The US$6.4 million Mobile Internet Ecosystem Project (MIEP) approved by the World Bank Board of Executive Directors today will strengthen innovation and entrepreneurship in the Lebanese mobile Internet ecosystem. Beneficiaries include software developers, university students and graduates, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) firms, industries where new software applications can improve productivity, and mobile users at large.

The project will increase entrepreneurial skills and practical training of the Lebanese talent pool to enhance competitiveness in the industry. It will help create instruments to interact and develop innovation networks to increase global competitiveness. Moreover, areas of improvement will be identified to help the government implement needed reforms.

Creating a mobile Internet ecosystem in Lebanon will have a positive impact on the country’s labor market including greater geographic diversification, improved growth and increased retention of skilled workers. With mobile technology well distributed across Lebanon, new economic opportunities will be possible in economically marginalized areas.

“Fostering investment and capital accumulation in new and innovative sectors that use existing domestic human resources and skills can help unleash Lebanon’s potential for growth and over the long-term shift the economy towards a more sustainable growth path,” said Ferid Belhaj, World Bank Country Director for the Mashreq. “Lebanon is recognized for its strong education system and its multilingual and educated entrepreneurial population. It is important to build on this human capital when addressing economic growth and job creation.”

With literacy rates above 90 percent and gross tertiary education enrollment at 54 percent, the country’s young graduates represent a competitive talent pool. However, Lebanon’s unemployment rate, particularly among young people and women, is high. While the national unemployment rate is 11 percent, 34 percent of all young people and 18 percent of women are actively looking for work.

“The mobile Internet segment can create jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities for the talented, technology savvy Lebanese youth,” said Carlo Maria Rossotto, World Bank Regional Coordinator of the ICT sector. “This project aims to strengthen digital skills and create new enterprises in the mobile Internet space which is a driver of economic growth and job creation”.

The project will be implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Telecommunications who will finance 50 percent of the total cost. The project has strong support within the Government of Lebanon and is aligned with the government’s latest Economic and Social Reform Action Plan.

“Dame Patience Jonathan has demonstrated deep interest in activities of children and young people,” said ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré speaking at a ceremony earlier today.

“Under her guidance, the Government of Nigeria is now taking extensive steps to ensure a safer online environment for children. ITU is looking forward to collaborating even more closely with Nigeria to build a better future for our children.”

Among her responsibilities, the First Lady will work toward creating a safe environment for children while they are on the internet, as well as push for reforms not only in the Africa region but across the globe.

Noting that children and youth are among the top users of the Internet, Ms. Jonathan, who is also President of the African First Ladies Peace Mission, pledged to “join hands with ITU to secure the children of the world from the dangers of cybercrime.”

Launched in 2008, the Child Online Protection (COP) initiative aims to identify risks and vulnerabilities to children in cyberspace, create awareness, develop practical tools to help minimize risk, and share knowledge and experience.

ITU launched the COP initiative in 2008 as part of the overall thrust to strengthen cybersecurity. According to the UN agency, its COP brings together partners from various sectors to ensure a safe and secure online experience for children around the world.

Earlier today, ITU signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Nigerian Communication Commission to set up a Regional Cybersecurity Centre in the African country.

This Regional Centre will facilitate collaboration on combating cyber threats at the regional and national levels – with an emphasis on activities related to protecting children online.

The draft directive requires EU countries to set their maximum terms of imprisonment at not less than two years for the crimes of illegally accessing or interfering with information systems, illegally interfering with data, illegally intercepting communications or intentionally producing and selling tools used to commit these offences. “Minor” cases are excluded, but it is up to each country to determine what constitutes a “minor” case.

The text sets up a penalty of at least three years’ imprisonment for using “botnets”, i.e. establishing remote control over a significant number of computers by infecting them with malicious software.

Attacks against “critical infrastructure”, such as power plants, transport networks and government networks, can lead to a five-year prison sentence. The same applies if an attack is committed by a criminal organisation or if it causes serious damage.

Member states will be required to respond quickly to urgent requests for help in the event of cyber attacks, so as to render police cooperation more effective. They will have to make better use of the existing 24/7 network of contact points to respond to urgent requests within eight hours.

Legal persons, such as firms, would be liable for offences committed for their benefit (e.g. for hiring a hacker to get access to a competitor’s database). Penalties could include exclusion from entitlement to public benefits or closure of establishments.

