Brazil, Iran will the Arab world be next? (Iraq/Saudi-Arabia)

orkut, In Turkish, Orkut means "the holy meeting place.", is an Internet social network service run by Google and named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten. It claims to be designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. Similar to Friendster, orkut goes a step further by permitting "communities" of users. It is also invitation-only: users must be invited to join the communit

Users of orkut can maintain profiles, keep in touch with friends online and participate in communities, as this screenshot shows.

Censorhip is on the Rise in the Arab world_2

Tunisie, le livre noir







Reporters sans frontières et plusieurs organisations de défense des droits de l’homme publient Tunisie, le livre noir (éditions La Découverte), une compilation de leurs rapport respectifs sur la situation des droits de l’homme dans le pays.












Entre 100 000 et 200 000 morts depuis 1992, des milliers de disparus, des milliers de personnes torturées lors d’arrestations ou de détentions au secret : cette réalité, c’est celle de l’Algérie d’aujourd’hui, celle que donnent à voir les rapports de différentes organisations de défense des droits de l’homme, réunis dans ce livre à l’initiative de Reporters sans frontières. Toujours disponible en librairie.


Un état des lieux inquiétant des violations des droits de l’homme commises depuis le début de la guerre en Irak. Sortie le 2 décembre 2004.

Technology feeds grassroots media

By Dan Gillmor

It is not an impact on the epic scale of an asteroid smashing into the Earth and killing off the dinosaurs, but the collision of technology and media is having profound effects on a more modern ecosystem.

The traditional media?

Media are becoming democratised, and a global conversation is emerging.

The tools of production - used to create digital content such as blogs, podcasts, wikis, discussions, multiplayer games, mashups (I'll describe each of those in more detail below) - are increasingly powerful and easy to use, yet decreasingly expensive.

Distribution is also becoming less expensive and easily arranged. The internet is a global platform, and the most important one for the future. But mobile-phone networks are part of the overall communications ecosystem, too, and for many on this planet a primary means of contact.

The democratisation of media is also, fundamentally, about the people we once called mere consumers. Their role is evolving from a passive one to something much more interactive, but they are blessed (or cursed, depending on one's viewpoint) with an unprecedented variety of voices and services.

HAVE YOUR SAY The vast majority of blogs are self-indulgent ramblings Mike Woof, London One thing that does surprise me ... is the amount of personal information people are prepared to make available Tim Dennell, Sheffield UK Read more of your comments

The democratisation of media creation, distribution and access does not necessarily foretell that traditional media are dinosaurs of a new variety. If we are fortunate, we'll end up with a more diverse media ecosystem in which many forms - including the traditional organisations - can thrive. It's fair to say, though, that the challenges to existing businesses will be enormous.

For my part, the most exciting aspect of this change is in the emerging conversation. Bottom-up media tools are conversational in nature, even though they can be used in a top-down mode. (It is more accurate, actually, to think of these tools as "edge-in", deployed and used from the edges of networks.)

Let's look at several of the most important tools in today's evolving media sphere.

Blogs

Blogs, short for weblogs, are getting the most attention, and for good reason. They are all about a web that is "read-write" as opposed to the mostly "read-only" medium of the 1990s.

The most important aspect of a good blog is its humanity

What is a blog? Nothing more than an online journal in reverse chronological order on the page, that is, where the most recent updates are at the top. They typically have hyperlinks, or web pointers, to other sites. Many blogs also solicit comments from readers.

The most important aspect of a good blog is its humanity: It has a distinctly human voice, even if the postings are being done by a group instead of an individual.

Remember: The conversation is an essential part of the process.

Wikis

A wiki is a website on which anyone can edit any page. This sounds like an anarchy, but it doesn't have to be: the Wikipedia project - an online encyclopedia with more than a million articles in a number of languages - is far from perfect, but it's a remarkably valuable addition to the reference universe.

Wikis may turn out to be most useful inside networks, such as at corporations, where people can work together on project planning and other common interests.

At the University of Hong Kong, where I've taught part-time for the last few years, my co-lecturer and I have gotten excellent results in planning class projects with wikis.

Podcasting

The word "podcast" is a combination of two concepts - broadcasting and the Apple iPod music player.

Technology allows media consumers to have more of a say

That's a mistaken word pairing, given that podcasting is about the ability of almost anyone to create audio content that typically has a small audience for any individual program, and then sending it to any digital device, portable or not.

The actual human voice has its own power over the written word. We get different nuances from audible speech, and they can often tell us things the printed page cannot.

Video podcasts will be the next generation of this genre. But given the difficulty of creating and editing a video that anyone (other, perhaps, than our families) might want to watch, it will probably be some time before this medium takes off. (I may well prove to be wrong about this.)

Web mashups

In Silicon Valley, the current rage is called "web 2.0" - a reference to the web as a computing platform in its own right.

As more and more companies give third parties a way to combine their web-based data and services with other companies' data and services, clever folks are mashing things together in remarkable ways. For example, check out ChicagoCrime.org, which puts government-provided crime data on Google maps and lets people drill down into detail.

Now add to this the idea that everyday folks can start annotating maps and other kinds of information on their own. The possibilities seem endless.

Those are just a few of the concepts in the new world of media.

In coming months, we'll talk about how people inside and outside of the media business are putting these tools to work. We'll also look at some of the difficult policy questions, such as copyright and privacy, that will need resolution. For anyone who cares about the future of media, these are complicated times - and great fun as well.

Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation

Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation is a new book that offers first-person accounts of how the personal media revolution will impact movies, music, computing, television and games. Released May 2005.
See reviews on Amazon (4 to 5 stars).

Why Reinventing the internet?

IF A planet-wide data network, akin to the internet, were built on Mars, what would it look like? That might sound like a silly question, but it raises an important point. The design of computer networks is constrained by the need to be compatible with the internet and other systems that have grown up over the past four decades. What if network designers could start again with a clean slate, unencumbered by today's messy reality?

Visions of the future

That said, it seems reasonable to assume that the number of devices on the network will continue to multiply in new and unforeseen ways. So researchers are starting from the assumption that communications chips and sensors will eventually be embedded in almost everything, from furniture to cereal boxes—“hundreds of billions of such devices”, suggested one group of engineers in a working paper last year. And while today's internet traffic is generally initiated by humans—as they send e-mails, click on web links, or download music tracks—in future, the vast majority of traffic may be “machine to machine” communications: things flirting with other things. To further complicate matters, these things will probably be connected wirelessly, and will move around.

