15-04-2003 UNESCO Calls for Protection of Libraries and Archives in Iraq
As the evidence of the destruction of many parts of the cultural heritage in Iraq is increasing, the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, today warned of the devastation and looting of libraries and archives in the country, which may have irreversible consequences for maintaining and strengthening the country's cultural identity.
14-04-2003 Universal Access to Cyberspace, Preservation of Digital Heritage on Agenda of UNESCO Council
The discussion of two international recommendations, one on universal access to cyberspace and another on the preservation of the world's digital heritage, will be on the agenda of the 2nd session of the Intergovernmental Council for UNESCO's Information for All Programme that will be held next week in Paris, France.
11-04-2003 Pacific Islands Regional ICT Consultation Ends in Fiji
Participants at a Pacific Islands Regional ICT Consultation, held in Suva, Fiji, from 9-11 April, have been preparing Pacific Island countries and organisations to participate effectively in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). UNESCO cosponsored the meeting.
10-04-2003 Dakar Workshop on Community Multimedia Centres
UNESCO is sponsoring a one-day workshop on Community Multimedia Centres (CMCs) in Dakar, Senegal on 12 April. CMCs combine community radio and telecentre facilities to offer grass-roots access to ICTs and promote local content development. The workshop is part of the third International Meeting of Francophone Community Radio Stations.
10-04-2003 UNESCO Convenes Meeting on Heritage in Iraq
The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura has welcomed the support shown by the Members of the UNESCO Executive Board for a full role for the Organization in Iraq. Speaking before the Executive Board on 9 April 2003, he stated “UNESCO’s experience in similar situations over recent years has shown that education and culture can play a key role in consolidating the peace process and restoring national unity”, he said. “We must be ready without delay, he added, to help restore hope for the future in the Iraqi people”.
09-04-2003 Central Asian Initiatives for Safeguarding Documentary Heritage
National Committees for UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan met last week at the Kazakh National Library in Almaty to discuss documentary heritage preservation and promotion in the region.
08-04-2003 Quito Goes Online
Under the auspices of UNESCO, education institutions, public and private sectors entities, and NGOs in Ecuador's capital Quito are joining their efforts with the municipal administration to launch a programme entitled “Quito Digital Heritage of Humanity”.
08-04-2003 UNESCO Deplores High Toll among Journalists in Iraq
UNESCO's Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura today deplored the heavy toll paid by the press in Iraq and reminded the belligerents of their obligation to treat journalists as civilians. Mr Matsuura declared: “I deplore the fact that so many journalists in Iraq are paying for their commitment to their profession with their lives."
07-04-2003 (Paris) Learning to Report the Science of HIV/AIDS
The use of ICTs to improve reporting on HIV/AIDS is one focus of a UNESCO-sponsored workshop for women journalists that opened in Kampala, Uganda, today. The training also focuses on how to cover the science of HIV/AIDS.
07-04-2003 ICA – New Publications
The International Council on Archives announces the availability of two new electronic publications entitled ""Archival Automation: A Bibliography" and "Market Survey of Commercially Available Off-The-Shelf Archival Management Software". Both are available at http://www.ica.org.
07-04-2003 Director-General voices grave concern about Freedom of expression in Cuba
UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura today voiced concern over freedom of expression and press freedom in Cuba following the arrest of at least 24 Cuban journalists and dozens of human rights activists whose trial began on April 3.
04-04-2003 ´Afghanistan Unveiled´ Screened at UNESCO
Since a few months, a group of Afghan women has been seen in the streets of Kabul and in other towns of Afghanistan with their cameras and professional television equipment. By 1 April, the work has been completed and the first documentary film ever on Afghan women done by Afghan women was recently screened at UNESCO.
03-04-2003 Linking Local Radio to ICT Access in Nigeria
UNESCO is supporting a project for community access to ICTs in Nigeria, by providing FM broadcasting equipment for radio programmes aimed at raising awareness of information and communication technologies.
02-04-2003 Ten Steps for Establishing Multipurpose Community Telecentres
"Ten Steps" is the title of a new UNESCO publication to assist communities in establishing sustainable Multipurpose Community Telecentres (MCT). The Guide that since yesterday is online available on the website of the UNESCO Bangkok Office is a contribution to providing and strengthening communication and information facilities at the level of local communities.
01-04-2003 IPDC Selects Forty Media Projects for Funding
The Intergovernmental Council of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), which met in Paris from March 26 to 28, has tentatively approved 40 media projects in Africa, Europe, Asia and the Pacific, as well as in Latin America and the Caribbean.
