Beating Around the Bush.

Via Steve Gilliard's News Blog.

What has to be stressed over and over is the fragility of Bush's support.

Wrong on the issues, the war in Iraq, Bush only has an aura of personal charm which keeps his presidency afloat. People mistake his obstinancy for plain spokenness. It isn't. Bush is really just that stubborn and simple.

Someone said Bush has a glass jaw, I think that's kind. Bush is one real challenge from a complete collapse. That bubble they built around him isn't for laughs. The idea that a president doesn't read the news may sound cute to some, but it's frighteningly disconnected to me.

Bush plays into the worst prejudices of American political life: a belief in authority over curiousity, a xenopohobia which is deeply personal. A man with his education doesn't not travel abroad unless he has a deep aversion to it. His inability to admit error, the excessive stage management, the fear-based war on terror. All are indicative of someone unable to face the world on its own terms.

[wirearchy News]

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back when i was a teen, i had a copy of the book of lists 3, in which there were two lists for the scariest person ever, on the u.s. list, there were the usual suspects, on the world list near the top was ronald reagan, shocking… but true. i think the failed bush presidency now far surpasses reagan on the world fear factor. that is not a good thing.

yup, that's about it, a paper, a fairly interesting one that i'm writing with tim, well so far he wrote probably 160% of it, and i've cut it down to 85% but now it is back to around 96% his work, but all in all i think i have around 1000 words in it, i wrote around 3200 words for it, but you know how it goes. he writes 7200 words, i write 3200 words, and the paper is supposed to be 4-5000 words, life is interesting like that sometimes.

WSIS Round Table on ICTs as a tool to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The WSIS Round Table on “ICTs as a tool to achieve the Millennium Development Goals” has just ended. The main ideas debated were:

• Countries need to develop a national plan if they are going to achieve the goals. Without the plan, there is no chance for success by 2015.
• There is a debate on which comes first, development or ICTs. One side is saying that basic development needs to occur before the country can put scarce resources towards ICTs. The other side is proposing investing in ICTs as a way to increase development.
• Community access centers are going to be key to expanding access in the developing world. Many countries are currently making plans to have these centers as ways to reach the furthest regions of their countries.
• There are two digital divides, one external among countries, and the other INTERNAL within the country. Many speakers highlighted that this internal divide is the most severe and is the most urgent to address.

Some quotes of interest:

“Community access centers will guarantee ICT access to most of our population, converting the digital divide into a digital opportunity“, by Mr. Leonel Fernandez REYNA, President, Global foundation for democracy and development (FUNGLODE)

“There should be an open source fund for a foundation that would help developing economies gain access to inexpensive software needed to fuel the information society“, by Mr. Askar AKAEV, President of the Kyrgyz Republic

“Jobs will follow training and expertise“, by Ms. Tae Yoo, Vice President of Corporate Philanthropy, Cisco, USA, (in suggesting how education can play the initial role that will help attract the investment needed to fuel ICT development and growth)

[ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog]

Grassroots WSIS coverage [bOing bOing]

Brainpower is Getting Cheaper.

Edward Hugh and Marcelo Rinesi write in The Straits Times:

The 'new new economy' way – one that recognises that well-educated human minds are as much of a commodity as any standards-compatible central processing unit – involves software written by bright maverick programmers (maybe tucked away in an East European 'transitional economy'), the incredibly cheap communication infrastructure of the Internet, and literal warehouses of Indian mechanical-mental workers typing away for what to us may appear as bargain basement wages (but which are still more than they could otherwise earn).

This is how individual ingenuity, cheap technology and cheap intellectual labour defeat corporate R&D and expensive technology. Any American company that insists on playing by the old new rules, using a top cadre of shut-in experts, geographically centralised operations and sub-planetary mindsets, will find itself outflanked, outsmarted and eventually outstripped by a few guys with the right network.

Politicians and losing businessmen call it 'unfair competition', while the businessmen that are making money out of it prefer the expression 'emerging outsourcing platforms'.

We see it simply as an extension of Moore's Law to human beings, which can be put simply like this: The knowledge, expertise and ingenuity that you can rent for US$10,000 (S$17,300), or US$1,000, a year is rising exponentially.

[E M E R G I C . o r g]

Ghana – an African ICT Showcase.

There is no doubt that African nations are not being left out of WSIS. One of the countries that is making its voice heard at the Summit is Ghana. Ghana, a peaceful and stable country in West Africa is gearing itself up towards becoming the 'Silicon Valley' of the region. At a WSIS press conference today, the Minister of Communications of Ghana, Mr Kan Dapaah, spoke about how the country is poised for rapid expansion in the ICT sector, and called on investors to take advantage of the favourable climate in his country.

The Government is building an ultra modern, fully equipped technology park, it was reported, which it believes will catapult Ghana's ICT sector into the twenty-first century.

In a significant initiative last week, the Governments of India and Ghana inaugurated the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence for Communications and Information Technology in the capital Accra. This constitutes a perfect example of how developing countries are helping each other bridge the digital divide, and, in the words of the UN Secretary-General, is a “tangible contribution to the United Nationsâ global mission of peace and our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals”.

Ghana is also home to the largest cybercafé in Africa to date, BusyInternet, with 100 PCs available for public use.

[ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog]

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 Information Societ and they lay the foundation for further cooperation towards building a truly inclusive information society which is a key goal of the Summit. The ITU partnerships also set an example for other types of alliances needed to deliver the Summitâs which will be endorsed by Heads of State and governments later in the week.

The following is a snapshot of some cross-sectoral and global partnerships, all forged on the road to WSIS, in which ITU plays a key part:

• The World Health Organization (WHO)and ITU are joining forces in their Health Academy to harness ICTs for delivery of vital health information to impoverished areas across the world.
• Turkeyâs Ministry of Health and ITU are collaborating to boost health services and information across the vast and varied country by electronic means.
• To bring faster, cheaper and more reliable communication to remote, mountainous areas of Bhutan, the Government of India will help deliver e-post services to the Bhutanese Postal Service via a USD 400,000 a V-satellite network and solar panels power system. Another USD 40,000 comes from ITU with the remaining USD 10,000 in in-kind contributions from Bhutan Telecom and Post.
• Rascom is Africaâs first transcontinental satellite service, to be used for electronic communication, broadcasting and cellular services. It will support Universal Access projects aimed at bridging Africaâs digital divide through connectivity across Africa and within its cities, with a focus on low-cost solutions for rural areas.

See the ITU press release for a full list of all the partnerships.

[ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog]

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 a dicey situation.” “Almost everyone in the developed countries has access to ICTs, whereas in sub-Saharan Africa, overall fixed line teledensity is about 1 to 130 inhabitants while internet, computers and television are available to only a handful of elites,” he added. Earlier, Senegalese president Abdulaye Wade had raised hopes of the emergence of a new concept of digital solidarity. But the Nigerian president seemed more downbeat, his baritone voice conveying the sad message that there appears to be a lack of political will to tackle a widening digital divide. He called, again, for a Digital Solidarity Fund, as “a practical measure for redressing the digital imbalance.”
[via Daily Summit]

[ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog]

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 d.c. or the surrounding area, i've found that i need to allocate an extra amount of time to account for my getting horribly lost, since it's been my experience that it's a terribly easy thing to… [snowdeal.org > ex machina]

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i would say this is a great reason not to rent a car in d.c., but just take the bus, metro, or even a cab. but that's just me

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]