On Friday 25 March, several Kenyan bloggers held a meeting in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, under the newly formed BAKE (Bloggers Association KEnya). The meeting was the 4th in an initiative by some of Kenyas veteran bloggers. Part of the background, reports Global Voices, is tension between the blogger community and the mainstream media, who bloggers feel have a lack of appreciation for blogging as a tool for the generation and delivery of news and information.

Nascent only a decade ago in Africa, the ICT sector has been growing in recent years at an unparalleled pace. In some countries, various studies note, the 'information economy' is becoming one of the main drivers for economic growth more generally.

A new initiative was recently launched to promote government transparency and increase people's access to information in Ghana, Uganda and South Africa. The Access to Information in Africa: Transparency Models and Lessons Learned (ATI in Africa) project is coordinated by the World Resources Institute in partnership with the Centre for Democratic Development in Ghana, Greenwatch in Uganda and the Open Democracy Advice Centre (ODAC) in South Africa.

Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces should drop all charges against a blogger for his internet posts critical of the military, Human Rights Watch has said. A military tribunal is expected to deliver the verdict in the case against Maikel Nabil, who faces up to three years in prison on charges of 'insulting the military'. 'It's pretty stunning in Egypt's supposed new era of rights to see the military government prosecuting someone in a military court for writing about the military,' said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

Developing countries must be given all the scientific, technical and legal help they need to counter the growing trade in fake medicines, says One estimate suggests that in some regions at least a third of the drugs supplied to patients are counterfeit. Detecting and identifying counterfeit drugs has become a major scientific and technical challenge for developing countries, and its urgency is becoming ever more widely recognised.

'This edition of the journal is produced within the context of the 2015 deadline set by the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, which calls for gender parity within the media, as well as equal voice and fair treatment of women and men in editorial content.'

Afrographique is a blog that aims to collect as much data as possible with the aim of presenting the information in an exciting and digestible format to all. It has graphics on foreign investment in Africa, Facebook users, African CO2 emissions and more.

High Court Judge Justice Nicholas Ndou on Thursday 31 March 2011 quashed Magistrate Gideon Ruwetsa’s ruling denying bail to Bulawayo resident Vikas Mavhudzi, who is charged with subverting a government by unconstitutional means. Ruwetsa had on Wednesday 16 March 2011 denied bail to the 39 year-old Magwegwe resident, who is facing charges of subverting a government by unconstitutional means over a comment he allegedly made on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s facebook page.

reports on media freedom in Botswana, which it says has been 'steadily eroded' over the last decade. 'The controversial Media Practitioners Act, passed in 2008, calls for all media practitioners to register with the press council, while simultaneously defining a media practitioner as anyone who transmits information. Civil society groups have filed a law suit against the state, but it has yet to have its day in court.'

The Press Ombudsman has denied an ANC Youth League (ANCYL) request for a probe into The Star and the Daily Sun newspapers’ use of incorrect quotes attributed to Julius Malema. The Star newspaper quoted Malema as saying: 'Since he got into power, comrade Zuma has been surrounded by bad advisers'. In its apology the newspaper admitted that Malema had not referred to Zuma and 'unreservedly' apologised to Malema for 'whatever embarrassment' he was caused by the report.

African countries have committed to migrating to digital broadcasting by June 2015. A new website developed by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Balancing Act is part of an initiative which aims to help policy-makers and others focus their efforts on how to lower the cost of digital migration and look at how a wider range of benefits can be reaped. The website provides African policy-makers, regulators, broadcasters and civil society organisations with information on the benefits and challenges that come with the process and the policy issues that need to be addressed.

This programme is a foundational course on economic and social policies to promote equity and child rights. The topics covered include: the human rights-based approach to development; equitable macroeconomic and sector policies; public finance and social budgeting; multidimensional poverty; social protection, migration and climate change. This course is being offered free of charge to ensure maximum outreach.

Two members of privately-owned Radio Shabelle were arrested 27 March in Mogadishu, while two other journalists have been held in the northeastern region of Puntland and the northwestern region of Somaliland for more than a week. Reported Without Borders has called for the immediately release of all four journalists and a halt to their persecution. 'The transitional federal government is doing nothing to encourage the work of the media in a country in which the constant fighting is already the source of a great deal of danger for reporters and the intolerance of the Islamist militias makes their work even more dangerous if not impossible,' Reporters Without Borders said.

The Centre of Memory at the Nelson Mandela Foundation has announced its online debut on social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. The Centre of Memory is now live and tweeting and has a dedicated Facebook page.

Over 2.5 years ago Twitter shut down all operations in Africa. What they had shut down was text messaging, due to non-sustainable business relationships with the mobile operators in each country. But now, three countries have it working; Nigeria, Kenya and Madagascar. The Twitter team is working on relationships for expanding SMS service throughout a lot of countries in Africa, reports the blog White African.

On 17 March, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) filed an appeal with the High Court challenging a Bulawayo magistrate’s denial of bail to Vikas Mavhudzi, who is facing charges of attempting to overthrow the government through comments posted on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s facebook wall. Through the facebook posting, Mavhudzi is alleged to have 'unlawfully or suggested' to Tsvangirai the taking over or attempt to take over the government by unconstitutional means or usurping the functions of the government.

The government of Swaziland has, and continues to threaten with prosecution, people who are expressing themselves using popular social media such as Facebook. The government has accused the Facebookers as being too critical to the government and the ruling elites in Swaziland. On 25 March 2011, the prime minister assured senators in Parliament that his government would track down, arrest and prosecute one Gangadza Masilela whose Facebook wall has been critical of the status quo in Swaziland and the leadership in the country. Masilela, who is believed to be using a pseudonym, has a large following on his facebook wall.

Kenyan MPs were heavily criticised by the US for voting to have the government compensate Mau landowners. In a cable to his bosses in Washington dated 23 September 2009, US ambassador Michael Ranneberger accused Kenyan MPs of entrenching the culture of impunity by passing an amendment seeking to compensate those evicted from the Mau water tower.

Long known as a 'boy's club', the worldwide media industry continues to struggle with gender equality, with new research showing women are still under-represented in the majority of newsrooms across the globe. The study, conducted over a two-year period for the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF), covered 170,000 people in the news media and involved interviews with 500 companies in 59 countries. On average women are underrepresented in all media positions, in sectors ranging from news media ownership, publishing, governance, reporting, editing, photojournalism, and broadcast production.

The American Embassy believed in March 2007 that President Kibaki's government planned to arrest opposition leader Raila Odinga over the controversial Artur Brothers, according to Wikileaks. 'Post (the embassy) has various pieces of evidence suggesting that the men are associated with either State House or one of the 'first families' and Kamlesh Pattni, the man behind the Goldenberg scandal,' said the cable from ambassador Michael Ranneberger dated 14 March 2007.