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ICANN, Internet governance and Africa
by alice＠apc.org 08 Oct '05

08 Oct '05

Dear all Please find attached a brief on ICANN, internet governance and Africa. The brief explains the current status and key points of the discussion on ICANN and internet governance. It provides an overview of ICANN, as well as discusses some issues raised by the WGIG report and why Africa should care about the internet governance debate. A worthwhile read for those who have an interest in the issues and have not been able to follow the details If you have any comments please send them to vincent(a)bridges.org kind regards alice

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Autoreply: [Kictanet] RE: The IG Article (resending)
by fetta＠idrc.or.ke 08 Oct '05

08 Oct '05

Thank you for your email. I am away until Wednesday 12th October. I am not sure that I can respond to you while on travel. For urgent messages please contact lkraft(a)idrc.or.ke Cheers, FE

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RE: The IG Article (resending)
by John Walubengo 07 Oct '05

07 Oct '05

Kictanet seems to have bounced the message...so I am trying to resend. walu. ~~~~ I have just checked the Online Sunday Standard Newspapers and found they didn't upload the particular article. However, find attached the original (uncut) version... walu. >>> "Harry Hare" <harry(a)aitecafrica.com> 10/05/05 06:10PM >>> Walu, Could you please post the article Waudo is referring to hereunder for those at large. Thanks Harry -----Original Message----- From: bounce-kiplist-cl-98713(a)lyris.idrc.ca [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Waudo Siganga Sent: 04 October 2005 22:41 To: KIPlist Subject: Re: F-Root Server goes live in Nairobi Hi All, That was a very informative piece on Internet Governance that Walu ran in his Sunday column. This was the first time that I have seen the issue of IG covered anywhere in the African press. The issue will be with us for a long long time. Oversight (Forum) and core resources management (from 4 WGIG proposals to 10 at PrepCom III) will both most certainly not be resolved by or even through Tunis. As for the root servers, I have been having a nagging question for our friend Michuki: is there a particular reason to have 2 root server mirrors sitting in the same room (in your message of 17th September you indicated that the I-Server mirror is imminent) when these servers contain the same data?? I have always imagined - maybe wrongly - that one reason for having multiple servers is to better manage risk and geographic dispersion helps in that regard. Kind Regards Waudo Siganga At 02:55 PM 10/3/2005, you wrote: >good to have an instance of the F-Root Server hosted here. > >However, for this to translate into savings (bandwidth) for local >communities, we must have the question of local content addressed. In the >absence of this, most users (African) will continue to request external >access to foreign websites and in so doing have little or no regard to the >F-Root Server. > >walu. > > >>> Michuki Mwangi <michuki(a)kenic.or.ke> 09/28/05 11:03am >>> >FYI > >http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/about/press/?pr=2005092700 > >Regards, > >-- >Michuki Mwangi >KENIC. > > >--- >Submitted by: Michuki Mwangi <michuki(a)kenic.or.ke> 2005-09-28 04:08:34 EDT4 >(Please reply to original submitter for private communication) >--- >You are currently subscribed to kiplist-cl as: [jwalubengo(a)kcct.ac.ke] >To unsubscribe, forward this message to %%email.unsub%% > > >--- >Submitted by: John Walubengo <jwalubengo(a)kcct.ac.ke> 2005-10-04 03:18:01 EDT4 >(Please reply to original submitter for private communication) >--- >You are currently subscribed to kiplist-cl as: [csk(a)nbi.ispkenya.com] >To unsubscribe, forward this message to %%email.unsub%% --- Submitted by: csk(a)nbi.ispkenya.com 2005-10-04 05:50:25 EDT4 (Please reply to original submitter for private communication) --- You are currently subscribed to kiplist-cl as: [harry(a)aitecafrica.com] To unsubscribe, forward this message to %%email.unsub%% -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.9/116 - Release Date: 30/09/2005 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.10/119 - Release Date: 04/10/2005 --- Submitted by: harry(a)aitecafrica.com 2005-10-05 11:15:46 EDT4 (Please reply to original submitter for private communication) --- You are currently subscribed to kiplist-cl as: [jwalubengo(a)kcct.ac.ke] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-kiplist-cl-102682Q(a)lyris.idrc.ca

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U.S. unilateral control of ICANN backfired last week
by Dorcas Muthoni 06 Oct '05

