The Daily Summit - October 19, 2003 - October 25, 2003 Archives

[NEWS AND VIEWS]

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..

Aaron Scullion | 11:03 AM | TrackBack

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

Freedom of Expression. The issue of freedom of expression in certain countries needs to be tackled seriously at WSIS. After all, you can't get information without someone being free to provide it...

Ahmed Reda | 10:55 AM | TrackBack

Why the summit matters to Latin American journalists:

"Why all this fuss about yet another United Nations chat fest? Because Latin American journalists have learned through long and bitter experience that the obtuse blather issued at these international jaw-jaws is often used by their governments back home to justify censoring and closing newspapers and fining or imprisoning journalists."

David Steven | 10:51 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

Is coverage is the way forward? Technology analyst Bill Thompson says few journalists have reported on the pending summit because it "is simply that it is not going to have any impact". I'm not so sure - won't highlighting and reporting the event successfully help to pressure the representatives in Geneva into a reaching a progressive and useful agreement?

Erin Dean | 10:39 AM | TrackBack

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