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[Africa]

December 12, 2003

Mugabe tightens net. New Zimbawe has more on rumours that President Mugabe is planning to exert a stranglehold over the internet.

Daily Summit has just heard direct from an ISP in Zimbabwe. We are told that the government doesn't yet have the capacity to censor internet traffic, but that may change soon.

All Zimbabwean ISPs are forced to use bandwidth provided by TelOne, a government monopoly, for their outgoing traffic (although they use satellite links for incoming traffic, as Zimbabwean bandwidth is so limited).

Our source confirms strong rumours that Chinese equipment is now in place, which "would be capable of full monitoring of all Internet communications if all ISPs were forced to drop the use of the satellite downlinks that they currently use, and partial monitoring if the downlinks were left in place."

The equipment is not yet in use, however, because the government is not sure whether it is competent enough to run it. " A single point of failure for the whole Zimbabwe internet could result in catastrophic loss of communications, so they are reluctant to actually commission the equipment."
David Steven @ 05:55 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
A vision of a future. Daily Summit has been hearing from a blind Ethiopian man who plans to help others overcome their loss of sight by helping them get access to screen readers and text-to-speech software.

Despite losing his sight when he was seven, Getu Mulatu from Ethiopia finished school and went to Univeristy where he gained two degrees.

Now he has co-founded the Adaptive Technology Centre for the Blind to make it easier for other people to follow in admirable footsteps.

Mr Getu told us about his scheme which gives blind people the "liberty" to work and learn. There are estimated to be at least 500,000 blind people in Ethiopia, not including people with partial sight problems. Their future is generally bleak with most either dependent on their families or begging on the streets, Mr Getu said.

Like many he lost his sight to an illness that could have been easily treated.
"With speaking screen reader and text-to-speech software I no longer have to rely on volunteers to read to me and attend my secretarial needs," Mr Getu said.
"I can send e-mails, write reports and invitations for the centre on my own."

They have already trained more than 70 people ranging from school children to doctors. The next stage is to reach more people, particularly in the remote areas of the country, and to introduce braille equipment. But, as ever, they need second hand computers, volunteers and funds...
Erin Dean @ 02:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Nigeria in space. Nigeria launched black Africa's first satellite (Nigersat 1) into orbit a few months ago.

Talking exclusively to Daily Summit in his Mandarin hotel room, Nigeria's Minister of Science and Technology, Turner Isoun, had some exciting news. Nigeria now plans to launch its first communications satellite.

"Our strategy now is to go into communications satellites," he told us. "We missed the industrial revolution. We can not afford to miss the IT revolution."

"Now that the Federal Executive Council (the highest decision making body in the land) has approved the project, the satellite will be our IT infrastructure backbone.

His aim: "To be able to produce goods and services for the ICT market. To massively encourage training, capacity utilisation and software."

His plan: "Using this good beginning (WSIS) to transform the present environment ensuring that, in the next four years, at least 50 percent of all the children and youths in schools are signed up to the IT world."

The Science Minister spoke with real passion about the Nigerian dream. With a population of over 120 million, an ICT revolution in Nigeria could transform prospects for Africa. And provide a ray of hope for the continent.
Oghogho Obayu @ 12:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 11, 2003

Ugandan girl pleads for education. 15 year old Atwiine Cairo, representing the Girls' Education Movement , has confidently told why girls drop out of school in her country.

"Poor parents cannot afford the school materials, and the girls sometimes need to support the family." She added that girls can be sexually harassed at schools.

A brave individual is something of a rarity amongst the plethora of NGOs and government delegations here in Geneva...

"I dream of a country where all girls will be at school in a healthy environment where girls and boys are treated the same", she said.

Her speech was followed by one from a 14 year old boy scout from Pakistan..
Cara Swift @ 01:27 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Firm and unbending. "Studio 7 will die. It faces death. They think we are sleeping; we want to see where they are going," a typically subtle threat to media freedom from Zimbabwe Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo.

