Blog

Mexico City, April 25, 2008 — Mexico has become the most dangerous country for journalists in the Americas.

*Just in the time for the Olympics, the Chinese government has proved itself to be a pioneer as well as a top exporter in cutting-edge online censorship methods.

It’s well-known that mobile phones are revolutionizing communications across the globe, particularly in developing countries where landline infrastructure is lacking in many rural and urban areas.

If you need to reach Jan Chipchase, the best, and sometimes only, way to get him is on his cellphone. The first time I spoke to him last fall, he was at home in his apartment in Tokyo.

SANGONeT and Hivos are collaborating on a project aimed at developing citizen journalism in Africa, with a specific focus on South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and Mozambique.

On Tuesday March 18 2008, the Internet Service Provider Koumbit Network of Montreal, Canada was visited by two inspectors of the arson investigation department accompanied by

Frederick Noronha, of APC member organisation BytesforAll, was crowned Outstanding Participant at the recent Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) Community workshop in Auroville, India.

There are more than a billion internet users worldwide, and the number is set to double within the next ten years. What will the next billion users mean to the Internet itself? How will it affect the network, the technology, the computer software industry, access to knowledge, and our environment?

As you might be aware of, GK3 is happening smack bang in the middle of a strange moment in Malaysia. We are anticipating our next elections sometime very soon. A Coalition on Free & Fair Elections (BERSIH - meaning 'clean' in Malay) was formed, and organised a peaceful demonstration on this issue. This demonstration sort of catalysed a series of events which is resulting in rapid arrests of communication rights advocates & independent media journalists, opposition party members, civil and political rights activists and BERSIH coalition members. This morning, 26 people were arrested for trying to hand over a memorandum to the parliament. There was massive road blocks on all the routes into the city, and riot police trucks along the parliament route.

The third Global Knowledge Conference, or GK3, has officially started today. The words “emerging people, emerging markets and emerging technologies”, the three main topics that structure this conference, were repeated many times by the speakers (which included the deputy prime minister of Malaysia). The words “human rights” or “freedom”, however, weren not mentioned not even once. This seemed weird, given what is happening in the streets of Kuala Lumpur, a few minutes away from fancy conference centre: people are being arrested for protesting peacefully against the government.