV service has broadened its relationship with NDS. GBS has chosen MediaHighway Middleware and NDS Electronic Program Guide (EPG) to enhance its pay-TV satellite service for sub-Saharan Africa.

NIGERIA

Nigeria: Senate seeks to censor Big Brother Africa
Abuja: Senate has directed the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to censor or ban outright the Big Brother Africa Reality programme brought into Nigerian homes via the Digital Satellite Television (DSTV) owned by Multichoice if the contents contradict socio-cultural values of the Nigerian people.


South Africa to view live televised open heart surgery - The Heart and Stroke Foundation SA
In a move it hopes will motivate South Africans into taking preventative action, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of South Africa has announced it will make history by televising a live broadcast of a two-hour single bypass open heart surgery on national television on Saturday, 2 August 2008.