[Europe]

December 12, 2003

EU leaders begin crunch summit. But in Brussels. Not Geneva.

December 11, 2003

Flying Bertie. Irish premier Bertie Ahern jetted in for a flying visit to address the plenary this morning - one of a few heads of state bothering to do so.

The Taoiseach squeezed the speech into a jam-packed day of engagements, which saw him flying out to Brussels less than two hours after he touched down in Geneva.

"We want to tap into the huge pool of ICT expertise in Irish industry in a new partnership in support of poverty reduction," the premier promised. "We will encourage and facilitate Irish ICT volunteers to use their skills in support of capacity building programmes in our partner countries. We will consult industry and Third Level institutions about new areas of research and ICT development. We will work to development new partnerships between Irish ICT companies and enterprises in developing countries."

He also described the digital divide in access to ICTs "as a symptom of a wider development divide". "Unless we tackle the root causes of global inequality and injustice, we will not bridge the digital divide, " he argued. "Fundamentally as we agreed at Monterrey, we need better governance, sound ecomomic management, more Overseas Development Aid, more debt relief, a fair world trade order and a relentless focus on the fight against HIV/Aids." A new magna carta??? Lucio Stanca, Italian Minister for the Innovation and the Technologies, finally kicked off a delayed EU press conference (Italy holds the EU presidency and thus leads the European delegation).

This is the first world summit where there has been no need for late night and last minute negotiations to reach agreement. The result, he claimed, was "a magna carta for the information society."

Erikki Liikanen, European Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society, hailed the summit's commitment to the "enabling environment" - code speak for a light regulatory regime. "If you get the regulations right in a developing country, you have more competition. Price goes down and quality goes up."

December 10, 2003

Ireland - a country transformed by the power of information technologies, has launched a plan to help ensure those technologies are used to fight poverty in the world's poorest countries. Irish minister Tom Kitt said his country will "respond to requests for advice and information on the policies which underpin our move into a knowledge economy", in advance of the Irish PM's WSIS address on Thursday.

December 09, 2003

Aboard the Marie Celeste. Granted, some of the meetings advertised here seem boring, but you would have thought that the speakers would turn up, at least. Not so, according to one exasperated volunteer standing outside the Labour and Information Society meeting. "Speakers haven't been turning up to about 25 per cent of the meetings," she said. "I think it's because they are having trouble getting through registration. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow."

With queues getting longer by the minute, we think this is optimistic.

Speakerless meetings (no speaker turning up within half an hour of the scheduled start) have so far included:
Labour and Information Society
Software Libre para una Sociedad del Conoc Igualitaria y Multicultural

Anyone wanting to name and shame meetings that bear a passing resemblance to the Marie Celeste should comment below....

November 28, 2003

In the news, Marc Furrer, who leads the Swiss delegation, has been talking to the Swiss press about Switzerland's role as an "informal mediator during last-ditch talks with individual countries, aimed at ironing out lingering differences over the draft declaration and plan of action" (more here).

He's playing his cards close to his chest, "optimistic that we will find a way with China," but not wanting to say anything that could jeapordise agreement with Russia.

November 27, 2003

Private or free? The EU appears to be moving towards much tougher regulation of the internet on the grounds of privacy, following a landmark ruling upholding a Norwegian decision to fine a woman who had set up a website giving information to church parishioners.

According to Out-Law.com, Mrs Lindqvist's mistake was to give out information about her fellow church volunteers (names, telephone numbers etc) without their explicit permission. She also revealed that one lady had injured her foot and was working part-time on medical grounds.

Mrs Lindqvist appealed after being fined over US$500 in a lower court. Eventually her case was heard by the European Court of Justice, which ruled "that the act of referring, on an internet page, to various persons and identifying them by name or by other means, for instance by giving their telephone number or information regarding their working conditions and hobbies, constitutes the processing of personal data wholly or partly by automatic means within the meaning of [the Directive]."

The Register also reports this story and warns that any business with a website should expect a crackdown from the European Data Protection Registrars.

Anders Jacobsen is on the case too, wondering whether this could spell the end of photoblogging in Europe - the new trend of blogging from a mobile phone.

"This effectively, as far as I can see, blocks photoblogging and mobile phone blogging (of photos of people taken in Europe or of any Europeans(?)) without a model release form," he writes. "End of story. Sad but true. It actually also impacts to a great extent about what you can write about non-relatives in your blog."

November 20, 2003

In the news, among plenty of reaction to the ITU's new ICT index (see below), the Koreans are planning to jump further up the table, Bahrainis are pleased, but Kiwis, Aussies and Brits are depressed.

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. 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.

November 16, 2003

Where's the progress? The summit is in trouble, as previously noted. Three more days of talks, designed to sort out gaping disagreements, have dribbled to a close.

By now, we shoud have something to really work with in Geneva - but instead, every time the participants get round a table, more tensions come out.

The draft paper optimistically calls for a "people-centered, inclusive"
information society - something which it wants to get from a hopelessly divided bunch.

There seem to be three main problems:
- Firstly, surprise, surprise, - money. The EU, especially Germany and the UK, and Japan are desperately against even a voluntary fund to pay for ICTs.
- Secondly, freedom of expression and human rights. China have successfully ambushed a complete paragraph on the "free flow of information" - not a good decision for the good of the world's media.
- And finally - Internet governance. China again seems to be causing more trouble than anyone else - it looked like governments would agree on just stating the need for further discussion in the declaration (a bit of a cop-out anyway), but China is blocking progress here, because Taiwan is a member of the ICANN government advisory board.

In addition the Civil Society seems to be generally brassed off with the course things are taking. They also said that terrorism legislation is now clamping down on the freedom of speech - an interesting swipe (especially at the US).

These are pretty complex issues, but Daily Summit is going to unravel them as best we can, over the next couple of posts.

November 13, 2003

Debates on WSIS at the European Social Forum Activists at the European Social Forum in Paris have just been debating WSIS, the issues involved and their planned response.

Several issues were raised as matters of concern, including:

• worries whether the ITU was the right body to be co-ordinating the event - some speakers considered that UNESCO was more appropriate. One speaker suggested that when the ITU agreed to taking it on, the event was envisioned as a much more technology based affair, rather than the society-focused project it has become.


• whether private businesses, the UN organisations and western governments had too much weight in the build-up to the event, at the expense of civil society and poorer countries. One enraged speaker from the panel fumed at how (he claimed) NGOs were allowed to turn up for preparatory meetings, make their five minute presentation and were told to run along while the real preparation got underway.


• whether zealous advocates of using new technologies to solve problems in developing countries (primarily large businesses, it was claimed) really had the interests of the people at heart, or whether such societies might be better to focus on basic telephone and radio networks


• alternatively, whether rural areas, where it was not profitable to increase productivity, would ever get connected if responsibility was left to the private sector.

Tomorrow night sees a big planning meeting for the 'WSIS - We Seize!' counter summit in Genva, running alongside the official summit.

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."

October 25, 2003

Brussels = Washington? EU officials will have their work cut out if they want to use the conference to undermine the USA's dominance of the internet..

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