Who will the US not sell weapons to?: "The list of countries to which Washington has proscribed weapons sales: China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Myanmar, Somalia and Sudan.

The United States also severely restricts arms sales to Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria and Vietnam." (Mail and Guardian)

Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange - another outfit planning to provide commodity and market prices via SMS in East Africa.

Job: EAST AFRICA: PROGRAMME MANAGER - RECONCILE
Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates to fill the post of Programme Manager for the Programme on Reinforcement of Pastoral Civil Society in East Africa. The programme is implemented jointly by RECONCILE and the Drylands Programme of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in collaboration with pastoral civil organisations, NGOs and donor projects in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

BBC NEWS | Health | UK still poaching African nurses

Succulent Somali Plants New Targets of Illegal African Wildlife Trade - United Nations Environment Programme A boom in poached “succulent” plants is among the latest threats facing Africa’s rare and endangered wildlife... (UNEP)

Ethiopia goes shopping: "Ethiopia has bought 60 Russian-made tanks from Yemen at a cost of over $24-million dollars, a privately-owned weekly newspaper reported on Wednesday." (DPA)

Kenya's ICANN Internet Celebrity

BBC profile of Njeri Rionge, Kenyan member of the ICANN board, and boss of Wananchi Online, from before she was famous. Congratulations, Njeri.

Classic CNN Liberia headline: Koinange: Monrovia 'not safe at all' Since when did the correspondent - even our Jeff - belong in the headline? And of course it's not safe. Duh.

Eritrea arrests another journalist

The following statement was made by Voice of America (VOA) Director David Jackson regarding the detention of a VOA reporter in Eritrea:

Washington, D.C., July 15, 2003 -- "We strongly object to the detention of Voice of America reporter Aklilu Solomon. He has distinguished himself as a journalist by telling the world of the urgent needs of the Eritrean people during the drought which has afflicted his country, and all of us at the Voice of America are proud of his contributions. His reporting has put VOA at the forefront of this important humanitarian story. We demand that Eritrean authorities free him immediately."

WEIGHT OF WHISPERS

Winning the Caine Prize for Fiction this year...

TEK Search
They say:

...with the TEK search engine, the user submits a query which is emailed to Boston. The TEK Server, which is connected to the Internet backbone, searches the Web, locates some pages, selects which pages to send back, compresses them, and returns them back to the user. Because the search results are returned asynchronously, by email, the connectivity charges are lower. Post-processing the search results and selecting which pages to send back reduces the amount of information and addresses the bandwidth question.

.

Critics point out that this is not a very good idea. Big download, non-interactive search via webmail is probably the same thing and that the developing world is fed up with graduate students thinking up "cool" stuff on their behalf. IDRC once had a better idea for a web browser that worked by e-mail instead of HTTP in the background. I can't quite explain but the front end was a browser which rendered HTML normally. When you clicked a link, the back end generated an e-mail which sent off the request to a webmail server and looked out for its arrival back. I recall you had to run Jigsaw in the background as the HTTP server or something. A much slicker idea but never got much past alpha AFAIK.

(Closing date: October 30 2003)

Gamos and Big World invite you to compete for a Digital Video Camera, plus accessories, to enhance your Information and Communication for Development (ICD).

As technology changes, new opportunities arise. Gamos and Big World believe that digital video has made a significant step forward in the last 18 months, and will become standard equipment for information storage and retrieval, and in the slightly longer term even for communicating. We believe this is very important for development activities, particularly where communities are struggling to capture and express their own ideas, and to share ideas that can reduce poverty. The new opportunities that digital video presents will add a vital tool or method to adult and child education, both formal and informal within communities.

Over the last three years Gamos and Big World have been anticipating the technological changes, and have developed research, pilots and training that will now support these new opportunities.

We have been developing a network of partners in the South who have piloted using Digital Video for information and communication for development. We note that others have also seen the opportunities and we have been actively seeking partnerships with them, both South based organisations and international agencies working in development.. Please contact us if you do not want to enter the competition but would like to co-operate on this area.

The aim of this competition is to identify new partners to expand a growing network of South based partners, and to generally provide an opportunity to enhance and strengthen your development work.

Workthing.com - View vacancy: "The Africa Centre is the flagship of African arts in the United Kingdom, based in London's Covent Garden. The Centre is embarking on a substantial recovery programme, and has secured funding support from the public sector.
For this purpose, it is making a number of appointments to enhance its operational and financial capacity. For application forms and job packs e-mail admin@africacentre.org.uk, go to www.africa@africacentre.org.uk/opportunities/jobs/business development, or write to: The Administrator, Africa Centre, 38 King Street, London WC2E 8JT.
The Centre is now looking to recruit a deputy director (head of resources). The successful candidate will have responsibility for: financial management and budget preparation, and the IT systems to achieve such; buildings management, including the rehabilitation of the Centre's premises; and overseeing the recruitment and induction of new staff. "

Moreover on Yahoo!: "Moreover Technologies has inked a deal with Yahoo! to integrate its public metabase into the directory company's News Search Product to expand and enhance Yahoo!'s existing news search results. "

Comment: Feeling the heat from Google news...

USAID boss says NGO grantees are "an arm of the US government" - or else!: "Natsios insisted that aid agencies and for-profit contractors in the field should identify themselves as recipients of U.S. funding to show a stronger link to American foreign policy. If this does not happen more often, Natsios threatened to personally tear up their contracts and find new partners.
NGOs and contractors 'are an arm of the U.S. government,' Natsios said." (via Interaction)

Job: OneWorld Africa Editor: "ZAMBIA: OneWorld Editor
Application closing date:2003-7-4
The Oneworld Africa is looking for an Editor. Areas of responsibility include editing of the OneWorld Radio site/s, write content for site/s; write monthly newsletter/s for members and subscribers, and also promotional materials."