Brazil arrests 50 \'phishers\', and other brief reports ...

* Science and Technology Minister Mosebudi Mangena said at the opening of Microsoft\'s TechEd 2004 forum that multinationals should help develop the local ICT sector. He noted the importance of developing indigenous technology by attracting more research and development work to SA. Mangena said that the local IT sector had the potential to fuel economic growth but it needed to move away from selling foreign products and solutions and towards developing skills to produce them locally. Full SABC News report * China has sentenced 13 people to prison for trafficking in pornographic DVDs. The gang was arrested after police in the region found more than six million DVDs in raids last March. Most of them were pornographic, and those that were not were illegally produced. China has been stepping up its battle against smut and has shut down hundreds of Web sites and arrested more than 300 in connection with Internet pornography. Full SABC News report * A survey of local small and medium enterprises in SA has found that they believe faster Internet connections boost their business. The 2004 SME Survey, by World Wide Worx, showed that 64% of respondents using ADSL to connect to the Internet regard their businesses as highly competitive, versus 54% of those with a dial-up connection. Full ITWeb report: * Red Hat and MySQL are backing an online campaign against the European Union software patent directives. A Web site, NoSoftwarePatents.com has been launched, claiming that the EU directive is being used for anti-competitive purposes. Full report in The Inquirer