06 Oct '05

Subject: US unilateral control of ICANN backfires in WSIS. Date: Sat, 01 Oct 2005 15:50:26 -0400 From: Milton Mueller <Mueller(a)syr.edu> The results of WSIS Prepcom 3 demonstrate the failure of US unilateralism. The US is well on its way toward being isolated, having lost the support of the European Union in its attempt to keep ICANN and Internet governance under its own control. Now its rigid, defensive policy has put the Internet itself at risk. The politics in Geneva were driven by an alliance between the European Union, states critical of ICANN such as Brazil, and authoritarian states such as China, Iran and Pakistan. All agreed to create an "Inter-Governmental Council for global public policy and oversight of Internet governance." Unlike ICANN, this Council would exclude civil society and the private sector from participating in policy making. It would set up a top-down, regulatory relationship between a governmental Council and the people who actually produce and use the Internet. As we have learned from the past two years, most governments have little interest in solving the real problems of the Internet. They prefer to play political games: asserting "national sovereignty" over a global communication medium, censoring inconvenient sources of information, thinking of ways to protect national telecom monopolies from internet-driven competition, grabbing control of country names in the domain name space, excluding Taiwan, and so on. The US government and ICANN have resisted inter-governmental oversight, contending that intergovernmental supervision can be politically unstable and dangerous to the Internet's autonomy. But the US still seems not to understand how its own insistence on unilateral oversight creates the same instability. When the US criticizes governmental control, the obvious retort is that there is already one government with extensive oversight powers over ICANN and the core technical functions of the Internet: the USA itself. The US is completely at a loss to explain why it should have that control, to the exclusion of all other governments. Its "but we are different" argument might find a receptive audience among US business interests, but it doesn't fly anywhere else. It's not enough for the US to say, "we are not an authoritarian state like China." For one thing, the US seems an increasingly authoritarian state to many in Europe, what with the Patriot Act and other recent measures forcing everyone entering the country to undergo biometric surveillance. But even if that is not an entirely fair perception, the US cannot claim that it will not use its unilateral power over ICANN * for it already has. In August, the Bush administration responded to political pressure from conservative religious groups by asking ICANN to reconsider the creation of a top level domain for adult content. It was inevitable and entirely predictable that other governments, including erstwhile allies such as the European Union, would want their own piece of that power. The US could have, and should have, privatized and internationalized its oversight authority when it had a chance. It could have, and should have, insisted on robust, democratic accountability mechanisms for ICANN that would have pre-empted demands for centralized, old-style inter-governmental oversight. It could have, and should have, insisted on negotiating binding international agreements protecting the Internet from arbitrary governmental interference and regulation. But it didn't. And now the debate has devolved to a choice between "US control" versus "UN control." If that is the choice, it is only a matter of time before collective international control wins. What seems to have been lost in the shuffle is the idea of distributed, cooperative control that involves individuals, technical and academic groups, Internet businesses and limited, lawful interactions with governments. The idea that nation-states should not have the ability to arbitrarily intervene in the Internet's operation whenever they feel like it, but should be bound by clear, negotiated constitutional principles, has been crowded out of the debate. As the WSIS debate spills into the US media, do not permit the US government to wrap itself up in the flag of Internet freedom. It is reaping what it sowed. Its own special, extra-legal authority over ICANN and the Internet has been the lightning rod for politicization. Its insistence on retaining control, and the spillover from its unilateralism in other areas such as the war in Iraq, has done tremendous damage to its credibility. Now the Internet is paying the price. Dr. Milton Mueller Syracuse University School of Information Studies http://www.digital-convergence.org http://www.internetgovernance.org _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/) _______________________________________________ incom-l mailing list incom-l(a)incommunicado.info http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/incom-l

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Autoreply: [Kictanet] U.S. unilateral control of ICANN backfired last week
by fetta＠idrc.or.ke 06 Oct '05

06 Oct '05

Thank you for your email. I am away until Wednesday 12th October. I am not sure that I can respond to you while on travel. For urgent messages please contact lkraft(a)idrc.or.ke Cheers, FE

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Autoreply: [Kictanet] FW: Paper: ICT does not lead to development!
by fetta＠idrc.or.ke 06 Oct '05

06 Oct '05

Thank you for your email. I am away until Wednesday 12th October. I am not sure that I can respond to you while on travel. For urgent messages please contact lkraft(a)idrc.or.ke Cheers, FE

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FW: Paper: ICT does not lead to development!
by Wainaina Mungai 06 Oct '05

