Thank you toshi for your mostly accurate summary and your
effort to share these important information here.
We at GLOCOM is kind of bombarded by the amount of work,
including fellowship matters and trying to catch up from
the Bangkok CONGO meeting trip.
Anyway, one thing I may have to clarify,
The fellowship deadline is officially closed. That is what
was said in that meeting. Main reason is for the practical
consideration of all the work of getting visa, air ticket
reservation and purcahse, sending the ticket or money,
etc, which takes a lot of time and effort, especially
around Christmas and New year time (in Jpaan we take
almoast 9 days off, from Dec 28 to Jan 5 this year).
So if we extend the deadline, there will be some countries
where there is no Japanese embassy or consulate office
thus making it very difficult to issue visa in timely manner to
people there and therefore we decided to fix the deadline as of Dec 13,
instead of original 8th. For the fairness of least convenient
country/people.
I said in that meeting that that does not mean there is
NO exception. If there is additional funding coming in or
existing funding still remain and there is strong candidate,
then the door should not be closed. But that is a kind
of "exception" and we should not give any extra exepectation
by officially saying that the deadline is extended. If we are to
add the recepient of the fellowship, there will be selected from
the existing pool of people first.
For the general applicaiton, I understand it is already extended,
and new official descrption should apper on the website very soon,
if not done.
I hope this gives better explanation.
AND, GLOCOM called for another meeting today with NGOs
interested in IT and develpment, Asian activities, in Japan.
Some 10 or so people from various NGOs attended.
The ministry and two private sector people joined as observers.
I will follow up what was discussed today, say by the end of tomorrow
in more detaile.
We discussed about side events, coordiation by different NGOs,
NGO panel in the main program, drafting of declaration, etc.
Sorry for not giving the summary right now, but it is already around
1:30 am, and I need to do more work...
yes, time is too short, and while I don't think it's an intended
tactics of our government, it has certain effect similat to that,
severly constraing the NGO participation.
BUT, to date, there are much more applications sent for registration
by the NGOs from Asian countries, than private sector and governments.
However, many of them do need funding in order to actualy participate
and thereby unable to join because of ecnomic barrier. That is the reality.
anyway, thanks again!
izumi
At 00:06 02/12/19 +0900, toshimaru ogura wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>On 16 Dec., we met Japanese government officials in charge of WSIS
>Tokyo meeting. We discussed about 2 hours regarding our questions and
>others.
>
>They told the several important things that were not appeared on WSIS
>Tokyo web site. Especially following things are very important
>information for NGOs.
>
>* WSIS application is accepting now though the official deadline was
> over.
>
>* Attitude of Japanese government in terms of WSIS Tokyo has
> very mistrustfull. They forgot to invite East Timor. On the other
> hand, Japanese government decides not to invite North Korea based on
> political judgment.
>
>* One panel discussion of the first day is changed for setting up
> organized by NGOs.
>
>Panel discussion by NGOs is welcome. But we have completely severe
>shortage of time to prepare and discuss. Therefore announcement for
>NGOs are not enough pervaded now. Also some persons and NGOs in abroad
>are virtually difficult to arrange to go to Tokyo even if they want to
>join official NGOs panel discussion.
>
> >From my view point, shortage of time is a usual practice by
>government of Japan. I have often experienced such tactics by
>them. The more important policy, the less time to discuss they want,
>and then they try to decide everything before arising serious critical
>public opinions. Regarding WSIS Tokyo meeting, Japanese government can
>pose as collaboration with civil society while in reality most of
>NGOs have not preparing to join the meeting based on deliberately
>discussion and transparent participating process open to all the
>people concerned. This is a kind of invisible exclusion
>tactics. Therefore we as participants should have very important
>responsibility for the civil society.
>
>Regarding North Korea issue, I would like to write a little
>bit. Japanese government told frankly about their decision as
>political judgment. I astonished their easy assurance of manner. In
>Japan, several hundreds of thousand of Korean people live. The
>communication issues between ordinary people in Japan and North Korea
>are very serious human security issues in spite of political conflict
>between them. Not to invite North Korea means that Japanese government
>lacks a consideration for political and military conflict within this
>region. Rather Japanese government seems to intend to stimulate
>military conflict within this region in imitation of Bush. Exclusion of
>North Korean is very dangerous for people's security. We should make a
>strong protest against the decision of Japanese government.
>
>I summarize the responses from Japanese government as
>follows. Sentences following RESPONSE are written responses by
>Japanese government. Sentences following # is a response and comment
>by oral. Original Japanese version of response is appeared as follows;
>http://www.jca.apc.org/~toshi/wsis-tokyo/soumushou_kaitou.html
>
>toshi
>JCA-NET
>((((((((((^0^)))))))))
>toshimaru ogura
>ogr@nsknet.or.jp
>toshi@jca.apc.org
>((((((((((^0^)))))))))
>
>============================================================
>> Izumi Aizu <<
Asia Network Research
www.anr.org
&
GLOCOM /Institute for HyperNetwork Society
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