The Daily Summit - November 16, 2003 - November 22, 2003 Archives

[NEWS AND VIEWS]

November 22, 2003

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

David Steven | 07:17 PM | TrackBack

In the news, Shashi Tharoor (snappy job title: UN under secretary-general for communications and public information) argues that "The information revolution is inconceivable without political democracy."

David Steven | 07:12 PM | TrackBack

The world's NGOs employ 19 million people and have an annual budget of $1 trillion. Together, claims John Powers, they would form the world's eighth-largest economy.

Powers also offers useful background the relationship between the UN and the NGOs that lobby it on a daily basis:

"For an NGO to be recognized by the United Nations, however, there are requirements, and even two statuses for which an NGO might apply.

The DPI status is under the authority of the U.N. Department of Public Information (UNDPI), which controls U.N. archives and research facilities. To obtain it, according to Paul Hoeffel, chief of the DPI/NGO Section at the United Nations, an organization must have been in existence for at least three years and provide evidence of having worked with the United Nations in some cooperative way. The financial records of the organization must be turned over to the UNDPI for review, and the ideals and philosophy of the organization must not conflict with broad U.N. missions and policy.

'We have to be careful who we accept,' Hoeffel says. The benefit of this status, he says, is that NGOs gain access to all U.N. facilities and conferences and may gather information on their areas of interest at the U.N. library. Currently, he says, about 250 organizations apply for DPI status a year, with 40 to 50 of these being accepted. There now are 1,400 NGOs with DPI status.

The other status for which the NGOs may apply is ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) status. The U.N. Website says that to obtain ECOSOC standing an NGO must prove that its work is directly relevant to U.N. goals. With ECOSOC standing an NGO may enter into a formal consultive relationship with access to officials of U.N. member states and must provide useful or special information to the U.N. Economic and Social Council. There currently are 2,350 NGOs with ECOSOC status."

David Steven | 07:07 PM | TrackBack

On the box. Kofi Annan has been celebrating World Television Day (yes, really) and loyally linking this momentous event both to the summit and the World Electronic Media Forum.

"Television can be a tremendous force for good," the UN Secretary General said. "It can educate great numbers of people about the world around them. It can show us how much we have in common with our neighbours, near and far. And, it can shed light on the dark corners, where ignorance and hatred fester."

However, Mr Annan is worried that poor countries do not export enough TV programmes to the rich world: "The flow of information ought not be one way only, from North to South; this has led to a burgeoning 'content divide' that threatens to overwhelm or marginalize local views and voices."

Mr. Annan wants to "preserve and promote cultural and linguistic diversity" without infringing on media freedoms."

David Steven | 06:53 PM | TrackBack

November 21, 2003

In the news, One World East Asia carries an interview with Chetan Sharma on Indian preparations for WSIS. Sharma is "utterly dissatisfied with the government's response," but remains "certain the WSIS will help the poor."

David Steven | 05:40 PM | TrackBack

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.

David Steven | 03:51 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

More news "The "ICT for Development Platform" is heading for a major success. Two hundred organisations and businesses from 80 countries have already announced their intention to participate in the largest summit event at WSIS. Covering an area of 16,000m2, the Platform, which runs from December 9 to 13, will show how information and communication technologies Ã¢â‚¬â€œ from simple transistor radios to high-tech computer systems Ã¢â‚¬â€œ can be used innovatively to reduce poverty and promote development.

Ahmed Reda | 07:17 PM

The Future- It seems that the internet community is growing so fast that newspapers around the globe are trying to preserve their status. "In France, circulation has fallen from around 6 million daily readers in 1945 to 1 million in 2000 - and quite likely 800 000 today. In the USA, huge demographic swathes, including the 18-24 age group beloved of advertisers, have no members willing to read a newspaper every day. Among traditionally newspaper friendly social groups, the number of individuals reading a paper a day has dropped dramatically in the past four decades."

"Even in the UK, with a vibrant and noisy national newspaper business, circulations are falling (with some exceptions). Paul Horrocks, editor of regional daily The Manchester Evening News, went so far as to say that some newspapers are looking at ways to guarantee their survival, never mind prosper."

Ahmed Reda | 05:56 PM

World Press Freedom Committee says "The summit presents a potentially serious threat to press freedom, as it is seen by numerous groups as an opportunity to introduce restrictive proposals. Coalitions of these groups have met, stated their goals for influencing the summit outcome and have embarked on plans of action."

