17-02-2003 Afghanistan Newspapers Mark First Anniversary
Three independent newspapers and magazines in Afghanistan are now celebrating their first year of publication. UNESCO has been a financial supporter of many of them since they where established when President Karzai’s Interim Administration came in power in December, 2001.
14-02-2003 Next Phase of WSIS Preparation Process to Start in Geneva Next Week
Universal access to information, equal access to education, cultural diversity and freedom of expression are essential principles for developing equitable knowledge societies. This is the message that UNESCO sends to the participants of the second meeting to the Preparatory Committee of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) that starts next Monday in Geneva.
13-02-2003 UNESCO Teams with Discovery Communications and UN to Promote Languages
In celebration of International Mother Language Day on 21 February, Discovery Communications (DCI), a global real-world media and entertainment company, in partnership with UNESCO, and the UN Works Programme, will highlight some of the world’s endangered languages with a broadcast to over 100 million viewers internationally on the Discovery Channel.
12-02-2003 UNITAR/UNESCO Publish Bilingual ICT Encyclopaedia
A virtual library bringing together 1150 documents from 650 authors dealing with legal, societal and technological issues of the Information Society that was developed following a joint initiative of UNITAR and UNESCO with financial support from several international organization is now free of charge available.
11-02-2003 UNESCO Helps Developing Policies for Integrating ICTs into Education
Today opened a seminar and workshop for decision and policy-makers from Asia and the Pacific entitled “Towards Policies for Integrating ICTs into Education”. Jointly organized by the UNESCO Bangkok Office and the UNESCO Institute for Information Technology in Education (IITE), the event that runs up to 25 April aims at assisting countries in the region in developing educational ICT policies.
10-02-2003 UNESCO Launched Website for UN Literacy Decade
While ICTs develop and spread at rapid speed, 860 million adults are illiterate and over 100 million children have no access to school. The UN Literacy Decade that will be launched on 13 February aims at working towards literacy for all. A website in support of the Decade has now been opened by UNESCO, the coordinator of the global initiative.
07-02-2003 (Paris) African Journalist Training Centre Celebrates 20th Anniversary
Today, the Centre Africain de Perfectionnement des Journalistes et Communicateurs (CAPJC) in Tunis celebrates its 20th anniversary. In his congratulatory message to the Management and Staff of the Centre, UNESCO Director General Koïchiro Matsuura hails the centre as an "international centre of excellence for the training of communication experts".
06-02-2003 Civil Society Representatives: No Discrimination in Providing Access to Information
The Information Society should be based on human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of expression, and access to information should be free of charge whenever possible: these are two of the statements of the some 350 participants of an online forum that UNESCO recently organized for civil society and NGOs in preparation of the World Summit of the Information Society.
05-02-2003 (Moscow) Training Course 'ICTs in Distance Education' Now Available
The Moscow based UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) announces the publication of a training course on "ICTs in Distance Education'". The course was elaborated by an international course team headed by Mickael G. Moore within the framework of IITE's Training Programme.
04-02-2003 ICTs and Gender. A Forum in Malaysia
Understanding gender-related barriers to ICT access and optimising opportunities: these are the main objectives of a forum on ICTs and gender that a consortium of organizations, including UNESCO and ITU is organizing from 27 to 30 May 2003 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as part of the preparation of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
03-02-2003 Public Service Broadcasting Workshop in Kazakhstan
Public Service Broadcasting should be for the public, owned by the public and managed by the public. This is the motto of a two-day seminar on "Legal, Administrative and Financial Aspects of Public Service Broadcasting (PSB)" that started yesterday in Kazakhstan's Capital Almaty as a follow-up event to another UNESCO seminar on PSB in Bishkek in July 2002.
31-01-2003 Democratic Republic of Congo Joins UNESCO INFOYOUTH Network
A national youth information center will be created in the Democratic Republic of Congo with support from UNESCO and its INFOYOUTH network. A contract with detailed terms of reference of the assistance that also includes help for creating the Centre's website was recently signed by UNESCO and the National Commission for UNESCO of the Democratic Republic of Congo .
30-01-2003 New Printing Plant For Independent Press in Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia's independent media will have a new printing plant by September. The project, which is covered by a contract signed last week in Belgrade, is being implemented by UNESCO and its partners, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the Association of Private Media (APM). The funding of 3 Million USD has been ensured by the European Agency for Reconstruction, Denmark, France and Germany.
29-01-2003 (Paris) Archivists Prepare for World Congress in Austria Next Year
"Archives, Memory and Knowledge" is the theme of the 15th International Congress on Archives that will be held in Vienna (Austria) in August 2004. The International Council on Archives, a close UNESCO partner that co organizes the Congress with the Austrian States Archives, announces that only two days are left to submit proposals for sessions to be organized at the event.
28-01-2003 Regional WSIS Preparations Continue
After Bamako, Bucharest and Tokyo, regional conferences for the World Summit on the Information Society will shortly take place in Bavaro and Beirut. Ministers from Latin American and Caribbean countries will meet from 29 to 31 January in Bavaro, Dominican Republic, whereas their peers from the 11 Member States of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) will meet in Beirut, Lebanon, just one week later.