The text, adopted by 541 votes to 91, with 9 abstentions, is expected to be formally adopted by the Council very shortly. The new directive builds on rules that have been in force since 2005. Once adopted, member states will have two years to transpose it into national law.

Photo: Neelie Kroes, Catherine Ashton and Cecilia Malmström (from left to right)

Obama should raise concerns with Al Nahyan about severe violations of fair trial rights, allegations of torture, and the laws and practices that foster exploitation of the UAE’s sizable migrant population, Human Rights Watch said.

When Obama and Al Nahyan last met, on June 27, 2012, they issued a joint statement calling on governments and citizens across the Middle East to “avoid violence, advance tolerance, and protect human rights – particularly the rights of women.” However, the backdrop to the two leaders’ forthcoming meeting is the UAE’s fundamentally unfair mass trial of 94 critics of the government, the unpunished torture by its state security services, and an escalating crackdown on free speech, Human Rights Watch said.

The UAE authorities are trying the 94 peaceful critics of the government on charges that they “initiated, established, and ran an organization seeking to oppose the basic principles of the UAE system of governance and to seize power.” Information from UAE sources indicates that many of the defendants were detained at UAE State Security facilities. Human Rights Watch has documented and receives credible reports of torture from former detainees of these facilities.

Although the UAE authorities claim that the defendants pose a national security risk, their trial appears to be part of a broader attack on the right to freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch said.

In March 2012, the UAE authorities closed the local offices of two foreign organizations that promote the exchange of ideas and political debate: the National Democratic Institute, a body linked to the Democratic Party in the United States; and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, linked to Germany’s Christian Democratic Union. In December, authorities closed down the Abu Dhabi office of the RAND Corporation, a US-based research organization. The UAE authorities issued no public statements explaining the justification for any of the closures.

In November, the UAE issued a new federal decree on cybercrime. The decree provides a legal basis to prosecute people who use information technology to exercise their free speech rights, including criticizing senior officials, arguing for political reform, or organizing unlicensed demonstrations. Although the UAE claims to be a regional leader on migrant workers’ rights, it has not made meaningful progress to protect them from severe exploitation by employers, Human Rights Watch said. The UAE has not significantly reformed the legal and regulatory framework that is responsible for the serious exploitation of migrant workers, in a country where 85 percent of the population are foreign nationals.

The combination of a highly exploitative system of sponsorship-based employment, the illegal but customary confiscation by employers of workers’ passports, and the failure of the UAE authorities and labor-sending states to eliminate illegal recruitment fees, significantly increases the likelihood and incidence of forced labor. The UAE has not implemented any legislation to protect migrant domestic workers, most of them women, who are not covered by national labor law. A draft law from 2012 is deeply flawed.

As the US State Department noted in its 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report, the UAE government has failed to address trafficking for labor exploitation, and prohibitions against contributory factors to forced labor have not been enforced.

“President Obama should break with past US soft-pedalling criticism of severe abuses in the UAE, especially when he has called publicly for other countries in the region to respect human rights,” Whitson said.

According to the report, 
on December 28, 2012, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislative body, passed the “Decision to Strengthen the Protection of Online Information.” The Decision contains troubling provisions that require internet access and telecommunications providers to collect personal information about users when they sign up for internet access, landline, or mobile phone service. Paragraph 6 of the Decision also applies to service providers that allow users to publish online, who must be able to connect pseudonyms to real identities when citizens post information. In the days following the decision, several well-known online activists found that their weibo micro-blogging accounts had been shut down.

“These new mandates send a chilling message to China’s netizens,” said Cynthia Wong, senior researcher on the internet and human rights at Human Rights Watch. “The government’s decision is an effort to silence critics and curb anonymity online by further conscripting internet companies to monitor and censor users.”

“Real name registration” requirements allow authorities to more easily identify online commentators or tie mobile use to specific individuals, limiting anonymous expression, “whistleblowers” who spotlight official corruption, and the right to privacy.

Even without energetic enforcement, the law will suppress critical speech as users may fear that anything they post critical of the government could lead to reprisals.

Although the right to freedom of expression is guaranteed in article 35 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese government continues to regularly impose sharp curbs, including through broad internet censorship, surveillance practices, and prosecution of citizens and journalists for their online activity, Human Rights Watch warned.

Renesys, a Web-monitoring service, reported Thursday morning that sweeping outages in Syria had shut down 92 percent of the country’s routed networks.

“77 networks experienced an outage in Syria starting at 12:26 p.m. local time on November 29. This represents 92% of the routed networks in the country,” Renesys announced.

