More than four decades ago, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) launched the concept of a New International Information Order (NIIO).
Thirty-three-year-old Walter Williams was among the thousands of revelers who flooded into the streets of Oakland on Nov. 4 to celebrate Barack Obama's election as the 44th president of the United States.
The year is 1994. Pictures of Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley cover the pages of prominent U.S. newspapers and magazines. Yet hidden from national view is the attempted elimination of the Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda.
Veterans from the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, along with Iraqis, Afghanis, Vietnam veterans, and family members of U.S. military personnel converged in this west coast city over the weekend to share stories of atrocities being committed daily in Iraq, in a continuation of the "Winter Soldier" hearings held in Silver Spring, Maryland in March.
The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) being held in Rio de Janeiro Monday through Thursday, with more than 1,500 people attending, is discussing issues that are not yet a concern for the majority of users, but are already having a major impact on their lives.
When, came the question from a Ugandan delegate at a Civicus world assembly meeting in Glasgow, will the West ever stop giving aid on unequal terms? "We are unequal by the fact that, speaking as a donor, we are providing the funds," said Jan-Petter Holtedahl from the civil society department at the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.
Janet Malika owes her success to the little gadget that is her cell phone. Formerly a struggling food hawker in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, she has become a cafeteria owner since acquiring the device about five years ago, and using it to conduct business.
Developing countries led by India, China, Brazil are now taking the lead in setting global standards in the rapidly transforming telecommunications sector due to convergence of hitherto separate communications and entertainment services, says Hamadoun Toure, the new secretary general of the Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union.
U.S. activists are heading to the Sixth World Social Forum (WSF) with a renewed sense of optimism and international solidarity, despite Washington's animosity toward the hemisphere's growing slate of leftist governments.
This little green computer runs without electricity or batteries, and it costs 100 dollars. And it could do more than all thhe speeches made at the World Summit on the Information Society to help narrow that 'digital divide'.
You cannot resist the Internet, so you might as well bathe in its tidal wave-like wash over the world's cultures, says the director of the centuries old Alexandria Library in Egypt.
While the transnational corporations showed off the latest in information and communication technologies (ICTs) at the world summit that ended Friday in Tunis, reporters from alternative radio stations remained loyal to their old tape recorders and microphones.
Despite failing to get its alternative citizens summit off the ground, and in the face of disappointment over some decisions at the World Summit on the Information Society, and repression by the Tunisian government, civil society groups joined officials and businessmen Friday in celebrating the outcome of the meeting.
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) concluded Friday night with claims of success by the United Nations, governments and the private sector, but civil society refused to wholeheartedly embrace its outcome.
Despite failing to get its alternative citizens summit off the ground, and in the face of disappointment over some decisions at the World Summit on the Information Society, and repression by the Tunisian government, civil society groups joined officials and businessmen Friday in celebrating the outcome of the meeting.
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) concluded Friday night with claims of success by the United Nations, governments and the private sector, but civil society refused to wholeheartedly embrace its outcome.
When Emilio Contrera, a small farmer in Paraguay who is nearly 80 years old, wants to phone his daughter in the capital, he must first overcome a number of hurdles.
"People say, 'what are you talking about: it's just a computer, it's just a telephone - how can there be gender issues over technology?' There's still no understanding of how things like computers get into institutions and are incorporated into existing male-dominated power structures," says an Indian woman delegate here for a global meeting on making the so-called Information Age benefit all people.
The Swiss government has been at the centre of controversy here over host government Tunisia's treatment of journalists and human rights activists prior to the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
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 gadgets and systems are exhibited by the likes of Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Nokia.
With a solidarity visit to a group of Tunisian hunger strikers, non-governmental organisations continued their efforts Thursday to highlight Tunisia's human rights record.