But Wilson Johwa reports that cyber cafes are doing well: "Devon, a cyber cafe assistant in Bulawayo, says there has been an upsurge in the number of people, "from school children to old men in their sixties", using the Internet. He says apart from checking mail and searching for jobs, users visit news portals and read online newspapers."

Great context for President Mugabe's speech yesterday.

The President claimed that the information society was built on the same platform and with the same technologies "through which virulent propaganda and misinformation are peddled to de legitimise our just struggles against vestigial colonialism, indeed to weaken national cohesion and efforts at forging a broad Third World front against what patently is a dangerous imperial world order led by warrior states and kingdoms."

In particular, he accused the United Kingdom and United States of "using their ICT superiority to challenge our sovereignty through hostile and malicious broadcasts calculated to foment instability and destroy the state through divisions."

Even the concept of a free-press should not be taken at face value: "The quest for an information society should not be at the expense of our efforts towards building sovereign national societies. Our national society does not exist to serve ICTs or information."

"Both must be instruments that serve our society as it seeks fullness through balanced development and self-determination. Both must express themselves within the parameters of our inviolate sovereignty represented by our democratic national will which expresses itself through our national laws, our national policies and our national institutions."

"On this we are firm and unbending."
David Steven @ 09:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 10, 2003

Africa's dicey situation. Africa fears being left behind as the world rushes into a high tech future, with a stunned audience hearing from the secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) this evening, that New York has more telephone lines than the whole of Africa!

The Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo puts it bluntly. "We are still struggling to provide the basic necessities of life... While faced with these challenges, we are also confronted with the digital revolution. We are, therefore, placed in a dicey situation."

"Almost everyone in the developed countries has access to ICTs, whereas in sub-Saharan Africa, overall fixed line teledensity is about 1 to 130 inhabitants while internet, computers and television are available to only a handful of elites," he added.

Earlier, Senegalese strongman Abdulaye Wade had raised hopes of the emergence of a new concept of digital solidarity. But the Nigerian president seemed more downbeat, his baritone voice conveying the sad message that there appears to be a lack of political will to tackle a widening digital divide. He called, again, for a Digital Solidarity Fund, as "a practical measure for redressing the digital imbalance."

It was not all bad news. The President enthused about the strides which he says Nigeria has taken in catching up with the rest of the world. An independent telecoms regulatory is in place, which "has led to increased foreign investment as well as the intensification of competition. within the past four years, fixed telephone lines have increased from about 300,000 lines to 720,000 while mobile telephones increased fro m less than 50,000 to about 2,500,000. Direct foreign and domestic investment in the sector amounts to about four billion dollars."

More on this from Andy Carvin...
Oghogho Obayu @ 08:12 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Mugabe speaks to WSIS. We live in a false and failed information society, where ICT's are used to impose global hegemony and dominance on the part of rich nations of the North, the Zimbabwean President has just told WSIS, in an impassioned speech.

Introduced by the red-haired, female President of Latvia, wearing a striking green suit, Mugabe clearly had his recent battles with the Commonwealth uppermost in his mind.

He didn't waste this opportunity to lambast the British and the colonial past - and those who now, he believes, use their control of the information society to promote "hostile and malicious broadcasts calculated to foment instability" in poor countries.

E-governance and e-education require "a sovereign national state whose preoccupation is its people first and foremost" - not the needs of the white warrior states (eg, the UK, the US, and Australia) who are using their technological superiority to drive through a "dangerous imperial world order."

It was a powerful piece of oratory and a hard act to follow - as the Head of Government of Liechtenstein discovered.
Cara Swift @ 05:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Countdown to Mugabe. Mugabe will speak in just 15 minutes. And the media is clearly excited. Chairs had emptied as the Presidents of Latvia, Cape Verde, and Gabon gave their speeches. But people are filtering back into the room slowly but surely.

Daily Summit has stayed the course and will bring you news of what Mugabe has to say - as he says it.

