From the APC blog. Please add your voice here... There are also APC

blogs in Spanish and French getting underway. FN

http://www.apc.org/english/wsis/blog/index.shtml

Making the ride to cyberspace less costly, bumpy By FN (Frederick Noronha) 14/11/2005 08:08 [Access, ICT policy, Communication rights, Content & language] En route to the promised global village, the information superhighway is plagued by poor access and high fares that the bulk of this planet simply cannot afford. Reducing international internet costs is an important priority, underlined in a set of recommendations from the APC made to the WSIS stresses.Read more...

Crucial drafting session in Tunis on internet governance By APCNews 13/11/2005 20:40 [Internet governance] Late on Sunday night, November 13, 2005, an assembly of about 100 people agreed to a series of minimal points of common ground related to internet governance in Tunis. These points were then to be reported back to the general plenary of what is called the resumed PrepCom 3 meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) for definitive negotiation and implementation. Read more...

Some figures... and hard facts By FN (Frederick Noronha) 13/11/2005 20:24 [Communication rights] Some figures, and hard facts, from a Highway Africa article, titled ICT4 All expo to attract 40,000 participants: "According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the 942 million people living in the world's developed economies enjoy five times better access to fixed and mobile phone services, nine times better access to Internet services, and own 13 times more personal computers than the 85 per cent of the world's population living in low and lower-middle income countries. ITU also estimates that 800,000 villages still lack connection by telephone line, the Internet or any other modern ICT." Read more...

Don't take pictures@WSIS-Tunis By Shahzad (BytesForAll, Pakistan) 13/11/2005 18:02 [Civil society participation, Communication rights] Maxigas -- a friend from Hungary -- and myself had the opportunity to go to the Tunis City Centre last afternoon, just to have a feel of the city and get to know a little more about Tunis. The atmosphere seemed quite festive, and preparations for the WSIS are in full swing. Green plants are being transported in numbers and transplanted on roadsides and important squares, large pictures of the Tunisian President are installed everywhere, and even most of the banners also carry his pictures welcoming the WSIS delegates ;) But questions remain.... Read more...

Some voices... about Tunis By FN 13/11/2005 16:43 [Media & ICTs, WSIS implementation] How's the world comprehending Tunis? From disinterest to unheard voices, bewilderment, hidden agendas and nationalistic positions... all these seem to be the trends emerging from the media conference on November 2005's World Summit on the Information Society at Tunisia. More so, if one looks at the media from a Southern perspective. Read more...

The WSIS is _not_ in Tunis By maxigas 13/11/2005 07:45 [Local ICT tactics, WSIS implementation] Yesterday me and Shahzad had a chance to see Tunis in all its WSIS splendour. Tunis as a city has been completely appropriated by the WSIS campaign. Public spaces where people lead their daily lives are heavily marked by a campaign about an event that they have no meaningful way to experience, and that will perhaps not bring any lasting good for their country. Read more...

New book... via Tunis By Partha Pratim Sarker 12/11/2005 08:23 Word Matters Multicultural perspectives on information societies has been described as "a collective work by some 30 authors from civil societies all over the world, deciphers the central concepts of the 'information society'." Read more...

Ultimate webmaster, citizens' voice By FN 12/11/2005 08:03 [Internet governance, Civil society participation] Might interest you: Inter-Press Service has this story U.S. Fights to Remain the Ultimate Webmaster which says that international efforts to break down the digital barriers facing the world's poor will backfire if governments fail to work out their differences on the issue of internet governance. Meanwhile, here's the website for the Citizens' Summit on the Information Society (CSIS). It was launched on November 10. Read more...

Technorati links (2488 and growing) By FN 12/11/2005 07:40 Technorati.com, the search engine for blogs, throws up a total of 2,488 posts related to the WSIS among the 21 million sites and 1.7 billion links that it tracks. Read more...

WSIS Panel on WIPO and IPRs (Nov 16) By Al Alegre 12/11/2005 07:19 [Intellectual property] Thought this -- IPJ at WSIS:A parallel event to be held at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis -- would be of interest. Not sure if it conflicts with any events. Probably will :-). Read more...

Gender voices from Tunis By Katerina Fialova 12/11/2005 05:20 [Civil society participation, Gender & ICTs] Here's some information about GenderIT.org coverage planned for the WSIS at Tunis in mid-November 2005. See details of what's expected via websites, blogs, RSS feeds and more, to keep cyberspace informed about what's emerging. Read more...

APC ... reflecting the WSIS By FN 12/11/2005 04:24 [Civil society participation] Some of APC's plans for reflecting what's happening at Tunis include its English and Spanish websites and a blog in French These blogs aim to be a mix of indepth structured articles plus notes and comment from the APC team in Tunis, and anyone else who would like to write. It's open to the public to post items and comments, subject to posts being relevant to the theme. Read more...

APC... on internet governance By APC 11/11/2005 18:05 [Internet governance] APC has participated extensively in the internet governance process at the World Summit on Information Society. Out of this participation and in collaboration with other partners, including members of the WSIS civil society internet governance caucus, APC has crystallized a set of recommendations with regard to internet governance ahead of the final Summit in Tunis in November 2005. Read more...

Blog links By FN (Frederick Noronha) 11/11/2005 17:50 [Communication rights] Wikipedia's entry on the WSIS has this useful set of links to some other blogs on this theme. There's the WSISBlogs.org, a multilingual coalition of bloggers attending WSIS; includes text, photos, podcasts and video; apart from WSIS wire news on the summit; iwitness, offering debate, news and resources for "journalists creating a fairer information society" and The Daily Summit - WSIS and similar World Summit coverage by the British Council Science Team (with items dating back to 2003 and 2004, at the time of blogging). Read more...

IPS, WSIS and paedophile issues By Frederick Noronha 11/11/2005 15:56 [Laws & regulation] From my RSS-feed, I just came across this story from one of my favourite news sources -- IPS filing from Bangkok -- that makes a case on why the information society must block paedophiles. Read more...

Looking for environmental activists By Milena B. 11/11/2005 06:59 [Environment & ICTs] Just curious whether environmental sustainability and ICTs is taking place somewhere in the WSIS docs at all ;-) It will be good to know if apart from BlueLink, whether there are other NGOs interested to stand up for the issue of environmental sustainability in Tunis. Read more...

Welcome to the APC WSIS blog By Karen Higgs• 08/11/2005 16:57 [Access] APC will be producing two APCNews/APCNoticias specials direct from WSIS and for the first time, original content in French. Watch our for our trilingual English-Spanish-French blogs! Read more...