Soul of a new network

The idea of metanets also provides an answer to the question of how to deploy a new clean-slate internet. Metanets would, in effect, allow multiple internets to run in parallel. There could then be competition between different protocols; and if one of the metanet protocols turned out to be much more secure, for instance, then security-sensitive users would have a reason to adopt it. Perhaps the clean-slate approach is not quite as esoteric and academic as it seems.

with no MSM, what would bloggers deconstruct?

JOURNALISM is like making beer. Or so Glenn Reynolds says in his engaging new book. Without formal training and using cheap equipment, almost anyone can do it. The quality may be variable, but the best home-brews are tastier than the stuff you see advertised during the Super Bowl. This is because big brewers, particularly in America, have long aimed to reach the largest market by pushing bland brands that offend no one. The rise of home-brewing, however, has forced them to create “micro-brews” that actually taste of something. In the same way, argues Mr Reynolds, bloggers—individuals who publish their thoughts on the internet—have shaken up the mainstream media (or MSM, in blogger parlance).

Few mainstream journalists would deny that the blogosphere keeps them on their toes. Make a mistake, and a swarm of furious pyjama-clad scribes will pounce. Make a grotesque partisan error while masquerading as “objective”, and the ensuing storm may cost you your job, as Dan Rather, a CBS anchor, discovered during the 2004 election campaign after running a story about George Bush shirking National Guard duty based on documents that bloggers quickly exposed as forgeries.

Mr Reynolds spells out some of the bloggers' advantages. First, their numbers. There is only one New York Times, but technorati.com tracks nearly 30m blogs. With so many eyes, the blogosphere reacts quickly to breaking news. George Bush's second pick for the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, was doomed within minutes of her nomination when conservative bloggers started likening her qualifications to those of the horse that the emperor, Caligula, tried to have made a Roman senator.

Many blogs are awful. But it is easy to filter out the dross, because the good ones provide links to each other. Bloggers may be (mostly) amateurs, but they are often smarter than the professionals, or possessed of useful specialist knowledge, argues Mr Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, whose own blog, instapundit.com, attracts more readers than many established political magazines. That he blogs only part-time perhaps explains why his posts are so brief and to the point. The result is crisp and readable, as is this book.

Mr Reynolds marches the reader briskly through fields where he sees technology empowering the little guy. Wireless internet allows people to work anywhere. With so many people telecommuting, “latchkey” kids are now more likely to come home to at least one parent. And burglars find it harder to identify empty houses to rob.

Mr Reynolds's techno-optimism is exhilarating, though occasionally Pollyanna-ish. He thinks that the ageing process can probably be cured, for example, and that mankind will dodge extinction by colonising other planets. His greatest strength, however, is in describing what he knows best: blogging. He sees communications technology making repression steadily harder. An ordinary video camera can be confiscated and its tape destroyed. But if a video blogger were transmitting footage wirelessly to hundreds of other people as he films it—as will soon be possible—it would be a rash secret policeman who shoots him.

Mr Reynolds understands that the blogging revolution has ill effects as well as good. The same technology that spreads protests against tyranny can also be used to stoke sectarian riots, as happened recently in Nigeria. And there are some things the little guy cannot easily do. With a few exceptions (Mr Reynolds lauds a do-it-yourself war correspondent in Iraq), bloggers do little original reporting. Posting opinions online is cheap, but news-gathering is not. Mr Reynolds sees this changing as technology costs fall still further and bloggers find niches in local news. But the revolution is unlikely to destroy “old media” entirely. For one thing, with no MSM, what would bloggers deconstruct?

حجب موقع "الوفاق" الإلكتروني في السعودية

صورة موقع الوفاق على شبكة الانترنت

الرياض - العربية.نت

علمت "العربية.نت" أن موقع صحيفة "الوفاق" الإلكترونية حجب منذ صباح اليوم الخميس 9/3/ 2006 في المملكة العربية السعودية دون معرفة الأسباب أو الجهة التي قامت بذلك، ولا يمكن زيارته منذ ذلك الوقت إلا عن طريق الستالايت.

هذه هي المرة الأولى التي يتعرض فيها للحجب منذ أصبح موقعا إخباريا، وكان قد تم حجبه سابقا عندما كان موقعا للمنتديات.

جدير بالذكر أن الموقع كان قد نشر تقريرا قبل عدة أيام ينتقد مدينة الملك عبد العزيز التقنية ووصفها بأنها لا تجيد سوى حجب المواقع الإلكترونية، ثم عاد وحذف ذلك التقرير بعد وقت وجيز. وكان موقع "إيلاف" قد حجب في السعودية قبل عدة أسابيع.

Online Censorship is on the Rise in the Arab world

الشبكة العربية لمعلومات حقوق الإنسان تستنكر وتنديد بقيام الأنظمة العربية بإعلان الحرب علي مواقع الإنترنت , فالحكومة المصرية تحجب مواقع علي الإنترنت , والنظام السعودي يقوم بحجب نحو 200 موقع يوميا , أما النظام التونسي فهو صاحب رقم قياسي في سرعة حجب المواقع . المنظمة المصرية تطالب بالإفراج عن سجين الرأي التونسي محمد عبو وفي السياق نفسه البرنامج العربي لنشطاء حقوق الإنسان يدين التنكيل والقمع لنشطاء حقوق الإنسان وحرية الرأي والتعبير "في تونس". صدور عدد " 25 " حكما قضائيا بحق صحفيين في قضايا نشر استدعاء 60 صحفي أمام النيابات المختلفة للتحقيق معهم - وقوع عدد " 10 " حالات اعتداء على صحفيين بسبب عملهم هي مجموعة الانتهاكات التي رصدها ملتقى الحوار للتنمية وحقوق الإنسان عن حرية الصحافة في تقريره لعام 2005
_______________________________________

