Number 236, July 2001

Sean Hawkey

Even as Media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi becomes Italian prime minister and media billionaire Michael Bloomberg runs for Mayor of New York there is still little public debate on the relationship, and conflicts of interest, between media ownership and political power. Perhaps its no wonder that people don’t seem to care if media moguls run their countries if to many it appears that they do anyway.

In a letter to Minister of the Interior Henri-Claude Mènard, RSF protested the attacks on Radio Vision Nouvelle, Radio Lumière and Radio Vision 2000, during which Fritz Antoine Jean, Radio Vision Nouvelle’s guard, was killed and two other watchmen were injured. RSF asked for an inquiry into each of these incidents in order to establish the motives for these attacks and punish the authors.

The Rev John Medcalf on the Rural Library Network which he founded in Peru.

It is just 30 since Leonardo Herrera knocked the door of the parish house in Cajamarca, in the northern Andes of Peru. Leonardo was just thirteen, but malnutrition made him look no more than nine.

Adapted from a report by Farai Sevenzo
Third World Network Features

Music has always played an important role in the political life of Zimbabwe. The country’s freedom fighters drew on the country’s cultural traditions and used songs as morale boosters and rallying cries.

Chido.E.Matewa

In 1992 the Africa Women Filmmakers Trust was launched whose aim was to promote the use of video films in development for social change. This was to be achieved through the Participatory in Production project and the Access to Media Project both run by Africa Women Filmmakers Trust.