Thank you for this report, Izumi. It is an excellent idea to have daily
reports and I look forward to reading them...it will certainly prepare me for
the work of Week 2.
Best regards to all the Asian Caucus members in Geneva,
Susanna
Quoting Izumi AIZU <izumi@anr.org>:
> Hi all,
>
> I accidentally volunteered to write a Daily Report for the 1st and 2nd day
> of WSIS
> PrepCom2 here in Geneva, especially for those who could not come to Geneva.
>
> Here follows is my personal observation and memo and may contain some
> inaccurate descriptions, or may have missed something very important.
> But in the interest of time, I will send this now anyway. I apologize if
> I made any mistake to offend anyone... but hope not.
>
>
> Day 1, Feb 17
> On the first day, yesterday, the meeting started with formal adoption of
> Agenda, including
> reports from secretariat on Accreditation of NGOs, Civil Society and
> business entities,
> followed by Report of ITU Secretary General Yoshio Utsumi, Report of
> President of
> PrepCom, Adama Samassekou, and Reports from each Regional Conferences, from
>
> African,
> European, Asia & Pacific and Latin American conferences were presented.
>
> The election of Chairman of Subcommitee 2, Content and Theme, was postponed
> to
> the next plenary meeting because the preparation (or negotiation) by the
> governments
> were not complete. It is still negotiated, among Asian Governments, since
> the Chair is
> scheduled to be elected from Asian region.
>
> Overall, it was much more quiet and orderly compared with that of Tokyo
> conference.
> NO question was raised from the floor.
>
> Asian NGO Coordination Committee/Civil Society caucus group met at the
> cafeteria
> at the lunch break. First, we briefly introduced each other. Those present
> were:
>
> Alan Alegre, FMA, Philippines
> Robert Carcia, PASPBAE, Philippines
> Nick Moraitis, Taking IT Global
> YJ Park, Korea
> Adam Peake, GLOCOM, Japan
> Pualine Chen, IRFD, Taiwan, ROC
> Tin-An Wang, Taiwan, ROC
> Lee-in Chen Chiu, IRFD, Taiwan, ROC
> Oh Byoung Il, Korean Progressive Network Jinbonet, Korea
> Kim Jeong Woo, "PatchA", Korean Progressive Network Jinbonet, Korea
> Izumi Aizu, GLOCOM, Japan
> Robert Sagun, Young Volunteers for Sustainable Development, Philippines
> Umi Sabridh Haron Sharon, Taking IT Global, Malaysia
> Roentgen Bronce, Taking IT Global, Philippines
> Arief Prasetyo, Taking IT Global; Indoensian Electrical Engineering Student
>
> Forum, Indonesia
> Maitreyi Doshi, Taking IT Global, India
>
> We exchanged some information around, then agreed to meet every afternoon
> around 1:30 pm, to exchange the information and discuss the possible
> actions during PrepCom2.
>
> In the afternoon, there was the official "Visionaries Panel" under the theme
> of
> "Future of the Information Society". It was chaired by Yoshio Utsumi,
> Secretary-General
> of ITU, and moderated by Ms. Maria Cattaui, Secretary-General of
> International Chamber
> of Commerce. Speakers were: Maitre Abdoulaye Wade, President of Republic of
>
> Senegal,
> Ion Iliescu, President of Romania, Laurence Lessig, Professor, Stanford Law
>
> School,
> and Jacques Attali, writer and Chiar, PlaNet Finance, France. No one was
> from Asia Pacific.
>
> Prof. Lessig received the biggest applause from the floor, since he gave
> serious caution to
> the dominating commercial interest over the free exchange of ideas made
> possible by the
> original end-to-end communication architecture of the Internet and strongly
>
> called for the
> balance between those commercial interests and the interest for freedom,
> innovation and creativity.
>
> He said, "I come here today with a guilty conscience - from US, and from
> legal profession -
> both were making the dominance of commercial interest, "Freedom - have been
>
> corrupted
> by our extremism coming from our own legal tradition." He then continued:
> "This conference are framed with these questions of intellectual property
> as if separate
> from Information Society issues - I wish they were separate, but the last
> five years have
> demonstrated that the future of information society hangs fundamentally
> there how to
> respond to this question. Fundamentally - at odds, because the Information
> Society -
> is the place as both freedom and intellectual property must co-exist. These
>
> two must
> reconcile - I feel great guilt, as a lawyer, and as an American - There is
> no question that
> information society will be in next hundred years, the question is if it is
>
> a free or feudal
> information society. Freedom does not mean there is not property, nor
> market.
> Freedom is built with market - with free exchange of ideas and innovation,
> and that
> balance must be found.
>
>
> Civil Society Bureau Meeting
> From 17:15 pm, "Civil Society Bureau Meeting" was held. This "Bureau"
> concept was
> first came up during and after the PrepCom1, and proposed by the Civil
> Society Division
> of Executive Secretariat of WSIS, with consultation by a number of key
> people, with a
> small group meeting on January 27.
>
> The basic idea is to setup Civil Society Bureau as a channel to facilitate
> Civil Society
> participation in equal terms (hopefully) to Government Bureau of the WSIS.
> They
> proposed to bring "family" concept, as thematic group to compose the
> Bureau. They
> were: Academia and education, Science and technology community, Media, The
> creators
> and active promoters of culture,, Cities and local authorities, Trade
> Unions,
> Parliamentarians, NGOs including social groups such as: Youth, Women,
> Indigenous,
> Disabled, etc., Social movements And Multi-stakeholders partnerships.
>
> Good exchange of questions, answers, (constructive) criticisms and
> suggestions
> followed. I pointed out the need for "Region" as important channel for
> input in addition
> to sectoral family.
>
> It was agreed that this Bureau is a mechanism to facilitate Civil Society
> participation
> to WSIS process, but is not taking any specific position in substantive
> issues.
>
> = END of Day 1 =
>
>