Cara Swift @ 05:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mugabe attacks autocracy. As we wait for Robert Mugabe to deliver his speech (things are running late here), here are his thoughts on UN reform.

"At a time when citizens everywhere are pressing for a greater say in national governance, it is imperative for us as Heads of State and Government to seek, in turn, a fairer representation through the democratization of multilateral organisations... What is good for the goose must surely be good for the gander.

"The present autocracy in global governance must be challenged stoutly so all nations, big or small, have equal say and equal power in the way we govern world affairs."
David Steven @ 05:02 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Mugabe is in town and due to speak this afternoon - we'll keep you posted.

David Steven @ 01:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 09, 2003

Right to dignity? Images of the rotting carcasses of murdered Africans left lying in the street were shown at the World Violence World Media panel discussion today.

"The pictures of these bodies were shown without restraint," said Professor Serge Theophile Balima of the University of Burkino Faso. "If they were American, there would have been a code of practice preventing that but not when you are dealing with the corpses of Africans."

His words echoed the debate which raged after the bodies of American soldiers, captured and killed by Iraqis during the war, were shown on Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi television. Western television channels had no qualms about showing the bodies of Iraqi victims, of course.

Jonah Goldberg brings another perspective, though - furious that US networks were no longer showing pictures of people leaping to death from the World Trade Center: "Well, I want to be disturbed. I say: Let's bring back the horror. Let's remind people what started this whole mess."
Claire Regan @ 07:59 PM | Comments (1)
Furrer solution or final solution? We reported that the Swiss government's information chief Marc Furrer had hammered out a compromise on the digital solidarity fund - based on Western leaders agreeing to look into the idea.

But the President of Senegal Abdoulaye Wade has just been laying on the line here at WSIS his view - the fund must be more than looked into, it must happen. He's asking for more clarification from sceptical countries who want to emphasise existing mechanisms, and wants a defninition of what these are, and what they are achieving.

Cara Swift @ 06:45 PM | Comments (0)
Radio Ga-ga (2). We've talked about the role of radio at WSIS, but now we've discovered that Africa can expect a radio invasion, of sorts.

The radio may not be the top of the range kit, these days - but it is certainly a mighty weapon for rural folks in Africa hungry for information.

The glittering Geneva conference centre, the Palexpo where leaders from across the globe are gathering for WSIS has innumerable stands for ICT stakeholders but anyone who shares the vision of a people oriented communications policy for Africa will not fail to notice the combined back-facing-back stand(s) of the World Association of Community Radio And Broadcasters (AMARC), Catalysing access to ICT,s in Africa (CATIA) and PANOS.

Using the links of Inter world Radio (IWA), this team plan to have more community-based radio stations in Africa and they are serious about this.

Sameer Padania, network development manager with the Inter World Radio told Daily Summit "We believe that radio is the heart of information society". According to her, proliferation of rural radio has been pretty difficult in the past because "English is our medium but surely you know that you need local languages for this".

PANOS is currently building a network of stations in Africa after the Ugandan success. It is also working with two FM stations in Nigeria.

Speaking on the plan for Africa, the vice president of AMARC (north America) Elizabeth Robinson said the company is stepping up its media exchange programme throughout the continent. Its international office is based in Johannesburg, South Africa and is currently maintaining community radio stations in Mali, Senegal and some other countries in southern Africa. "Our plan now is to encourage more African countries to have community media", she added.

For Freda Werden, executive producer of Women International News Gathering Service, CATIA, AMARC, and PANOS working together now represents a positive sign for an African rural revolution.
Oghogho Obayu @ 06:34 PM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2003

Last minute bid for pre-WSIS solutions. Marc Furrer, the Swiss Government's Information Minister, plans last minute talks, on Dec 5 and 6 - the very eve of WSIS - to find agreement on key contentious issues. The No. 1 issue, for Furrer, is defining "the role of the press in the digital age... it's big.. for countries like Iran, China, Syria and Tunisia".