27-01-2003 (Dakar) UNESCO Supports Training of Women Radio Broadcasters in Senegal
A four-week training course for women moderators of AFIA.FM, a community radio broadcasting in the region of Senegal's capital Dakar is presently taking place at the UNESCO Dakar Office. The aim of the training course is to train women in the basics skills needed for the production of radio programmes including the use of ICTs.
24-01-2003 More than 200 Episodes of UNESCO Supported Silk Road Radio Soap
Building on centuries’ old tradition of story-telling in the Central Asian region, the "Silk-Road Radio Soap" project, implemented by the UNESCO Tashkent Office since 1999, highlights contemporary issues through a twice-weekly radio drama series, produced and transmitted in both Uzbek and Tajik languages. 200 episodes have been completed to date.
23-01-2003 El Salvador Embarks on Media Legislation Reform
In a move to further democratize the media environment in El Salvador, the country's authorities requested UNESCO to help implementing several reforms of media policy and legislation. In reply to this request, UNESCO's Paris Headquarters recently fielded a mission to the country's capital.
22-01-2003 (Paris) Academy for Computer-Assisted Training and Learning for Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Training of university teachers in preparing distance online education materials will be provided by the new "Regional Academy for Computer-Assisted Training and Learning" (RACATAL) that will be established in Ukraine's capital Kiev under a $258,000 UNDP/UNESCO project. The project was launched on 17 January 2003 when representatives of the Kiev National Taras Schevchenko University and UNESCO signed a letter of agreement.
21-01-2003 Cultural Diversity Central to Information Society
Cultural Diversity, including multilingualism must be a key principle of the Information Society in the Asia-Pacific region. This is one of the results of the Panel Discussion organized by UNESCO at the Asian Regional Pre conference of the World Summit on the Information Society that was held last week in Tokyo, Japan.
20-01-2003 (Rabat) ICT Equipment for Journalist Training in Tunisia
Ever since it opened in 1967 the Institut de Presse et des Sciences de l’Information (IPSI) of Tunisia helps to train future generations of the country's journalists and communicators, in particular by offering them the possibility to master the newest technologies. With the help of UNESCO's International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) IPSI has now acquired state-of-the-art ICT equipment.
17-01-2003 European Small Member States and WSIS
Small Member States have specific needs and expectations that the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) should address. This is the main conclusion drawn by the European Small Member States (Monaco, Andorra, San Marin, Iceland and Luxemburg) who met at UNESCO on 16 January to draft a specific Declaration prior to the holding of the second meeting of the Summit Preparatory Committee (Prepcom II, 17-28 February 2003).
16-01-2003 (Quito) INFOLAC Web Prize for Latin America and Caribbean Youth
The INFOLAC Web Prize organized by UNESCO, through the Information Society Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean (INFOLAC), in cooperation with the General Directorate for Libraries (DGB) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) is seeking to award prizes to three of the best websites for youth in Latin America and the Caribbean.
15-01-2003 Training Moroccan Teachers - A New International Project
Training Moroccan teachers in using nformation and communication technologies is the aim of the project entitled “Distance training through interactive television, re-training for teachers” jointly conducted by UNESCO, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Moroccan Ministry for Education.
14-01-2003 Approaches To Development : Some New Studies On Communication For Development
Communication for development, or “development communication”, which is the sharing of knowledge taking into account the interests, needs and capacities of all concerned, is at the core of UNESCO’s mission and actions. That is why UNESCO has sponsored a new CD-ROM gathering a series of studies on this issue entitled “Approaches to Development: Studies on Communication for Development”.
13-01-2003 Online Discussion Forum for WSIS to End 15 January
More than 280 participants have registered on the online discussion forum launched by UNESCO for Non-governmental Organizations and civil society at http://wsisforum.unesco.org to discuss their inputs to the final Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action to be adopted by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in December 2003, in Geneva, Switzerland.
10-01-2003 Manuscript of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register
The original manuscript of the Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), one of the best-known compositions worldwide, will soon officially be part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. In a ceremony next Sunday at the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin, Verena Metz-Mangold, of the German National Commission for UNESCO, will hand over the Memory of the World Certificate to Graham Jefcoate, of the Berlin State Library, where the manuscript is deposited.
10-01-2003 Manuscript of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register
The original manuscript of the Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), one of the best-known compositions worldwide, will soon officially be part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. In a ceremony next Sunday at the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin, Verena Metz-Mangold, of the German National Commission for UNESCO, will hand over the Memory of the World Certificate to Graham Jefcoate, of the Berlin State Library, where the manuscript is deposited.
09-01-2003 UNESCO Clearing House for Literary Translation Launched
An online clearinghouse for literary translation has recently been launched by UNESCO. The new service entitled "Literature & Translation" acts as a centre for information, guidance and encounter for translators, publishers, researchers, librarians, archivists, teachers and all others, who work on the discovery and promotion of literature.
08-01-2003 Cultural Diversity in Cyberspace: Challenges for the Asia-Pacific Region
As the Asia–Pacific Region prepares the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) through a conference in Tokyo next week, a UNESCO Panel on "Cultural and Linguistic Diversity" intends to contribute to define principles and actions to foster a culturally divers cyberspace that are specific to the region.
