ITU Brokers Powerful Partnerships at World Information Society Summit. Building on its 138-year old role as a catalyst and facilitator for better connectivity between and within countries, the International Telecommunication Union is announcing more than 15 new partnerships between governments, industry, international organizations and universities. The announcements were made at the World Summit on the […]

Africa's dicey situation. Africa fears being left behind as the world rushes into a high tech future. The Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo said bluntly at WSIS yesterday, “We are still struggling to provide the basic necessities of life… While faced with these challenges, we are also confronted with the digital revolution. We are, therefore, placed in […]

the hammer of the travel gods. so i'm trying to get from the conference at the georgetown university conference center to reagan national airport . i've given myself a more than adequate window of time to go the relatively short distance, factoring in traffic, airport security and getting lost. yes, that's right, whenever i'm in […]

Live coverage of WSIS. The WSIS Secretariat is providing live coverage of all the speeches of heads of state and the general debate. [ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog]

WSIS Highlights 10 December 2004. Inclusive Summit Reflects Diversity of Information Society After months of intensive preparations, the final touches were in place for the official opening of the Geneva phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which took place today. Visitors, delegations, staff and volunteers arrived to a hugely busy and […]

WSIS Events Round-up. ITU Forges Ahead on New Partnerships Two new partnership agreements – in the form of Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) – were signed today between ITU and the World Bank, and ITU and Cisco. Partnership agreements were also set to be signed between ITU and Inmarsat, Cameroon, Rwanda and the Kyrgyz Republic, IIMT […]

Introducing a WSIS guest blogger. Later on today, the magnificent Gus Hosein, will be logging in to CT and giving us his impressions of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Gus is a key figure in a global community of privacy activists – the people who say “huh? you mean what?!” to the […]

Andy Oram on WSIS. O'Reilly's Andy Oram: “While ICANN has bumbled many tasks and exceeded its authority on others, its leaders have a sense of the fragility of the Internet ecology. The ITU, in contrast, is tromping all over the grounds just in the process of mapping it. I find it amusing that, in their […]

Plans for UN Internet Agency. More from AllAfrica.com: “[D]eveloping nations believe…that the UN should set up a special agency to run the Internet. The US delegation, realizing that it was fighting a losing battle, tried to delay the discussions by deferring the issue until 2005 when the second phase of the summit is due to […]

The View from Africa. This is a doozy. Look at how the compromise to put over discussion of ICANN until 2005 is being viewed in Africa. Here's the story from AllAfrica.com: “The transference of Internet governance from US corporation ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to the United Nations has been viewed as […]