Joburg has been quiet for the past two days, no soccer action! We got used to rushing home and being stuck in traffic as people find their way to the stadiums. But in all this silence I spent time at the Team Village of the 32 teams taking part in the Football for Hope Festival which kicks off in Alexandra on Sunday.

Young people are taking part in a mixed 5 aside tournament which has no referee and where disagreements are resolved through dialogue. I spoke to two of them, 17 year old Hemanta Acharya and 18 year old Mubasher Hassan. They are part of the Football United Team from Australia. Both are refugees. Hemanta is Bhutanese and Hassan is Sudanese. Other team members are from Kenya, Iraq and Cyprus.

They are excited about being in South Africa and looking forward to making new friends from other teams. While they are here for the soccer tournament they will also be learning about being good leaders and HIV/AIDS amongst other issues.

Today, the soccer action returns with Ghana taking on Uruguay at Soccer City.

I’m wearing a t’shirt with the map of Africa and I feel like a Black Star!!!!

The French football team didn’t do too well but France should get a big pom pom for this initiative:

Reporters Without Borders unveils first “Anti-Censorship Shelter”

Reporters Without Borders today launched the world’s first “Anti-Censorship Shelter” in Paris for use by foreign journalists, bloggers and dissidents who are refugees or just passing through as a place where they can learn how to circumvent Internet censorship, protect their electronic communications and maintain their anonymity online.

“At a time when online filtering and surveillance is becoming more and more widespread, we are making an active commitment to an Internet that is unrestricted and accessible to all by providing the victims of censorship with the means of protecting their online information,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“Never before have there been so many netizens in prison in countries such as China, Vietnam and Iran for expressing their views freely online,” the press freedom organisation added. “Anonymity is becoming more and more important for those who handle sensitive data.”

Reporters Without Borders and the communications security firm XeroBank have formed a partnership in order to make high-speed anonymity services, including encrypted email and web access, available free of charge to those who user the Shelter.

By connecting to XeroBank through a Virtual Private Network (VPN), their traffic is routed across its gigabit backbone network and passes from country to country mixed with tens of thousands of other users, creating a virtually untraceable high-speed anonymity network.

This network will be available not only to users of the Shelter in Paris but also to their contacts anywhere in the world and to all those – above all journalists, bloggers and human rights activists – who have been identified by Reporters Without Borders. They will be able to connect with the XeroBank service by means of access codes and secured, ready-to-use USB flash drives that can be provided on request.

XeroBank is a communications security firm that has cornered the market on one of the rarest commodities in the world: online privacy. It specializes in communication solutions that protect its clients from all eavesdroppers.

The best-known free encryption and censorship circumvention software is also available to users of the Shelter, along with manuals and Wiki entries on these issues. A multimedia space is planned for journalists and Internet users who want to film and send videos.

The Shelter will eventually also have a dedicated website for hosting banned content. Egyptian blogger Tamer Mabrouk’s reports on the pollution of Egypt’s lakes, which are banned in his country, and articles that are banned in Italy by its new phone-tap law will all have a place in what is intended to be a refuge for those who still being censored.

The Shelter is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday. Anyone wanting to use it should make a reservation by sending an email to shelter (@) rsf (dot) org

The Shelter could not have been created without the support of the Paris city hall.

Reporters Without Borders points out that around 60 countries are currently subject to some form of online censorship and that Internet filtering is in effect in around 40 of them. About 120 netizens (bloggers, Internet users, and citizen journalists) are currently in prison worldwide.

Zimbabwe has three Cellular network providers that provide service all over the country. Of these three Econet is the largest outstripping the other two in subscriber base and profits. At the end of the last financial year Econet Wireless Zimbabwe declared an income higher than the government.

There is no doubt that Econet is a prime example of what hard work, determination and a little faith are able to achieve. Considering the odds that were stacked against the company at its inception, Econet provides hope for all future Zimbabwean entrepreneurs with a big idea.

But Econet may also be used to illustrate the effect of big business on little people. As the market leader Econet sets the trend for the Cellular network provider services industry. The Econet brand has been positioned as one that stands for progressiveness, integrity and one that is oriented towards satisfying customer needs. Econet Wireless Zimbabwe fails to meet its own values.

It is difficult to see the integrity in a company that must be asked to revise its tariffs downward after charging much more than companies in the rest of the region. Service delivery has progressively deteriorated as more subscribers are added to Econet’s books. A few months ago, Econet placed full-page ads in the national newspapers, thanking customers for making them number one in terms of subscriber base. This gratitude did not translate to any tangible value for customers. Neither was there an explanation for such bad service delivery.

Most recently, the company has rolled out a plan to increase coverage with its much-touted ’90 base stations in 90 days’ campaign. Yet the more pressing issue of network expansion is glibly dismissed as being in Econet’s ‘future plans’. This may be Africa, but we are not stupid.

Econet’s major competitors would be wise to take advantage of, and not make the same mistakes. Even the most faithful brand loyalist will migrate to a company that delivers the service that is promised.