Believe it or not, Switzerland, home to perhaps the UN's biggest European operations, only joined the U.N. in March 2002: not because anyone had excluded the Swiss but because it took that long before the people in a tightly fought referendum overcame their inborn resistance to international entanglements and the fear that membership would affect their long-prized neutrality.

Hosting WSIS is Switzerland's first task as a member of the U.N. family - which may explain the investment in the so-called parallel events like the World Electronic Media Forum - and Minister Furrer's initiative in setting up those last ditch meetings. "It doesn't have to be high-level people - not ministers", says Furrer, "but I want people who can negotiate because they won't be able to consult with their capitals any more".

WSIS-watchers who have waded through three and a half PREPCOMS may be wondering whether to hold their breath on December 5 and 6.
Andrew Taussig @ 04:49 PM | TrackBack

November 22, 2003

Tunisian internet journalist, Zouhair Yahyaoui, whose story we reported here, has been freed...

David Steven @ 07:17 PM | TrackBack

November 20, 2003

Technology League Table. Summit organisers, the ITU are trumpeting their new Digital Access Index as the "World's First Global ICT Ranking".

And it's a Scandinavian one-two-three - with Sweden in pole position, and Denmark and Iceland just behind them on the grid. Norway (5th) and Finland (8th) are only just behind. The US only comes in 11th (apparently because of its weak mobile phone network), just behind Canada, while Italy (22nd) and France (23rd) only just edge out Slovenia.

Niger rolls in last, just behind Mali, Chad, Guinea-Bissau and Ethiopia. Africa's performance is predictably depressing - with only two countries (the Seychelles and Mauritius) squeezing into the index's second division and most languishing in its fourth (and bottom) one.

The performance of Asian countries is improving rapidly - with Korea (4th), Hong Kong (7th), Taiwan (9th), and Singapore (14th) all ahead of tech-obsessed Japan (15th). UAE (34th) heads up the Arab League Table, followed by Bahrain (42nd), Qatar (48th), Kuwait (60th) and Lebanon (67th).

The report's author, Michael Minges, claims lack of infrastructure is not the main, or even the most important, barrier blocking ICT take-up. Affordability and education are equally important factors, he claims.

Contrary to perceived wisdom, he claims English is no longer an advantage. "Over the past four years there's been a big shift," he says. "It's really moving toward Asia and away from the English-speaking nations."

Using data from 1998 on the top 40 countries as a comparator, Minges argues that non-Anglophone countries are on the way up, while English-speakers are plummeting down the rankings.

"This is completely contrary to everything that we've heard, that English is an advantage, if you don't speak English you're behind," he says.

The index aggregates eight (weighted) variables: fixed telephone subscribers per 100 inhabitants; mobile cellular subscribers per 100 inhabitants; internet access price as percentage of gross national income per capita; adult literacy; combined primary, secondary and tertiary school enrolment level; international internet bandwidth (bits) per capita; broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants; and internet users per 100 inhabitants.
David Steven @ 03:35 PM | TrackBack
Technology League Table. Summit organisers, the ITU are trumpeting their new Digital Access Index as the "World's First Global ICT Ranking".

And it's a Scandinavian one-two-three - with Sweden in pole position, and Denmark and Iceland just behind them on the grid. Norway (5th) and Finland (8th) are only just behind. The US only comes in 11th (apparently because of its weak mobile phone network), just behind Canada, while Italy (22nd) and France (23rd) only just edge out Slovenia.

Niger rolls in last, just behind Mali, Chad, Guinea-Bissau and Ethiopia. Africa's performance is predictably depressing - with only two countries (the Seychelles and Mauritius) squeezing into the index's second division and most languishing in its fourth (and bottom) one.

The performance of Asian countries is improving rapidly - with Korea (4th), Hong Kong (7th), Taiwan (9th), and Singapore (14th) all ahead of tech-obsessed Japan (15th). UAE (34th) heads up the Arab League Table, followed by Bahrain (42nd), Qatar (48th), Kuwait (60th) and Lebanon (67th).

