incommunicado

LUSAKA, Jan 5 (IPS) - Cellular phones have quickly become a popular and effective means of communication in Zambia, but their use has been concentrated in urban areas. Government and NGOs are now trying to extend these services to rural people.

OVIEDO, Spain, Oct 23 (IPS) - U.S. engineers Martin Cooper and Raymond Tomlinson, considered the fathers of the mobile phone and email, respectively, received Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research from Crown Prince Felipe on Friday.

NEW DELHI, Oct 8 (IPS) - As India prepares to roll out third-generation (3G) mobile services in the world's fastest growing telecom market, there are high expectations that it will benefit people in the vast, impoverished rural hinterland most.

CAPE TOWN, Oct 6 (IPS) - There was an audible gasp when Kirsten McIntyre told the audience that e-waste is the third fastest growing waste stream in the world, with between 40 and 50 million tons of computers, TVs and washing machines being "thrown away" each year.

BANGKOK, Sep 11 (IPS) - They may be in their twilight years but Asia’s senior citizens are not ready to be left behind — and forgotten — by the wide, wired world.

HAVANA, Sep 2 (IPS) - Blogging has taught him to share his deepest concerns with people who think differently, to treat others and himself more compassionately, to learn from even the most impassioned disputes, and above all, to show that far from being the sole possessor of truth, he is desperately seeking it.

CUZCO, Peru, Aug 27 (IPS) - Little by little, rural communities in southern Peru are beginning to take advantage of the internet to acquire new knowledge and increase their income. But the use of computers in rural areas faces numerous challenges, from illiteracy to fear of the unknown or questions about the sustainability of these new communications initiatives once they are left in local hands.

BENTO GONÇALVES, Brazil, Jul 31 (IPS) - This city of 100,000 people in the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul is named after the leader of the 1835-1845 Revoluçao Farroupilha (Ragged Revolution), which under the slogan "Liberty, Equality, Humanity" resulted in the independence of the state from the Brazilian empire. At an international conference here today, peaceful revolutionaries are furthering similar ideals.

MONTEVIDEO, Jul 30 (IPS) - The girls who attend the school of Villa García, a township on the outskirts of the Uruguayan capital, are still playing dolls and dress up - only now they do it on their laptop computers.

LA PAZ, Jul 8 (IPS) - Innovative solutions at a time of crisis, extending services and technology to the poor and building democracy around the initiatives of ordinary citizens are the prescription to combat poverty that Roberto Haudry, head of IFAD for the Andean subregion, would suggest to Latin American governments.

PORT LOUIS, Jun 25 (IPS) - Pirated goods - from music and vehicle parts to clothes, perfumes and software - are sold at ridiculously low prices on the streets or in local shops. This is big business in the paradise-like island state of Mauritius.

BAGAR, India, Jun 3 (IPS) - What strikes a visitor entering the Source for Change business processing centre (BPO) in rural Rajasthan, a deeply conservative state where women are veiled and child marriage still rampant, is the near absence of men in the building.

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Apr 25 (IPS/IFEJ) - Using pieces from all sorts of useless equipment, students at the Computer Recovery Centre in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre have put 1,700 computers into operation in three years.

BANGKOK, Apr 19 (IPS) - When the Thai government imposed an emergency law cracking down on rampaging red-shirted protesters on the streets of Bangkok, the military, in combat gear, was not its only weapon. The state’s censors were given liberty to silence critical media.

BANGKOK, Apr 8 (IPS) - Suwicha Thakhor's nightmare in a Thai jail is set to continue after a court delivered a harsh verdict this week that contained a unequivocal message - the Internet in this country is being policed with the aim of limiting free expression.