Ahmed Reda | 12:34 PM

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 16, 2003

Refused Entry to WSIS A row is brewing over the non-admission to WSIS of Reporters sans frontieres a civil society organization supporting reporters' rights to gather and publish information.

The Joint Caucus had already been angered by the WSIS Executive Secretariat's decision to exclude Human Rights in China - presumptively under pressure from the Chinese Government.

The official reason given for the WSIS Executive Secretariat decision on RSF is its one-year suspension from ECOSOC (resulting from incidents at a March 2003 meeting of the Commission on Human Rights) - that suspension, says the Secretariat, bars RSF from all UN gatherings including WSIS.

Countering this, the WSIS Civil Society Media and Human Rights Joint Caucus has expressed "consternation and astonishment" at a "procedurally" based decision, violating the fundamental spirit and principles of WSIS. The Caucus requested that the decision be rescinded.

Andrew Taussig | 08:31 PM

So which comes first? Human rights, or freedom of information? It doesn't look like WSIS will give you both. As China resists any reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the WSIS declaration, Worldsummit2003.org reports that the EU's insistence on this leaves it able to "blame the failure of the summit on China".

But the ideals that power the information society lend themselves inherently to the provision of human rights, don't they? A statement distributed by the Human Rights caucus at last week's talks recognizes that human rights and freedom of information are "intimately related and hold the potential of enhancing each other". But is any country more or less likely to respect human rights if it makes it into the WSIS declaration? Of course not - so why can't we remember what we're here for?

Aaron Scullion | 03:50 PM

The IPR Hot Potato. There's little agreement over Intellectual Property Rights in advance of the summit. As ever, it's hardly surprising that ideas and information (specifically, who owns them and what does it cost to buy them) go to the heart of the "digital divide". To quote the WSIS draft declaration "a fair balance has to be struck between IPR protection... and... its use, and knowledge-sharing".

So, on one hand, WSIS-watchers will be looking closely at the attitude of big "advanced developing" countries like Brazil, Mexico, China and India - who have interests on either side of the IPR digital-information divide. Richer countries see a strict regime of intellectual property protection as essential to encourage innovation and creativity, while ranged between them are those who believe the "fair balance" concept is mean, misguided and based on a false analogy with ownership of physical property. Of course, those who promote communication rights believe "the best way to 'protect' creations of the intellect is to allow them to be used".

Andrew Taussig | 02:58 PM

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.

Erin Dean | 02:35 PM

Iran has confirmed its participation at the summit, as we reported yesterday - which is interesting as the country supports a particularly vigorous online culture, with Persian blogs mutliplying by the day.

A few days back, Hossein Derakhshan celebrated the second anniversay of the Persian blogging day, the day he first published a step-by-step guide to creating a Persian weblog.

Hossein, who blogs in both English and Persian, reckons there are now over a 100,000 Persian weblogs in existence (pointing us to this useful Google listing). Iran now has its own version of blogger - PersianBlog

These blogs produce "tons of Persian content everyday about the lives and minds of Iranians in a very important period in the history of Iran, when the religious regime has clearly failed to respond to its own people and is gradually changing," he argues.

In a talk on Persian blogging, Hossein says that blogs are having a real impact on Iranian life, promoting the values of a generation that favours individuality and self expression, providing eye witness accounts of major news events, and building links between those in Iran and the Iranian diaspora.

"If only the language barrier didn't exist, the whole world could see the most accurate and unique insight into the most complicated nation in the mid-east region, and maybe world politicians would really find out what would be the best approach to deal with the Iranian regime," Hossein says - though it's worth visiting his Persian blog even if you don't speak the language, as it provides summaries in English.

Persian blogging has also caught the attention of the world's media - with articles from the Wall Street Journal, CNN, the BBC, Wired, Newsweek, Online Journalism Review et al...

David Steven | 12:13 PM

In the news, Reuters analyses the progress of the negotiations, but reports that developing countries are making some progress on the"digital divide" fund they have been pressing for. It looks like they're going to get... more talks!

According Pierre Gagne, head of the summit secretariat: "No decision will be taken on the establishment of a fund, but I think that there will be agreement to establish a mechanism that will come up with specific recommendations on what to do."

David Steven | 11:36 AM

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