31-03-2003 Building Digital Libraries with Open Source Software
The development and sharing of digital library collections using the freely available Greenstone Digital Library software will be promoted at a UNESCO conducted Asian regional level training of trainers' workshop, in Mai, in India's high-tech centre Bangalore.
28-03-2003 Open-Source Software for Archivists
The development of an open-source software for creating "finding aids", a term used by archivists to describe catalogues, is on the agenda of UNESCO's cooperation with the International Council on Archives (ICA) with funding provided by UNESCO for analysing the functional and technical requirements of the tool.
27-03-2003 UNESCO Urges Belligerents in Iraq to Ensure Safety of Journalists
The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, urges all the parties involved in the war in Iraq to respect the rights of journalists under international law, to refrain from targeting the media and to ensure the free flow of information.
27-03-2003 (Paris) CDS/ISIS: New Developments and Training
UNESCO's CDS/ISIS team reports on new developments concerning this non-numerical information storage and retrieval software. A Kazakh version of CDS/ISIS has been developed in Kazakhstan together with a series of documents on language localization, now available on the UNESCO Almaty Office web site. In France, workshops on the use of the CDS/ISIS for Windows are presently taking place.
27-03-2003 Koïchiro Matsuura : «We are duty bound to assist the Iraqi people in protecting its memory and building its future»
Following converging reports about damage to several cultural buildings in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad, Mossul and Tikrit, since the beginning of the conflict, the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, recalling that Iraq, “the cradle of civilizations that go back thousands of years, has many treasures and sites that are a valuable part of the heritage of all humankind”, has again emphasized that everything possible should be done to preserve the Iraqi cultural heritage.
26-03-2003 UNESCO's IPDC Prize to Two South American Community Radios
Representatives of two South American community radios – the Radio Huanacache network set up by the Maestro Pablo Pizzuno School in Argentina and the Peruvian radio station Quispillaccta – will receive the IPDC-UNESCO Prize for Rural Communication from Torben Krogh, Chairperson of the Intergovernmental Council of the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), today at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
25-03-2003 Four New Projects on ICT in Education in Asia and the Pacific
"Training and Professional Development of Teachers for Effective Use of ICTs in Improving Teaching and Learning" is one of four new projects in Asia and the Pacific Region that the UNESCO Bangkok Office has now started to implement with funds from Japan.
25-03-2003 WSIS - PrepCom-3 and Intersessional Period
The Third Meeting of the Preparatory Committee for WSIS (PrepCom-3) will take place in Geneva from 15 to 26 September 2003. There will be an Intersessional Period between PrepCom-2 and PrepCom-3 dedicated to refining the working documents for the Draft Declaration of Principles and Draft Action Plan.
24-03-2003 Intergovernmental IPDC Council to Meet In Paris this Week
The representatives of 39 Member States of UNESCO from all regions of the world will meet at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris this week for the 23rd session of the Intergovernmental Council of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC). Torben Krogh of Denmark presently chairs the Council.
21-03-2003 (New Delhi) Cambodia Communication Institute Affiliates with Royal University of Phnom Penh
The Cambodia Communication Institute (CCI) established under a UNESCO project will be officially affiliated to the Royal University of Phnom Penh. At a ceremony on 24th of March the Prime Minister of Cambodia Samdech Hun Sen will make this announcement and declare open the Institutes new building.
20-03-2003 New Nominations for UNESCO's Memory of the World Register
40 documentary heritage nominations from 25 countries that have been submitted for inclusion in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register were reviewed during the first meeting of the Register Sub-committee. The Committee, which comprises international archives and library experts convened for a two-day meeting this week at UNESCO's Paris Headquarters.
19-03-2003 Women Establish Cable Radio Network in Indian Village
150 km north of India's ICT hub Bangalore lies Budhikote, a small village where 36 women’s self help groups decided to have their own ICT facility. They contributed 50 rupees every month to establish a cable radio network connecting all the 750 households of the village in order to narrowcast the audio programmes they are producing at the Budhikote Community Multi Media Center.
18-03-2003 Development of Standards for Ethiopic Script
A workshop on the standardization development and dissemination of the Ethiopic script used to write Amharic, the official working language of Ethiopia, was opened last Friday at the UN Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, organized by UNECA, and UNESCO.
18-03-2003 Virtual Science and Technology Campus for Mediterranean Basin
An ambitious distance-learning project involving 15 countries, most of them in the Mediterranean Basin, will become operational following a kick-off meeting in UNESCO yestarday.
17-03-2003 A Central European Expert Meeting on Digital Heritage in Budapest.
Today starts in Budapest a two- day regional consultation meeting 17-18 March 2003) to discuss digital preservation challenges in Central Europe in which, as in other regions, an increasingly large share of information is produced in digital form that can be accessed on computers only.
