The thickest book on secondary school teacher Hellen Ndalama’s desk is her indigenous language dictionary. It is also her most-used book. The front cover is partly ripped and the upper end of the spine is secured with adhesive tape. With 35,000 entries, the new book which translates Chichewa to English (CE) and English to Chichewa (EC) is the first comprehensive dictionary of its kind in Malawi.

Kenyan farmer Zack Matere pulls his mobile out of his pocket holds it up and takes a couple of photos. "It seems they have come back and are digging here again." He is referring to a group of people who have encroached on a water catchment area and are endangering the whole community's water supply.

Ethiopia has admitted it is jamming the Voice of America's (VOA) broadcasts in Amharic, accusing the radio station of engaging in "destabilising propaganda".
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Ethiopia had been testing jamming equipment, although there had been no formal decision to bloc the US station.

Africa’s economic future and the challenge of uniting people and nations drew eminent politicians and scholars into a historic public debate in Nairobi. They examined the role of a free Press in Africa, debated the path to regional integration and spoke out on the continent’s quality of leadership as the curtain rose on the Nation Media Group’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

The Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the African Regional Organisation of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), strongly criticized the Press and Journalists Bill in Uganda on the grounds that it is unsound and constitutes a major stumbling block to press freedom and democratic standards in the country.

In this week's review of the African blogosphere, Jeune Afrique and New African are under fire for publishing fawning and inaccurate articles about Presidents Ali Bongo of Gabon and Faure Gnassingbé of Togo, while there is also a look at International Women's Day on the continent and thoughts on the recently-launched iHub and ICT University.

Responding to an Economist article on a perceived battle between Israel and Iran for friends on the African continent, S.H. Razavipour stresses that suspicion around Iran's motives merely highlights Western hypocrisy.

Kenyan farmers can now insure some of the costs of growing crops against bad weather by using mobile phone technology that links solar-powered weather stations to an insurance company.

A 2009 report from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) notes that some 30 million African workers outside their countries send home approximately $40 billion a year in remittances. But with only as many "payout" locations on the continent as in one Latin American country (Mexico), the process is expensive and dominated by two large money transfer companies which work primarily with banks.

A parliamentary commission hopes to reconcile tensions between the government and the media with specific recommendations, commission co-ordinator Jamal Eddine Naji said on March 9th at a press conference in Rabat. Parliament launched the commission March 1st to spur a national debate about the press between media representatives, members of parliament, political figure, the government and the public.

E-government will be renewed and handled with more vigour, because of its future importance to service delivery, says deputy public service and administration minister Roy Padayachie.

One of Africa’s smallest countries is pioneering the use of a carriers’ consortium to develop its national fibre backbone and international links with help from the World Bank. Burundi Backbone Systems will oversee the development of a 1,200 kms backbone and several new international fibre links connecting the country to its neighbours in the next 18 months.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the ruling of Monday, 8 March by the Ethiopian Supreme Court which reinstated the hefty fines which had been imposed by the country’s High Court against four publishing houses which had successfully appealed a judgment of the High Court following the infamous treason trial of 2005.

Amnesty International has welcomed the release of an Egyptian blogger, who was facing jail after he published a post alleging nepotism within the armed forces. The organization said it remains concerned that the release of Ahmed Mostafa was conditional on him agreeing to apologise and on removing the March 2009 posting from his Matha Assabaka ya Watan (What happened to you, oh nation?) blog.

For the two decades that he has been free, Souleymane Guengueng has constantly relived the two years he spent in a Chadian prison, where he watched hundreds of cellmates die from torture and disease. Thrown in jail in 1988 for still-unknown reasons, the deeply religious civil servant took an oath before God: If he ever got out alive, he would bring his tormentors to justice.

Oukasie, Sharpville, Orange Farm, Siyathemba: images of violent protest action against poor service delivery have dominated the news in the past few weeks, signalling growing frustration with the Jacob Zuma administration’s failure to address the implosion of services in parts of South Africa. But all too often, media coverage does not help us to understand the complex forces that gave rise to such protests, writes Jane Duncan.

The Affiliated Network for Social Accountability (ANSA) in Africa, hosted by the Economic Governance Programme of Idasa, is currently seeking three new Executive Committee members to guide the work of the ANSA-Africa Network.

The Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) at the American University in Cairo AUC is offering two short courses on refugee issues in June 2010. The first course on "Meeting the Psychosocial Needs of Refugees" will be offered from 9:30 a.m to 4:30 p.m. from June 6- 10 and will be taught by Dr. Nancy Baron. The second course on "Introduction to International Refugee Law" will be offered from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. from June 20-24 & 26 (with the exception of Friday June 25) and will be taught by Mr. Martin Jones

Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action, the pioneering, highly regarded South African gay and lesbian archives, invites African writers to submit stories on a queer African theme for publishing in a ground-breaking anthology. Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action intends the anthology to query stereotypes, show that there are many ways of being queer in Africa, and encourage queer artistic expression and appreciation. Literary merit and an insightful response to the complexities of African queerness will guide the selection.

Mawuli Dake

Momar Dieng