Current Issues

Imagine watching a sporting event and being able to see the sweat trickling down the faces of the players. This no longer has to be a dream as the reality, in the form of high-definition television (HDTV), is here.

Andre Coetzee, national trainer and customer care consultant at Philips South Africa, said that anyone who has been in the market recently to buy a new television will have heard the term HDTV.

"Consumers are constantly bombarded with technical jargon that often seems meaningless, however, this is one buzz- word that as a consumer, you need to pay attention to.

As students begin to settle in a routine at Columbia-finding their place in campus activities, learning the bureaucracy of the system, and slowly becoming caffeine addicts-a small group of students begins to question where it belongs.

Transgender people, those who choose to identify with the gender opposite to their sex, have a history of not fitting in. Defying their sex, transgender people break away from the gender and sexual binaries, so they fit in as neither women nor men, neither gay nor straight. Rather, they are a combination, a mix-and-match of characteristics that are difficult to define at first glance. For this reason, many find that students at Columbia, as well as the University's general policies, do not know how to deal with transgender students.

Punjab Assembly Member Fouzia Behram on Wednesday emphasised that rural women must get education to change their destiny.

Speaking at the first national conference on World Rural Women Day organised by civil society organisations here, she said without education rural women would be further pushed into poverty, exclusion and suffering by the patriarchal society.

Hundred of rural women converged on Islamabad in a historic gathering to share their experiences and highlight their issues in a bid to create awareness among the masses that despite their handsome contribution to the country's economic and social development, they were denied their basic rights and excluded from the decision-making processes.

The use of free access to music downloads and social networks, such as Face Book, Skype, You Tube and Edumela via the internet by both students and lecturers, has been blocked within Botswana's top tertiary school premises.

Early last week, students in different colleges started noticing pop up blogs that informed them of their particular institution restricting the use of the sites they were trying to access.
Restrictions of websites in schools have been known to happen mostly in cases of websites containing pornographic materials.

Known cases have been identified at the country's number one institution, the University of Botswana (UB) followed by the Botswana Accountancy College (BAC) and Limkokwing University.

The Media Bloggers Association ("MBA") announced today that it has launched a comprehensive program to provide bloggers access to the same sort of legal and financial resources long available to traditional media organizations including BlogInsure, a first of its kind liability insurance program for bloggers which provides coverage for all forms of defamation, invasion of privacy and copyright infringement or similar allegations arising out of blogging activities.

The cornerstone of the new program is an online course in media law developed by the Media Bloggers Association in partnership with The Poynter Institute's News University. The course, Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Online Publishers, was co-authored by David Ardia of the Citizen Media Law Project, which is jointly affiliated with Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Center for Citizen Media and Geanne Rosenberg of the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism and Baruch College. Scott Swift of Media/Professional Insurance created an assessment to evaluate the student's understanding of the material.

It is indeed a loaded question in a world where technology and easy access to it has transformed the role of journalism and how it is practiced.

Can I be considered a journalist because I do have access to the necessary technology and information to express my ideas and convictions through a medium, the Internet, which has worldwide reach?

If we ask that question to a Chinese blogger raising hell about how the Communist regime represses free press and democracy in that country, the answer would be a resounding yes. But what if the blogger operates in a democratic country with a free press that has historically assumed the role of watchdog of democracy? Can anyone with a computer, a modem and an opinion be considered a journalist?

In the slums of Kibera, an area of Nairobi, it is hard enough getting a job if you live here and are able-bodied.

Joseph is partially blind, but doing well, running his own business selling wool and making intricate trinkets, necklaces, and lamp shades.

But he is the exception in a country which is more likely to shun the visually-impaired than to offer any help.

Tzipi Livni is poised to become Israel's next prime minister - but ultra-orthodox newspapers in the Jewish state are refusing to publish her picture for reasons of religious modesty.

Israeli feminists have described the ban as ‘laughably ludicrous.'

The 50-year-old foreign minister and mother of two has been hailed by some of the world's press as a ‘Mossad beauty' but she has image problems closer to home.

The African continent is one of the least connected - and when it is connected the costs tend to be higher than in most other parts of the world.

In May 2008, the Association for Progressive Communications released the results of the study - The Case for "Open Access" Communications - Infrastructure in Africa: The SAT-3/WASC Cable. The briefing report, written by Abiodun Jagun, summarises the results of the study, conducted in four African countries, Angola, Cameroon, Ghana and Senegal, which examined the impact of the SAT-3/WASC cable on communications markets.

The SAT-3/WASC cable is a submarine cable running from Portugal to South Africa, landing in a number of west African countries, including the four studied. It was built in 2002 by a consortium of communications companies in each of the countries that the cable lands, which were, at the time the cable was constructed, largely protected state-owned monopolies.

HIV infections among women and girls have risen in every part of the world in recent years. The numbers point to a fundamental and startling reality-the HIV/AIDS pandemic is inextricably linked to the brutal effects of sexism and gender inequality, most pronounced in Africa.

Consider these statistics: The latest reports from the UNAIDS (Dec. 2007) show 33.2 million people are living with HIV throughout the world. Sub-Saharan Africa has more than two-thirds (22.6 million) of the total number of HIV infections. Sixty-two per cent (14 million) of those infected are women and adolescent girls. Seventy-five per cent of all HIV-positive women in the world are African.

Why are we allowing women and girls to die from this preventable and treatable disease? What is a woman worth in our world today?