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information condemns Arab regimes for launching a war against websites. The Egyptian government blocks websites and the Saudi regime blocks nearly 200 websites daily. The Tunisian regime has broken the records in how quick it can block websites
The Egyptian organization calls for the release of the Tunisian prisoner of opinion Mohamed Abou, and in the same context, the Arab Program for Human Rights Activists condemns the oppression made against human rights activists and freedom of expression in Tunisia
25 court sentences against journalists in cases relating to publishing. 60 journalists were called before the prosecutor in different areas in Egypt to be investigated with. 10 cases of attacks against journalists while doing their job. This is the group of violations monitored by the Dialogue Forum for Development and Human Rights in its 2005 report

blogging at Maktoob شروط الإستخدام

عند كتابة أي إدراج بجب الالتزام بآداب الحديث والحوار. عند كتابة أي إدراج يجب عدم التعرض لأية ديانة سماوية أو أي مذهب ديني بأي نوع من أنواع الإسلاءة. عندي كتابة أي إدراج يجب عدم التعرض لأي شخص بالإهانة أو الإيذاء أو التشهير، أو كتابة ما يتعارض مع القوانين المتعارف عليها رسمياً، والمساس بولاة الأمر والأهل. عدم المشاركة في البلوج بهدف طرح إعلانات لمواقع أخرى. عدم تكرار طرح نفس الإدراج في نفس البلوج أو في أكثر من بلوج. عند كتابة أي إدراج يجب عدم التطرق إلى أية مواضيع تختص بطرق وكيفية تجاوز البروكسي، أو طرق اختراق البريد الإلكتروني أو أي موقع على شبكة الإنترنت، أو التجسس على أجهزة الحاسوب. عدم طرح أية شكوى ضد أي مشرف أو عضو علناً على صفحات البلوج. يمكن التواصل مع الإدارة مباشرةً من خلال مراسلتنا على: blogs@maktoob.com. 8. يمنع منعاً باتاً التدخل في شؤون إدارة البلوج. ولإدارة بلوج مكتوب كامل الصلاحية في حذف أو تعديل أو نقل أو إغلاق أي موضوع. وفي حال تم خرق أي من القوانين المطروحة أعلاه، لأسرة مكتوب الحق في اتخاذ الإجراء الذي تراه مناسباً دون الرجوع المسبق إلى المستخدم؛ ومن تلك الإجراءات توجيه إنذار إلى المستخدم، أو حذف موضوعه، أو منعه من المشاركة في البلوج بشكل نهائ

The Arab Blogolution and the next crackdown on the Internet media.

Arab women bloggers talk about sex and relationships openly. They change the dialogue and the rules between the sexes, as they post intimate details of their lives online.

Censorship as usual in the Arab world

موقع الصحيفة على شبكة الانترنت

القاهرة-يو بي أي

قال نشطاء في جماعة الاخوان المسلمين المحظورة الاربعاء 8-3-2006إن المجلس الاعلى للصحافة أمر بإغلاق صحيفة "آفاق عربية" التي تصدرها الجماعة. وقال الناشط الاخواني محمد عبد القدوس, رئيس لجنة الحريات في نقابة الصحفيين إن المجلس الذي يرأسه صفوت الشريف رئيس مجلس الشورى أمر بوقف الصحيفة عن الصدور.

ولم يوضح المجلس الاسباب التي دعت إلى إيقاف إصدار الصحيفة المسجلة باسم حزب الاحرار المنحل والتي يصدرها الاخوان بموجب اتفاق خاص مع قيادته السابقة.

وكان رشاد بيومي عضو مكتب إرشاد الجماعة كتب مقالا في عدد الجريدة الاسبوع الماضي ينتقد فيها الرئيس حسني مبارك وولده جمال الذي يتولى منصب الامين العام المساعد لقيادة الحزب الوطني الديمقراطي الحاكم.

واعتقلت السلطات بيومي بعد يومين من كتابته للمقال. واعتقلت قوات الأمن المصرية هذا الاسبوع أكثر من 20 من الجماعة في ما يبدو حملة أمنية ضدها.

وتظاهر الاربعاء حوالي 50 من العاملين في صحيفة آفاق عربية داخل مقر نقابة الصحافيين بالقاهرة مطالبين بإعادة إصدار جريدتهم.

Kein RSS für Al-Jazeera

Da überlegt mensch noch zum Schluss des Tages, was so im RSS-Reader fehlt; fragt sich, ob Al-Jazeera eigentlich nen Newsfeed hat, stellt fest, dass nicht, fragt sich, warum nicht, öffnet die HTML-Source - dabei schon mögliche Antworten auf die Frage “was isn das fürn CMS?” vor Augen (”was selbst gehacktes”, “alte, freie PHP-Software”?) - nein: “Microsoft Visual Studio .Net 7.0″. Na prost Dschihad.

Center for Citizen Media

• This is the temporary home page of the Center for Citizen Media.
• Our goal is to assist and enhance grassroots media, with a focus on journalism.
• Why? The democratization of media -- the tools for creating and distributing digital content -- gives us all the ability to publish for a global audience and to collaborate in new ways. We need a robust media ecosystem that helps us all know about the world we live in, so we can make better decisions.
• The Center is affiliated with the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University Law School.
• We hope you'll participate. Contact us here.

Internet Filtering in Yemen in 2004-2005

The Republic of Yemen limits what Internet content its citizens can access by using commercially available filtering technology and by controlling its two Internet service providers (ISPs), TeleYemen (operators of the service YNET) and YemenNet, through the state's powerful Ministry of Telecommunications. The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) tested the filtering systems of both ISPs, and found significant congruence but also notable differences between the two. Pornography is the primary target of both, but other types of content are targeted to varying degrees, including sex education and provocative clothing sites, gay and lesbian-related materials, gambling sites, dating sites, drug-related sites, sites enabling anonymous Web surfing, proxy servers that circumvent filtering, and sites with content related to converting Muslims to other religions.

The Republic of Yemen's legal regime involves relatively little formal restriction of Internet use and access, though the rules set by the ISPs include substantial restrictions on what may be accessed or published. These rules prohibit the access or publication of material deemed to be obscene or subversive on political or religious grounds. Human rights and other non-governmental organizations have complained that the Yemeni state restricts what journalists may write and how citizens use the Internet through a variety of means of intimidation. However, Internet access is readily available from homes or Internet cafés for those who can afford it.

