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Various stars, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu are among nearly 20,000 people who have backed the Observer and Amnesty International campaign to end repression on the internet. This remarkable response to the launch of irrepressible.info included support from around the world.

Amnesty International UK and Open Net Initiative (ONI), an Internet surveillance monitoring organisation, have claimed that several large technology companies are guilty of collaborating with "repressive" governmental regimes. Together with The Observer, Amnesty and ONI have launched the Irrepressible.info campaign to urge people to take a stand against repression.

E-mails objecting to a house extension failed to reach a council planning department because its computer system would not let through the word “erection”. His third e-mail, which contained the same word, somehow squeezed through but arrived after the plans had been approved!

A Californian appeal court has decreed that online journalists and bloggers have the same right to protect their sources as other kinds of journalists. The ruling was issued in a case between the US electronics manufacturer Apple and websites that posted confidential information about some of its products. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) petition on behalf of three online journalists…

Ten actual or potential conflict situations around the world deteriorated in May 2006. These include Afghanistan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, there has been some improvement, e.g. the new government of Nepal and Maoist insurgents met for the first peace talks since 2003. Read the full CrisisWatch report here (pdf format).

- EU must help with health, employment and non-discrimination measures. The European Parliament adopted today, by a large majority, L?via J?r?ka's own-initiative report presenting the situation of Roma women living in the European Union. See also news from the Roma Network.

,as the US commitee defeated by voice vote an amendment that would have withheld $200 million of the $1.3 billion in military aid targeted for Egypt until Congress determined it had made progress on political reforms.

As Microsoft developers gathered in Seattle to hear Bill Gates's keynote speech on the future of Microsoft and the coming release of its updated operating system Vista, protesters wearing bright yellow Hazmat suits swarmed the entrance of the city's convention center, delivering an unsettling message to the corporation: your product is defective and hazardous to users.

Every year, the UN's Department of Public Information (DPI) unveils its list of the world's 10 most under-reported stories - read the full list in the UN Press Release.

Zhang Lin, a pro-democracy intellectual and cyber-dissident has now been held for nearly 10 months. Reporters Without Borders today joined his wife in calling for his immediate transfer to a public hospital to treat a spine condition resulting from his hunger strke.