The report's author, Michael Minges, claims lack of infrastructure is not the main, or even the most important, barrier blocking ICT take-up. Affordability and education are equally important factors, he claims.

Contrary to perceived wisdom, he claims English is no longer an advantage. "Over the past four years there's been a big shift," he says. "It's really moving toward Asia and away from the English-speaking nations."

Using data from 1998 on the top 40 countries as a comparator, Minges argues that non-Anglophone countries are on the way up, while English-speakers are plummeting down the rankings.

"This is completely contrary to everything that we've heard, that English is an advantage, if you don't speak English you're behind," he says.

The index aggregates eight (weighted) variables: fixed telephone subscribers per 100 inhabitants; mobile cellular subscribers per 100 inhabitants; internet access price as percentage of gross national income per capita; adult literacy; combined primary, secondary and tertiary school enrolment level; international internet bandwidth (bits) per capita; broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants; and internet users per 100 inhabitants.
David Steven @ 03:35 PM | TrackBack

November 19, 2003

In the news, the FT reports on the perilous state of the negotiations, Angola prepares for the summit, and Pakistan plans 2,000 Internet labs planned for state schools.

David Steven @ 08:06 AM

November 17, 2003

In the news, New Zealand civil society is being funded to send a one-person delegation to the summit, while a three day national consultation for the summit has started in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, President Mbeki of South Africa has argued that, with ICANN administering internet domains, "the world continues to be be governed by California law."


"We need to discuss the possibility of putting in place a multilateral mechanism for Internet governance and the summit is a good place to do it," Mbeki told the media yesterday. "it may be the current way it is governed through ICANN is the best way, but this has to be examined."
David Steven @ 08:27 AM

November 15, 2003

Getting Started - It seems that WSIS is about to get started with a handful of surprises. Daily Summit hears that there is a lot of talk about changing the venue of the second phase of the summit and holding it in Cape Town instead of Tunisia. It might be for political reasons but the second surprise is that ITU (International Telecommunication Union) is considering withdrawal from the second phase as well. Reasons given range from lack of resources and lay-offs to inability to coup with intense and broad political negotiations.

Meanwhile, civil society organizations are up against holding the second phase of WSIS in Tunisia and are lobbying for a change of venue or a change in the attitude of the Tunisian government concerning human rights.
Ahmed Reda @ 10:14 PM

November 11, 2003

In the news, Associated Press reports that the French Prime Minister and German Chancellor are among 56 world leaders committed to attending the summit, while the World Bank is resisting plans proposed by Senegal for a special fund to address the digital divide.

According to a Bank spokesman: "It's a very powerful concept, [but] generally people are not excited by the idea of creating a special fund that entails massive arrangements. The bank would not support something that would generate a few million dollars for African countries and cost the same amount in managing."
David Steven @ 09:09 AM

October 25, 2003

Tunisia gets it in the neck, from French NGO, Reporters without Borders.

They're campaigning hard on behalf of cyber-dissident, Zouhair Yahyaoui, who ran an online magazine under the pseudonym Ettounsi.

Ettuunisi was recently sentenced to two years in prison for "spreading false news", after being hung by his arms through three gruelling torture sessions.

How can Tunisia pose as a friend of freedom, but jail Internet dissidents? the NGO asks.

David Steven @ 11:01 AM | TrackBack
Telephone Tax. Senegalese President, Abdoulaye Wade has proposed a global tax on international calls, personal computers and software packages. Revenue would fund a "digital solidarity" fund to help Africa catch up with the IT revolution.

"It is paradoxical and ironic that the continent which invented writing . . . [is] excluded from universal knowledge," the President commented.

His tax, he argued, would be a painless one. Daily Summit is not so sure - shrieks of pain can be expected from IT lobbies should the proposal ever be put seriously on the table once the summit gets going in Geneva next month...

David Steven @ 10:47 AM | TrackBack
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