To carry out its filtering regime, Yemen relies upon the commercial product Websense. ONI's testing reveals that TeleYemen blocks sites classified by Websense into the categories "Adult Content," "Lingerie and Swimsuit," "Nudity," "Gay or Lesbian or Bisexual Interest," and "Sex Education," and likely blocks the master category "Adult Material." TeleYemen also uses a category called "User-Defined," which enables a filtering entity to compile and block sites based on its own criteria. The sites included by TeleYemen in the "User-Defined" category primarily deal with religion and the religious conversion of Muslims. The specific Websense categories blocked by YemenNet are "Adult Content," "Lingerie and Swimsuit," "Nudity," "Sex Education," "Abused Drugs," "Marijuana," and "Gambling," and likely the master category "Adult Material."

While the Republic of Yemen substantially filters material on topics related to sex, sexuality and gambling, the state does not try to control broadly what its citizens see on the Internet. For instance, unlike certain other states that filter Internet content, Yemen does not block political content and its blocking of religious content is limited, focusing only on a small

Great for Arab authoritarian Regimes to create their own Web

Chinese ideas about the setting up its own domain name system could change the global nature of the internet, argues internet law professor Michael Geist.

The number of people online in China is growing fast

There was a buzz in the internet community last week after the People's Daily, widely regarded as the most influential newspaper in China, published an article in English announcing changes to that country's domain name system.

The domain name system, comprised of generic top-level domains such as .com and country-code top-level domains such as .uk, ensures that e-mail arrives at the intended address and that websites are accessible worldwide.

Administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), a US non-profit organisation, the system depends upon the existence of a single root, an authoritative database that provides certainty by limiting each domain name to a single registrant.

The People's Daily article suggested that China was implementing several new Chinese character domains, including .China, .com, and .net.

While that alone would attract attention, the article went on to state that as a consequence of the changes, "internet users don't have to surf the web via the servers under the management of Icann of the United States."

Those comments left many net watchers anxious to determine whether China had taken a significant step toward establishing a Chinese internet that could function independently from the global internet maintained by Icann and ultimately controlled by the US government.

In fact, given the existence of a Chinese .com, the announcement raised the spectre of a competing system with the prospect of multiple roots.

Slow progress

While there still remains some uncertainty about the full implications of the Chinese domain name changes, late last week officials sought to assure the world that it had no intention of creating a separate Chinese internet. The new Chinese domains were in fact not so new as China had been experimenting with them for several years.

Icann supporters breathed a sigh of relief. With preparations under way for another international Icann meeting later this month in Wellington, New Zealand, the threat of a potentially competing internet was no longer viewed as an immediate concern.

Despite some modest successes, no one has ever come close to creating a national alternative that is functional for 110 million internet users

The relief may be short-lived, since a closer examination of this past week's events suggests that, bolstered by the Chinese action, other countries may place increasing pressure for change to the current structure and administration of the internet.

The Chinese decision to fully implement Chinese character domain names reinforces the mounting frustration of many non-English speaking countries with Icann's apparent inability to expand into multilingual domain names.

These are often referred to as internationalised domain names, IDN. While Icann has conducted studies and consultations on IDN implementation, progress has been painfully slow.

China's ability to implement its own IDN system without Icann support is likely to serve as a model for many other countries around the world. In the months ahead, look for countries in South America, the Middle East, and other parts of Asia to emulate the Chinese lead by establishing their own national IDNs.

While Icann's technical support was not needed for the Chinese IDN system, the internet governance community has provided China with the legal support to establish such a system.

At the UN's World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis last year, governments confirmed the sovereignty of individual countries over their national domains. The Chinese domains are therefore a legitimate exercise of that sovereignty.

One internet

The Chinese development is also noteworthy because it works. Researchers at Cambridge University report that Chinese ISPs recognize the new domains.

The UN hosted a debate on the internet last year

This is not as simple as it sounds. Internet providers around the world are accustomed to looking solely to Icann for authoritative domain name information.

The Chinese domains require net providers to implement additional functionality so that the new domains resolve to the correct address in the same fashion as conventional .com domains.

There have been attempts to develop similar domain name alternatives in the past with several initiatives launched by the private sector. Despite some modest successes, no one has ever come close to creating a national alternative that is functional for 110 million internet users.

With an alternate IDN system in place, it would relatively simple for China to migrate toward a true national root or alternate internet since a system is now in place for their ISPs to work with domain name alternatives.

Given its continued interest in censoring certain online content, a national root that excludes large chunks of the existing global internet may ultimately emerge as an attractive option to Chinese lawmakers.

Should that come to pass, last week will be remembered as the beginning of the end of Icann's exclusive grip on the governance of the internet's domain name system.

Blogging book competition hots up

Russell Davies celebrates the traditional British cafe in his blog

The first short-list for a literary prize that rewards bloggers turned bookwriters has been announced.

Dubbed the Blooker Prize, the contest is for those bloggers who have turned their episodic journals into something more substantial.

British entries on the Blooker short-list include the intimate diary of a prostitute and a guide to the UK's best "greasy spoon" cafes.

The first winner of the Blooker Prize will be announced on 3 April.

Cafe culture

The Blooker Prize was first suggested in October 2005 and was the creation of Bob Young, founder of self-publishing site Lulu which sponsors the prize.

In the last few years, regularly updated web logs - or blogs - have become a major feature on the internet and now there are believed to be more than 60 million of them in existence.

There are blogs on any and every subject and many of the writers behind blogs have found their passions for a particular subject and writing style has won them a regular and appreciative audience.

There's definitely a romance to cafes. Once there you can easily get yourself into the frame of mind that you are about to start a novel Russell Davies

Some blogs or their authors have become so popular that they have turned to traditional print to collect their thoughts or explore their interest at greater length.

Books from blogs, or "blooks", were becoming hugely popular, said Mr Young.

Any blook published in English anywhere in the world before the deadline of 30 January 2006 was eligible for entry.

A total of 89 entries made it to the Lulu Blooker's long-list and this has been whittled down to just 16 that will compete for the prize money.

The entries are arranged into three categories - fiction, non-fiction and comics - and the winners of two of these sections get a cash prize of £550 ($1,000). The winner of the grand prize gets a cash prize of £1,100 ($2,000).

