Last week, the daily talk show, Misr El-Naharda (Egypt Today), that is aired on the Egyptian state-run TV channel, Al-Masreya, discussed Facebook and its effect on the Egyptian society, with the discussions tending towards attacking Facebook. After the show, many bloggers started to think that it might have been a move from the government to repel people away from Facebook, in order to block it later on, especially given the recent developments in the Egyptian traditional and social media scene.

On October 22, 2010 Zimbabwean blogger Hope noticed a series of fast twitter updates coming from Professor Welshman Ncube, the Zimbabwe Minister of Commerce and Industry and the MDC Secretary General. In a blog post appearing in Sokwanele: This is Zimbabwe titled, 'Professor Welshman Ncube uses Twitter to air his frustrations,' Hope wrote: 'The snippets I saw were intriguing enough to prompt me to visit his twitter feed page to read more. I saw then that he’d been posting for two hours, all his tweets amounting to an online statement.' Read more at Global Voices.

Perspectives on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Tanzania’s forthcoming election and a new report accusing British banks of complicity in Nigerian corruption are among the topics in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere, by Dibussi Tande.

On the occasion of African Human Rights Day, 21 October 2010, the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the African regional organisation of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), solemnly commemorates this important day by remembering the African journalists who lost their lives in the line of duty as they sought to offer noble service to their audiences. Our hearts also go out to those who continue to drive the spirit of independent journalism at great risk to their personal safety and security in conditions of exploitation by employers.

Tanzania will go to the polls on October 30, 2010 and the general election campaign is well underway. As the campaigns heat up, presidential candidates and other candidates fighting for parliamentary seats are using new media tools to communicate with potential voters. Along with campaign rallies, which target the majority of the population, a small number of politicians have started to use social media tools such as blogs, online videos, Facebook and twitter to create deeper engagement with voters.

The media sector has been buzzing with speculation about the reasons why five senior editorial staff at the New Age newspaper simultaneously quit their jobs on Tuesday, a day before the paper was due to launch. Though derided by some as the mouthpiece of the ANC and praised by others as a chance to bring diversity to the media landscape, readers from all quarters have been awaiting the launch of the New Age with great anticipation.

Sokari Ekine requests donations for the Society of Providence United for the Economic Development of Petion-Ville community school in Port-au-Prince.

In April, Rwanda's media council suspended Umuseso, the nation's once-leading independent weekly paper, for a period of six months. By June, life had become too difficult for the main players behind Umuseso. Chief editor Charles Kabonero and web editor Richard Kayigamba found themselves in exile along with Gasana. Undeterred, the exiled editors launched a new independent weekly called The Newsline. Their first edition was ready in July, and they attempted to ship it into Kigali in advance of Rwanda's elections.

MISA-Zimbabwe on 16 October 2010 set up the first rural community radio in Ntepe, 40kms South-West of Gwanda town. Ntepe community radio station is the first rural community radio initiative in Zimbabwe. All the other community radio initiatives in the country are located in the urban areas of Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Kwekwe, Mutare, Hwange, Kadoma and Mutare. MISA-Zimbabwe is currently running a broadcasting campaign, calling upon the authorities to open up the airwaves for Zimbabwe to have a three-tier broadcasting system that includes public, commercial and community broadcasting.

State security agents on 15 October 2010 allegedly blocked accredited journalists from covering the graduation ceremony at Great Zimbabwe University in Masvingo, officiated by President Robert Mugabe. According to the daily NewsDay the state security agents blocked journalists from entering the ceremony, demanding invitation cards similar to those issued to graduates and their relatives in addition to their accreditation cards.

The Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) at the American University in Cairo (AUC) is offering the following three winter short courses in January 2011:
1. Introduction to Refugee Law (January 9-13, 2011)
2. Migration/Displacement, Development and Gender (January 16-20, 2011)
3. Community Interpretation for Refugee Aid Settings – CCIP Interpreter Training Short Course (January 23-27, 2011)
Please contact [email][email protected] for more information.

How much state attention and help can you expect if the area where you live is not even marked on official maps? Not a lot, decided the residents of one of Africa's biggest slums and designed a digital map of Kibera - a great help in all too familiar emergency situations. Such information is useful to the Kenya Red Cross, which deals with 144 fires in Kibera each month.

With many African countries marking the 50th anniversary of their independence, 2010 should have been a year of celebration but the continent’s journalists were not invited to the party. The Horn of Africa continues to be the region with the least press freedom but there were disturbing reverses in the Great Lakes region and East Africa.

Activists have warned that Egypt telecommunication regulator’s new rules for companies sending text messages to multiple cellphones will stifle efforts to mobilise voters ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections. Reform groups in Egypt, as well as elsewhere in the region such as Iran, have increasingly relied on the Internet and cellphones to organise, mobilise and evade government harassment.

Computer Aid has launched its first solar powered Internet cafe in Kenya in conjunction with longstanding Kenyan partners Computers For Schools Kenya (CFSK). The Internet cafe made its long journey from London to Nairobi in the guise of a standard 20ft shipping container, normally used to transport refurbished computers. On arrival the container converts into a fully functional Internet cafe for 11 users at a time.

Islamist militant group al-Shabab said on Monday it would ban all mobile phone cash transfers in Somalia. The rebels released a statement ordering three local mobile phone companies which have developed the popular service in the country to stop mobile money transfers within three months. Al-Shabab argued that the transfers were 'unIslamic'.

Many of Congo's rape survivors took to the streets Sunday to speak out against sexual violence in a country where it has become a weapon of war. Sunday's march was organised by the World March of Women in association with local women's groups. Organisers hoped the march would combat the stigma attached to rape victims and draw international attention to the problem of rape as a war tactic. (This post contains a video)

The launch of the Decade of the African Woman from 2010-2020 happens this week in Nairobi as delegates at another women's event in Johannesburg have noted that African women continue to be left out of the media. At the first day of the Fourth Annual Gender Links Gender and Media Summit in Johannesburg, the results of the Gender and Media Progress Study (GMPS) were highlighted and the lack of progress since the 2003 Baseline Study was widely discussed.

I'm a historian at Yale University in the USA who just happened upon your online news service, and who has a special request. I'm writing a history of something called the World Youth Festival, a Soviet-sponsored event which met 13 times between 1947 and 1989. My research has taken me to Russia, Europe and across the USA. But sadly, I have not yet made it to look through African archives or interview African participants. I therefore would be especially grateful if you would put a call out to your readership in search of anyone who might be willing to speak with me about their experiences at the Festival, or who perhaps has written material (letters, diaries, memoirs) that they'd be willing to scan and share with me.

Write to .

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed its grave concern over the well-being of Tunisian journalist Fahem Boukaddous and urged his immediate release. Boukaddous, whose health has sharply deteriorated in prison, is serving a four year jail term following his conviction in March for 'forming a criminal association liable to attack persons'. 'We are very concerned about Boukaddous who needs urgent medical treatment unavailable to him in prison,' said Aidan White, IFJ general secretary. 'Boukaddous has already been denied his freedom as punishment for his independent journalism. Without immediate action his long term health is under threat.'