Akamai Technologies Inc., another U.S-based company also confirmed a complete outage for Syria, according to the Associated Press, while activists in Syria reached Thursday by satellite telephone confirmed the unprecedented blackout, which comes amid intense fighting in the capital, Damascus.

Syria has partially cut Internet connections during its almost two year  uprising against President Assad but a nationwide shutdown is unprecedented.

The Internet in Syria basically depends on one domestic provider, state-owned Syrian Telecom Establishment (AS29256 and AS29386). They buy most of their Internet transit from Turk Telekom and Deutsche Telekom, with some contribution from PCCW, Tata, and Telecom Italia. Connectivity has historically come in over submarine cable from Cyprus; activation of new terrestrial fiber connections to Turkey have been delayed by the political unrest in the country.

Egypt and Libya both shut down Internet service early in their own uprisings last year. Those were seen as major steps, as is Syria’s today, if the Renesys report is confirmed.

Some Twitter users warned the Internet outage foretells an impending larger military action, but that has not yet been verified.

Syria is in the midst of civil war, with the Internet playing a key role in the uprising against Assad that erupted almost two years ago.

The regime of President Bashar al-Assad has maintained tight control over information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Syria for many years, dominating key networks via government-linked service providers and engaging in extensive blocking of websites. The internet was first introduced to Syria in 2000, reaching only 30,000 users that year. By the end of 2010, more than one-fifth of the population was online.

“The Internet offers a lot of potential and opportunities for sustainable development,” said the Director of the Division for Public Administration and Development Management of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Haiyan Qian.

Qian’s remarks, delivered on her behalf, were addressed to more than 1,600 delegates from 128 countries at the conclusion of a four-day conference of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

The Forum included the participation of governments, intergovernmental organizations, business representatives, the technical community, civil society organizations, as well as any individual Internet users interested in Internet governance issues.

The theme for this year’s Forum was ‘Internet Governance for Sustainable Human, Economic and Social Development,’ reflecting the increasing role of the Internet in the evolution of the various aspects of development, across all countries.

“We need to build capacities to address challenges and implement strategies, not only in our own countries and organizations, but also to assist others, especially those in developing and the least developed countries, as well as countries with economies in transition,” Qian urged.

The question of promoting sustainable development – which aims to meet human needs through resource-use that also preserves the environment – was central to the landmark UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), which took place in Brazil in June this year.

One of the main Rio+20 outcomes was the agreement by member States to launch a process to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals, which will build upon the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – set in 2000 for achievement by 2015 or earlier – and converge with the post-2015 development agenda.

In her remarks, Ms. Qian said IGF’s “inclusive, participatory and transparent governance process” plays a “critical role” in driving the growth of the Internet, which she said was “clearly” bringing new social and economic opportunities to so many people in the developing world.

“This session of the IGF has again provided the valued platform for continuous consensus building and learning opportunities for all,” she said. “I am sure each one of us will bring back to our respective countries and organizations new ideas and approaches on how we can best deal with these crucial issues.”

The forum emerged after 2005, when countries attending the second of two conferences of the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society asked the UN Secretary-General to convene a new space for dialogue on Internet governance policy. Though not a decision-making body, it saw its initial five-year mandate renewed for a further five years by UN General Assembly.

IGF noted that activist groups drawn from civil society had demonstrated an “appetite to drive (the) global Internet agenda by attending the Baku conferences annual meeting in relative force.

“Civil society… was the highest represented stakeholder group at the forum,” IGF stated in a news release, citing others as Internet governance experts, government officials, international development representatives, academics, private sector representatives and other “inquiring global citizens.”

IGF said participation of women also increased significantly from previous years, and cited youth representation and activity as a “notable achievement” of this year’s meeting.

Several dozen experts and panellists participated in the gathering from remote hubs around the world – a development IGF said had become a “major strength” of the forum process. It also highlighted the rising use of social media platforms by delegates, noting that their use spiked “significantly” – enabling discussion to continue beyond the meeting rooms.

“There were thousands of ‘Tweets’ about the forum each day, which reached millions of others on the social information-sharing network,” IGF said.

The forum concluded on a day the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) also highlighted the importance of communications for advancing development. The Paris-based agency did so in remarks delivered at UN Headquarters in New York to the UN General Assembly’s Second Committee, which deals with economic and financial matters.

“UNESCO approaches the issue of communication-in-the-service-of-development from the vantage point of fostering an environment in which freedom of expression, independence and pluralism of the media can exist,” UNESCO’s Senior Public Information and Liaison Officer in New York, Suzanne Bilello, told the committee, which is open to all 193 UN Member States.