The short-list is dominated by US entries but the UK has two strong contenders in the running. One is notorious Belle De Jour, who blogs about life as a prostitute.

The other contender is Russell Davies, who turned his affection for "greasy spoon" cafes into a blog called eggbaconchipsandbeans and a book detailing the 50 best cafes in the UK.

"I was looking for something to blog about that was not a picture of a cat," Mr Davies told the BBC News website, explaining his choice of subject matter.

"I'm drawn to a full English," he said, referring to the colloquial term for a fried breakfast.

"There's definitely a romance to cafes. Once there, you can easily get yourself into the frame of mind that you are about to start a novel."

Co-judging the event are writer and activist Cory Doctorow, Robin Miller, editor-in-chief of online publisher OSTG and Paul Jones, director of Ibiblio.

انطلاق أعمال مؤتمر الاتصالات العالمي في الدوحة

رئيس الوزراء القطري أكد أهمية الاتصالات في تعزيز نمو المجتمعات (الجزيرة نت)

كريم حسين-الدوحة

انطلقت في العاصمة القطرية اليوم أعمال المؤتمر العالمي لتنمية الاتصالات وتكنولوجيا المعلومات بحضور أكثر من ألف مشارك من مختلف حكومات العالم والعديد من المنظمات الإقليمية والدولية.

وألقى رئيس الوزراء القطري الشيخ عبد الله بن خليفة آل ثاني كلمة في الجلسة الافتتاحية، أكد فيها أهمية المؤتمر للوصول إلى تنفيذ فعال لنتائج القمة العالمية لمجتمع المعلومات في جنيف وتونس وصولا نحو بلوغ أهداف الألفية الثالثة.

وقال إن وسائل الاتصالات وتكنولوجيا المعلومات أصبحت ركيزة أساسية للنمو الاقتصادي والاجتماعي للمجتمعات كافة، كما أنها فتحت المجال واسعا لترسيخ مبادئ التواصل والتحاور وتقريب وجهات النظر بين الشعوب.

وأشار الشيخ عبد الله إلى أن السنوات الماضية كشفت ما يمكن أن تفرزه إساءة استخدام التكنولوجيا ووسائل الاتصال من أزمات وآثار سلبية، وهو ما يتطلب إيجاد بيئة قانونية وتنظيمية وأساليب تقنية كفيلة بضمان الاستخدام الأمثل للموارد المعرفية.

المؤتمر يسعى لجسر الهوة بالتقنية الرقمية بين العالم المتقدم والنامي (الجزيرة نت)

من جهتها قالت الأمينة العامة للمجلس الأعلى للاتصالات في قطر الدكتورة حصة الجابر إن أمام المؤتمر آمالا عريضة تتمثل في تفعيل متطلبات القمة العالمية لمجتمع المعلومات وصولا لتحقيق أهداف القمة الألفية، مشددة على أن صعوبة المهمة تتطلب عملا مضنيا ومتوازيا من الجميع.

وأوضحت أن هدف المؤتمر يتمثل في حشد كل ما تقدمه تكنولوجيا المعلومات والاتصالات لتجسير الهوة الاقتصادية والاجتماعية والثقافية في العالم، وكذلك السعي الى توفير الفرصة لكل فرد بغض النظر عن موقعه ومعتقداته وانتماءاته ليستفيد من هذه الإمكانيات التكنولوجية.

وبدوره أكد الأمين العام لاتحاد الاتصالات الدولي يوشيو أوتسومي أن انعقاد قمتين عالمتين لتكنولوجيا المعلومات في جنيف وتونس يعد إنجازا كبيرا في تاريخ الأمم المتحدة، ودعا قادة الدول إلى احترام الالتزامات التي تعهدوا بها في هاتين القمتين.

وقال إن الفجوة الرقمية تقلصت بشكل كبير بين الدول المتقدمة والنامية بعد نجاح الاتحاد في رسم مسار لمجتمع المعلومات أكثر عدلا، وذلك بتأمين فرص تواصل عادلة مع تقنيات المعلومات والاتصالات.

رئاسة المؤتمر
وقد تم اختيار د. حصة الجابر رئيسة لأعمال المؤتمر المقرر أن تستمر حتى الخامس عشر من الشهر الجاري، كما تم اختيار ستة نواب لها من الصين والكونغو وروسيا والولايات المتحدة وألمانيا والسعودية.

جانب من الحضور المشاركين بالمؤتمر (الجزيرة نت)

وشهدت الجلسة الأولى إقرار الهيكل المقترح للمؤتمر حيث تم إنشاء ست لجان، هي اللجنة التوجيهية ومراقبة الميزانية والبرامج والأنشطة وأساليب العمل ولجنة الصياغة.

ثم قدم مدير مكتب تنمية الاتحاد الدولي للاتصالات إيجازا عن الاجتماعات والمؤتمرات التحضيرية التي سبقت مؤتمر الدوحة، ونسب الإنجازات المتحققة لخطة عمل إسطنبول.

وأضاف حمدون توري أن مجتمع المعلومات لم يعد بعيد المنال بفضل التكنولوجيا الرقمية وتكنولوجيا الصوت، وتوزيع المعلومات بكلفة زهيدة.

وقال إن مؤتمر الدوحة يعد حدثا تاريخيا سيسعى المشاركون فيه لاعتماد خطة عمل الدوحة، وإعلان الدوحة للسنوات الأربع القادمة بهدف تطوير تكنولوجيا المعلومات واستغلالها بأقصى طاقاتها.

ومن المقرر أن يشهد يوم غد عقد اجتماع لفريق نقاش تستضيفه الشيخة المياسة كريمة أمير قطر الشيخ حمد بن خليفة آل ثاني والأمين العام للاتحاد الدولي للاتصالات يوشيو أوتسومي، ويضم عناصر دينامية وفاعلة ومفكرين بالحكومات والمجتمع المدني والقطاع الخاص من أجل تحقيق هدف توصيل العالم لكي يتسنى له الانتفاع بتكنولوجيا المعلومات والاتصالات.

