African Media The Death of Two Great Figures in African Press Mwamba wa ba Mulamba, executive secretary of Journalistes en Danger (JED) passed away on 2 December 2001 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He had been in charge of the press freedom organisation since its creation in 1998. He also managed the daily "Le Potentiel". Habib ould Mahfoudh, managing editor of the Mauritanian weekly "Le Calame" since its creation in 1993, passed away on 31 November 2001. He was famous for his analysis of current events in his column "Mauritanides". He also contributed to setting up the Comité d'Ethique et de déontologie [council for the respect of Ethics and Deontology] (CRED) in May 2001, and more recently to creating an independent publishers' association. The Role of Media Councils in East Africa The Friedrich Ebert Foundation sponsored a regional conference in Mombasa on November 16 and 17, on the role of media councils. This conference was an opportunity to take stock of the various national situations. Kenya does not yet have a self-regulation authority, Tanzania has a voluntary 13-member non-statutory media council, and Uganda has a statutory council. The conference pointed out the need to create media councils in East Africa that are independent from governments and sufficiently pro-active to monitor media outlets for obvious breaches of codes of conduct. Improving high professional standards must be a major objective. It is clear that a code of ethics is best implemented when there is a self-regulation authority that journalists trust. The conference called for closer collaboration amongst the regional councils to encourage experience exchanges.