06 Oct '05

FYI -----Original Message----- From: Rishab Aiyer Ghosh [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 05 October 2005 02:49 To: MERIT-L Cc: mwangi, wangu Subject: *SPAM* paper: ICT does not lead to development! dear all, i thought many of you may find this very readable paper interesting, certainly within the remit of UNU-MERIT! Geography matters: Mapping human development and digital access by Stephanie A. Birdsall and William F. Birdsall First Monday, volume 10, number 10 (October 2005), URL: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_10/birdsall/index.html Abstract: Policy circles have long made the assumption that information and communications technologies promote human development. In mapping the Human Development Index (HDI) against the Digital Access Index (DAI) we explore the statistical and spatial relationship between human development and digital access. The results suggest information and communications technologies may not play as strong a role in promoting human development as is usually asserted and that public policies might need to be centered more on human rather than digital capital. i have a vested interest in promoting this paper (and exaggerating its findings in the subject), as an editor of First Monday, which is now perhaps the longest-running and most widely read on-line peer-reviewed journal (400 000+ papers downloaded monthly). best, rishab

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Autoreply: [Kictanet] [IS_and_SD] FW: [DDN] Tunisians conduct online protest
by fetta＠idrc.or.ke 06 Oct '05

06 Oct '05

Thank you for your email. I am away until Wednesday 12th October. I am not sure that I can respond to you while on travel. For urgent messages please contact lkraft(a)idrc.or.ke Cheers, FE

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[IS_and_SD] FW: [DDN] Tunisians conduct online protest
by Wainaina Mungai 06 Oct '05

06 Oct '05

FYI www.Yezzi.org -----Original Message----- From: digitaldivide-bounces(a)milhouse.edc.org on behalf of Andy Carvin Sent: Tue 10/4/2005 12:56 PM To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group; lm_net(a)listserv.syr.edu Subject: [DDN] Tunisians conduct online protest Hi everyone, Right now there's an extraordinary online protest coming out of Tunisia. The website, Yezzi.org, is a collection of photos of Tunisians holding up signs in various languages, each with a message directed to Tunisian President Ben Ali. Though the phrase they use, "Yezzi, Fock!," may appear to be a misguided attempt to curse out a certain swear word in the English language, it roughly translates to "General Ben Ali, enough is enough!" in Tunisian Arabic. In the words of the protest's organizers: "This expression in Tunisian dialect intends to transmit a clear message to the dictator in order to give up power, because we consider it is enough. For us Tunisians, who are always banned from freely reaching independent information and who are violently forbidden from any peaceful demonstration; this kind of demonstration is a new form of peaceful protest." The site, launched yesterday, contains dozens of photos of Tunisians venting their frustration at President Ben Ali. They note that free expression is technically protected under Tunisian law, though not in practice, so they're using the website to exercise that right: "[T]here's no Tunisian legislative provision prohibiting the right to express our opinions. Absolutely not, this demonstration is covered by the fundamental guarantees provided as well by the Tunisian Constitution as by the International Conventions ratified by Tunisia. All the demonstrators on Yezzi.org make use of their right to express an opinion in saying to the General Ben Ali 'It is enough!'" The Tunisian authorities, not surprisingly, see the matter differently. They've already started blocking the site, so only those of us outside of Tunisia can see it. One can only imagine what might happen to these cyber dissidents if they were caught by the Tunisian police. No matter the response, though, it serves as another reminder of the ackwardness of having the World Summit on the Information Society hosted in Tunisia. -andy -- ----------------------------------- Andy Carvin Program Director EDC Center for Media & Community acarvin @ edc . org http://www.digitaldivide.net http://katrina05.blogspot.com Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com ----------------------------------- _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE(a)mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to digitaldivide-request(a)mailman.edc.org with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back! http://us.click.yahoo.com/VpgUKB/pzNLAA/cUmLAA/XgSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IS_and_SD/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: IS_and_SD-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

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Re: F-Root Server goes live in Nairobi
by John Walubengo 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

good to have an instance of the F-Root Server hosted here. However, for this to translate into savings (bandwidth) for local communities, we must have the question of local content addressed. In the absence of this, most users (African) will continue to request external access to foreign websites and in so doing have little or no regard to the F-Root Server. walu. >>> Michuki Mwangi <michuki(a)kenic.or.ke> 09/28/05 11:03am >>> FYI http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/about/press/?pr=2005092700 Regards, -- Michuki Mwangi KENIC. --- Submitted by: Michuki Mwangi <michuki(a)kenic.or.ke> 2005-09-28 04:08:34 EDT4 (Please reply to original submitter for private communication) --- You are currently subscribed to kiplist-cl as: [jwalubengo(a)kcct.ac.ke] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-kiplist-cl-102682Q(a)lyris.idrc.ca

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