وستدور في هذا اللقاء مناقشة مفتوحة وحوارية بين الشركاء الثمانية البارزين، في مبادرة توصيل العالم وجمهور يصل عدده إلى حوالي مائة مشارك.
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In Arabic, "Internet" Means "Freedom"

In Arabic, "Internet" Means "Freedom"

How to bring books to people who don't read

Jonathan Rauch

Odd though it may sound, somewhere in Baghdad a man is working in secrecy to edit new Arabic versions of Liberalism, by the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, and In Defense of Global Capitalism, by the Swedish economist Johan Norberg. He is doing this at some risk of kidnap, beating, and death, because he hopes that a new Arabic-language Web site, called LampofLiberty.org—MisbahAlHurriyya.org in Arabic—can change the world by publishing liberal classics.

Odder still, he may be right.

Interviewed by email, he asks to be known by a pseudonym, H. Ali Kamil. A Shiite from Iraq's south, he is an accomplished scholar, but he asks that no other personal details be revealed. Two of his friends have been killed in the postwar insurgency and chaos, one shot and the other "slaughtered." Others of his acquaintance are in hiding, visiting their families in secret. He has been threatened for working with an international agency.

Now he is collaborating not with foreign agencies but with foreign ideas. He has made Arabic translations of all or parts of more than two dozen articles and nine books and booklets. "None," he says, "were previously translated, to my knowledge, for the simple reason that they are all on liberalism and democracy, which unfortunately have little audience and advocators in the Middle East, where almost all publishing houses and press outlets are governmental—i.e., anti-liberal."

Kamil's work is anonymous out of fear, not modesty. Translating Frederic Bastiat's The Law, he says, took 20 days of intense labor. "I am proud of that, especially when I knew that the book has never been translated before. This is one of the works my heart is aching for not having my name in its front page."

Asked how he began this work, he recounts meeting an American who was lecturing in Baghdad on principles of constitutional government. The message struck home. "Yes, you could say I am libertarian," Kamil says. "I believe in liberty for all, equality and human rights, freedom and democracy, free-market ethics, and I hate extremism in everything. I believe in life more than death as being the way to happiness."

The American was Tom G. Palmer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington and a man who cares a lot about books. (So much so, that he always walks around with a satchel full of them.) When the Soviet Union fell, he worked on making key liberal texts available in Russian and the languages of the former Soviet Bloc. How can democracy and markets thrive, after all, without the owner's manual?

In 2004, Palmer traveled to Iraq for an education-ministry conference on reforming the schools. Having expunged compulsory Baathist education, the Iraqis were figuring out what came next. "They desperately wanted something different from what they had," Palmer says. Like many Albanians and Romanians he met after the Soviet Union collapsed, Iraqis pulled him aside to tell stories of family members harassed or killed by the fallen regime. The strikingly ubiquitous statues and images of Saddam Hussein testified to how thoroughly the Baathist dictatorship had dominated intellectual life.

Intellectual isolation is a widespread Arab phenomenon, not just an Iraqi one. Some of the statistics are startling. According to the United Nations' 2003 "Arab Human Development Report," five times more books are translated annually into Greek, a language spoken by just 11 million people, than into Arabic. "No more than 10,000 books were translated into Arabic over the entire past millennium," says the U.N., "equivalent to the number translated into Spanish each year." Authors and publishers must cope with the whims of 22 Arab censors. "As a result," writes a contributor to the report, "books do not move easily through their natural markets." Newspapers are a fifth as common as in the non-Arab developed world; computers, a fourth as common. "Most media institutions in Arab countries remain state-owned," the report says.

No wonder the Arab world and Western-style modernity have collided with a shock. They are virtually strangers, 300 years after the Enlightenment and 200 years after the Industrial Revolution. Much as other regions may be cursed with disease or scarcity, in recent decades the Arab world has been singularly cursed with bad ideas. First came Marxism and its offshoots; then the fascistic nationalism of Nasserism and Baathism; now, radical Islamism. Diverse as those ideologies are, they have in common authoritarianism and the suppression of any true private sphere. Instead of withering as they have done in open competition with liberalism, they flourished in the Arab world's relative isolation.

Palmer's first thought was to launch a think tank in Iraq, but that fizzled when the institute's prospective president bailed out at his wife's urging, for fear of his life. Last April, Palmer returned to Iraq to give talks on constitutional and free-market principles. At one such talk he met Kamil. Returning to Washington, Palmer connected with other liberal Arabs and, with their help, began commissioning translations: of Bastiat, Mises, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Voltaire, David Hume, F.A. Hayek, and such influential contemporary writers as Mario Vargas Llosa and Hernando de Soto. Most of this stuff has either been unavailable in Arabic or available spottily, intermittently, and in poor translations.

In January, MisbahAlHurriyya.org made its Internet debut. Today it hosts about 40 texts; Palmer aims for more like 400, including a shelf of books. (It currently offers an abridged edition of Hayek's Road to Serfdom and Bastiat's The Law. The Norberg book is coming soon.) Sponsored by the Cato Institute, it joins a small but growing assortment of Arabic-language blogs and Web sites promulgating liberal ideas.

"The Internet is a historical opportunity for Arab liberalism," Pierre Akel, the Lebanese host of one such site, metransparent.com, said in a recent interview with Reason. "In the Arab world, much more than in the West, we can genuinely talk of a blog revolution." The Internet provides Arab liberals with the platform and anonymity that they need; helpfully, Arabic-language blogware, developed by liberal bloggers, recently came online for free downloading. During the recent controversy over a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, an Egyptian blog, EgyptianSandMonkey.blogspot.com, made a splash by pointing out that no one had protested when the same cartoons had previously been published on the front page of an Egyptian newspaper—and by calling, sardonically, for a Muslim boycott of Egypt. (The site boasts a "Buy Danish" sticker.)

Since the 1950s, the U.S. State Department (and the former U.S. Information Agency, now folded into State) has steadily commissioned and published Arabic translations of American books, including a sprinkling of political classics, such as The Federalist Papers. Its translation programs are run by the embassies in Cairo and Jordan. According to Alberto Fernandez, of the State Department's Near Eastern Affairs Bureau, a third program, managed from Washington and still fledgling, seeks to bring translated books to Iraq.

Those print editions, worthy though they are, are subject to the vagaries of commercial book distribution, which is decidedly spotty in the region. The U.N. report notes that in the Arab world—a region of 284 million—a book that sells 5,000 copies qualifies as a best-seller.

