Media - Internet

Communication Rights (CR) as a broad over-arching concept featured variously, at times controversially, at the Tunis World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Ironically, it is yet to find a mention in the Summit declaration. Communication rights is an all-encompassing notion. Activists gathered in this north African city have cited it to campaign on a diverse range of issues – from gender...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has released a list of 15 countries that are "enemies of the Internet" and pointed to a dozen others whose attitude to it is worrying. The 15 "enemies" are the countries that crack down hardest on the Internet, censoring independent news sites and opposition publications, monitoring the Web to stifle dissident voices, and harassing, intimidating and sometimes...

Latha Gauri is a community reporter. On November 17, she took to the podium at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis – the sole representative of a mammoth global grassroots caucus selected to speak at the plenary session. Gauri works for Sneha, a voluntary organisation which networks over 500 villages close to the southern Indian city of Hyderabad – nicknamed Cyberabad for its...

Tunisia has refused entry to the chief of press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) on Thursday when he arrived for a UN summit at which journalists have been harassed, the Paris-based organisation said. Robert Ménard © Indymedia "I wasn't even able to get off the plane," RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said. "Just after the plane stopped, I was told to remain seated and to wait...

The Tunisian government's continuing clampdown on human rights defenders and its intolerance of domestic critics has made a mockery of the UN-sponsored international summit being held in Tunis this week, Amnesty International has said. SOLIDARITY: Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi (left) talks to Tunisian human rights activists who have been on a hunger strike since October 18 to...

OSM, a new online venture designed to bring together top online writers, journalists and commentators under a single umbrella, officially debuted at a New York City launch on Wednesday. Over 70 Web journalists, including Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds and David Corn, Washington editor of the Nation magazine, have agreed to participate in OSM � short for Open Source Media. Journalist Judith Miller...

Heads of state issue eloquent policy statements at the gold-domed compound of the 176-nation summit. Vocal civil society groups and the best of academia are engaged in debates. They have the words, but the real action lies at a glittering pavilion, where the latest goods, gadget and systems are exhibited by the likes of Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Nokia and many others. "Business is the driving...

Building a bridge across the digital divide might not be the smooth path to poverty reduction that many people believe. As many as 17,000 people from around the world are attending this United Nations conference targeted at closing the now famous divide, the gap in access to the Internet and other information age tools (and skills) between rich and poor countries, and even within nations. But will...

Tunisia's control over its citizens' access to Internet content places it at odds with the goals of the World Summit on the Information Society. The OpenNet Initiative on Wednesday released the findings of its investigation into Internet control in Tunisia � "Internet Filtering in Tunisia in 2005" � which documents the degree to which the Tunisian state attempts to control the national information...

A last-minute deal has avoided a split between the United States (US) and other nations over future control of the Internet ahead of the UN summit aimed at reducing the global digital divide. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan gives a speech during the inaugural session of the World Summit on the Internet Society (WSIS) at the Kram Palexo in Tunis. The UN Secretary General has called for...