The Internet, in contrast, makes possible worldwide, instant distribution, at a nearly negligible cost. MisbahAlHurriyya.org relies heavily on volunteers and donated Web services; its budget, says Palmer, is in the five figures. Thanks to e-mail, conferring and passing manuscripts between Washington, Baghdad, and Amman—a logistical nightmare in the days of mail and fax—is a cinch. The site, entirely in Arabic, advertises on the popular Arabic Web sites Albawaba.com and Aljazeera.net. The whole enterprise was impossible a decade ago. Firmly establishing liberal ideas took centuries in the West, and may yet take decades in the Arab world.

Authoritarian and sectarian and tribalist notions are easier to explain than liberal ones, and it is inherently harder to build trust in mercurial markets and flowing democratic coalitions than in charismatic leaders, visionary clerics, and esteemed elders. The liberal world's intellectual underpinnings are as difficult to grasp as its cultural reach is difficult to escape. Thus the disjunction within which Baathism, Islamism, and Arab tribalism have festered.

Yet few who are genuinely intellectually curious can read J.S. Mill or Adam Smith and come away entirely unchanged. The suffocating Arab duopoly of state-controlled media and Islamist pulpits is cracking—only a little bit so far, but keep watching. In the Arab world, the Enlightenment is going online.

مؤتمر الاتصالات العالمي ينطلق في الدوحة غدا

مؤتمر الاتصالات سيركز على سد الفجوة الرقمية بين الدول المتقدمة والنامية (الجزيرة نت)

كريم حسين-الدوحة

تنطلق في العاصمة القطرية الدوحة غدا الثلاثاء أعمال المؤتمر العالمي لتنمية الاتصالات وتكنولوجيا المعلومات بمشاركة نخبة متميزة من صانعي السياسات ومشغلي الاتصالات من الحكومات والقطاع الخاص والمنظمات الدولية والإقليمية.

وسيركز المؤتمر الذي ينعقد في الفترة من السابع إلى الخامس عشر من مارس/آذار الجاري على أولويات التنمية لسد الفجوة الرقمية بين الدول المتقدمة والنامية، وكذلك النظر في مبادرات عالمية جديدة لصالح الأشخاص المعوقين وفي الاستعانة بالاتصالات لمنع الكوارث.

كما ستشهد أعمال المؤتمر عقد اجتماع لفريق نقاش تستضيفه الشيخة المياسة كريمة أمير قطر الشيخ حمد بن خليفة آل ثاني والأمين العام للاتحاد الدولي للاتصالات يوشيو أوتسومي ويضم عناصر دينامية وفاعلة ومفكرين في الحكومات والمجتمع المدني والقطاع الخاص من أجل تحقيق هدف توصيل العالم لكي يتسنى له الانتفاع بتكنولوجيا المعلومات والاتصالات.

حصة الجابر أكدت أن الإصلاح السياسي بات خيارا أساسيا للمجتمع القطري (الجزيرة نت)

وستدور في هذا اللقاء مناقشة مفتوحة وحوارية بين الشركاء الثمانية البارزين في مبادرة توصيل العالم وجمهور يصل عدده إلى حوالي مائة مشارك.

وقد أشادت رئيسة المجلس الأعلى للاتصالات وتكنولوجيا المعلومات في قطر الدكتورة حصة الجابر باستضافة الدوحة لهذا المؤتمر التاريخي، وقالت في مؤتمر صحفي عقد ظهر اليوم إن أمير قطر وضع رؤية طموحة لتحقيق التنمية الاقتصادية الشاملة والمعتمدة على الابتكار والمشاركة وحشد طاقات المجتمع.

وأشارت إلى أن الإصلاح السياسي الذي قوامه المشاركة في صنع القرار خيارا أساسيا للمجتمع القطري بفضل هذه السياسات.

خارطة طريق
من جهته قال نائب الأمين العام للاتحاد الدولي للاتصالات روبرتو بلوا إن الهدف الرئيس لمؤتمر الدوحة هو وضع خارطة طريق لتنمية تكنولوجيا المعلومات والاتصالات في العالم خلال السنوات الأربعة القادمة.

وأكد أن المؤتمر سينظر في سبل تنفيذ مبادرتين رئيسيتين هما توصيل منافع تكنولوجيا الاتصالات لجميع المعوقين وتوفير الاتصالات الفعالة في حالات الطوارئ لا سيما في المجتمعات النائية.

حمدون توري أكد أن مبدأ التعاون هو السبيل للوصول إلى اتصالات ناجحة (الجزيرة نت)

أما مدير مكتب تنمية الاتحاد الدولي للاتصالات حمدون توري فقال للجزيرة نت إن المؤتمر سيركز بوجه خاص على سبل تنفيذ مقررات وتوصيات القمة العالمية لمجتمع المعلومات التي اختتمت مؤخرا في تونس ورفع تقارير عن خطة عمل إسطنبول وصولا لإنجازها بحلول عام 2015.

وشدد على أن التعاون هو المبدأ الرئيسي في عمل الاتحاد، مشيرا إلى أن الاتصالات عمل جماعي ولا يمكن لأي دولة أو منظمة أن تقوم به وحدها لأنه يتطلب وجود شفرات دولية مشتركة ورموز هاتفية متفق عليها.

من جانبها أكدت رئيسة وحدة الإصلاح التنظيمي في الاتحاد دورين بوغدان-مارتن أن العالم شهد تطورا كبيرا في مجال الاتصالات الرقمية في السنوات الأخيرة.

وقالت إن الفجوة الرقمية تقلصت بين البلدان النامية والبلدان المتقدمة سواء من ناحية خطوط الهاتف الثابتة أو الاشتراك في خدمات الهاتف المحمول أو استعمال الإنترنت.

وعزت حدوث ذلك إلى اهتمات شركات الاتصالات بوضع إطار تنظيمي جيد لعملها ووجود منافسة قوية فيما بينها وكذلك التسعيرة الابتكارية التي تقدمها مثل الاشتراكات المدفوعة مسبقا.
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الجزيرة نت

Arab Regimes and the Internet:

هجمة حكومية عربية على مواقع الإنترنت السعودية: تهديدات للحوار المتمدن بعد حجبه، مصر: حجب موقع شئون مصرية 5 مارس 2006 القاهرة في 5 مارس 2004م ، أعلنت الشبكة العربية لمعلومات حقوق الإنسان ، اليوم عن انزعاجها الشديد ورفضها للهجمة التي تتعرض لها حرية الرأي والتعبير من قبل بعض الحكومات العربية ، من خلال التوسع في مجال حجب المواقع التي تنادي بحرية الفكر والتعبير . ففي اقل من أسبوع ، تم حجب موقع شئون مصرية" www.masreyat.org " في مصر ، وتعرض الموقع الشهير الحوار المتمدن "www.rezgar.com " لتهديدات من رجل أعمال سعودي ، ضمن ثلاثة مواقع هي ( الحوار المتمدن ) و ( إيلاف ) و (دار الندوة ) بمقاضاتها ، بادعاءات واهية مثل الكتابة بطريقة لا يتقبلها رجل الأعمال السعودي عن المسلمين . يأتي هذا التهديد ، في وقت تعاني فيه هذه المواقع فعليا من الحجب في العديد من الدول ، وإن كان موقع الحوار المتمدن هو الأكثر حجبا ، في السعودية والإمارات وتونس ، بسبب استضافة هذا الموقع للكثير من الكتاب والصحفيين العرب الذين وجدوا به مساحة من حرية التعبير يندر إيجادها بالعالم العربي ،خاصة دفاع الموقع عن العلمانية والقضايا الشائكة مثل حقوق المرأة ومناهضة عقوبة الإعدام ودفاعه عن الصحفيين والكتاب وغيرها . وقالت سالي سامي ، منسقة البرامج بالشبكة العربية لمعلومات حقوق الإنسان " أغلب الحكومات العربية تفتئت بشكل كبير على حرية الصحافة وحرية التعبير ، والآن وبسبب توفير الإنترنت لمساحة من هذه الحريات ، تسعي هذه الحكومات للحد من هذه المساحة ، عبر حجب المواقع وترويع كتابه مستخدميه ". ويذكر أن الحكومة التونسية على سبيل المثال ، كانت أسرع دولة تحجب موقع بعد إنشائه ، حيث حجب موقع يزي اورج - مظاهرة افتراضية - " www.yezzi.org" حيث قامت بحجبه بعد 18 ساعة من إطلاقه . فضلا عن العديد من المواقع الحقوقية والسياسية التي تحجبها الحكومة التونسية . وفي مصر ، نشطت الأجهزة الأمنية مؤخرا في حجب المواقع التي تنادي بالإصلاح ، مثل جبهة إنقاذ مصر ، وشئون مصرية ، بجانب الحجب المستمر لموقع جريدة الشعب و موقع حزب العمل . أما الحكومة السعودية ، فلم تكتفي بحجب نحو 200 موقع يوميا ، بل بدأ رجال الدين ورجال الأعمال الموالين لها ، في شن حملات تستهدف حرية استخدام الإنترنت وحرية تداول المعلومات ، حيث أصدر أحد رجال الدين فتوى تحرم دخول المرأة على الإنترنت وحدها بدون محرم ، وتلى ذلك إعلان أحد رجال الأعمال عن الملاحقة القانونية للمواقع التي تفسح مجالا للنقد وتنادي بحرية الفكر والعلمانية ، مثل المواقع المذكورة عاليه . وقالت سالي سامي " ضمن الحكومات العربية التي تهدر حرية التعبير وحق تداول المعلومات ، تظهر الحكومات التونسية والسعودية والمصرية عداءا أكثر للإنترنت ، يسفر عن انتهاك لحقوق مواطنيها في تلقى المعلومة والخبر ، وتحرمهم من تنوع مصادر تلقيهم هذه المعلومات " .

Arab Governments Attack Web Sites
Saudi Arabia: Threats against the Web site Modern Discussion
Egypt: Blocking masreyat.org

5 march 2006

Cairo, 5 March 2006 - The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo) announced today its concern and condemnation of attacks against freedom of expression committed by Arab governments by blocking Web sites calling for freedom of thought and expression.

In less than a week, the Egyptian Web site www.masreyat.org has been blocked in Egypt. In addition, the famous Web site of Modern Discussion, www.rezgar.com, has been facing threats of being sued by a Saudi businessman. The Saudi businessman has threatened to sue three Web sites, Modern Discussion, Elaph, and Dar Alnadwa, under claims that these Web sites write in an unacceptable manner on Muslims.

The threats come at a time when these Web sites are actually blocked in several countries. The Modern Discussion Web site, however, is the most blocked Web site, as it is blocked in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Tunisia. This is because the Web site hosts the writings of many Arab writers and journalists who have found in it a space for freedom of expression, especially in defence of secularism, women's rights, campaigning against capital punishment, and defending other journalists and writers.

"Most Arab governments largely oppress freedom of press and expression," HRinfo Program Coordinator, Sally Sami, said. "Now that the Internet has provided a venue for liberties, Arab governments are seeking to restrict its space by blocking Web sites and terrorising Internet writers and users," she added.

It is worth noting that the Tunisian government, for example, was the fastest to block a Web site. The Tunisian government blocked www.yezzi.org 18 hours after it was launched. It should be noted that the Tunisian government is infamous for blocking many human rights and political Web sites.

In Egypt, security authorities have recently been blocking Web sites calling for reform, such as the Save Egypt Front, and Masreyat, in addition to its continuous blocking of the Web sites of the Al-Shaab newspaper and the Al-Amal (labour) party.

The Saudi government, on the other hand, is not satisfied with daily blocking of nearly 200 Web sites. Religious scholars and businessmen affiliated to the Saudi government are starting to launch campaigns against the freedom to use the Internet and the freedom of information exchange. Religious scholars have issued a fatwa prohibiting women from using the Internet without the presence of a mahram (a close relative they are prohibited to marry). This was followed by a call from Saudi businessmen to sue Web sites that call for freedom of thought and secularism, such as the aforementioned Web sites.

"Amongst the Arab governments violating freedom of expression and exchange of information, we find that the most aggressive are those of Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt," Sami said. "Such behaviour breaches the right of citizens to acquire information and news and deprives them of a variety of sources of information," she added.