“Of particular interest to us therefore is the need to ensure that the communication-for-development agenda gives sufficient emphasis to promoting free, independent and pluralistic media, whether on radio sets, mobile phones or printed pages, and including access to communication channels, such as community media, and not forgetting, also, the importance of media and information literacy,” she said.

Bilello added that, without progress in all those parameters, “societies cannot advance more specific practices, like health or agricultural communication, to optimum effect and participation by poor and marginalized people.”

UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Wu Hongbo urges greater efforts to bridge the ongoing digital divide and ensure that everyone around the world can harness its benefits.

There were 2.3 billion Internet users worldwide at the end of 2011, he stated in his address to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which opened in Baku, Azerbaijan.

In addition, mobile broadband reached more than 1 billion subscriptions, while the use of fixed broadband was estimated at 590 million subscriptions.

The theme for this year’s Forum is ‘Internet Governance for Sustainable Human, Economic and Social Development’ and reflects the increasing role of the Internet in the evolution of the various aspects of development, across all countries.

“This low number of Internet users in developing countries calls for increased efforts in shaping and implementing appropriate policies to assist everyone to harness the benefits of the Internet, and advance sustainable development,” stated Mr. Wu.

The Internet Governance Forum is an important venue to initiate discussions, and identify ways to address the digital divide. It was convened by the UN Secretary-General in 2006, as a multi-stakeholder forum for policy dialogue related to Internet governance issues. It includes the participation of governments, intergovernmental organizations, business representatives, the technical community, civil society organizations, as well as any individual Internet user interested in Internet governance issues.

“Clearly, the Internet is an important tool for development,” Mr. Wu stated. “It is utilized in multiple sectors, including health, education, agriculture and industry, disaster relief, and environmental protection, among so many others.”

This week’s meeting comes less than a month before the start of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12), which runs from 3 to 14 December in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and will review the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) that date back to 1988.

“The current ITRs set the stage for the mobile revolution and the information society – and we are confident that the 2012 ITRs will help usher in the knowledge society,” the Secretary-General of the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Hamadoun Touré, told participants at the Forum. “Simply put, WCIT-12 is about putting ICTs in the hands of all the world’s people.”

Concerning WCIT and the Internet, Mr. Touré stressed that “ITU continues to play its role in the realm of the Internet, as we have done since the Internet’s inception – for example through ITU-brokered and ITU-approved global standards for the critical transport layers of the Internet and Internet access technologies,” he said. “But this does not mean that ITU wants to ‘take over the Internet’ or ‘control the Internet’ – indeed, I don’t even know what that might or would really mean, in practical terms.”

Measuring the Information Society 2012, produced by the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU), says that developing countries now account for the “lion’s share” of market growth in the mobile sector, according to an ITU press release detailing the report.

The report also shows that the ICT sector has not only become a major contributor to economic growth, but is especially so in developing countries, where global exports of ICT goods accounted for 20 per cent of their merchandise trade in 2010, compared to 12 per cent world wide.

“While prices in developed economies have stabilized, those in developing countries continue to fall at double-digit rates,” ITU stated in a news release on the report.

But, ITU said, the digital divide – generally defined as the difference in levels of ICT access between developed and developing countries – remains significant.

Developed countries register average “connectivity” values that are twice that of their developing counterparts on the Geneva-based agency’s ICT Development Index (IDI), according to the ITU report, which adds that policy makers should pay “keen attention” to the plight of a group of so-called ‘Least Connected Countries’ that the index identifies as having the lowest connectivity rates.

“The past year has seen continued and almost universal growth in ICT uptake,” said Brahima Sanou, the Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau, which authors the annual report. “The surge in numbers of mobile-broadband subscriptions in developing countries has brought the Internet to a multitude of new users.”

She added, “Despite the downward trend, prices remain relatively high in many low-income countries. For mobile broadband to replicate the mobile-cellular miracle and bring more people from developing countries online, 3G network coverage has to be extended and prices have to go down even further.”

Commenting on the report, ITU’s Secretary-General, Hamadoun I. Touré, called it the “annual industry benchmark for technology development.” He said the agency’s reputation as a “wholly impartial and reliable source” renders it the “most comprehensive statistical and analytical report on the shape of ICT markets worldwide.”

The report shows that the Republic of Korea remained the world’s most advanced ICT economy as determined by the IDI, which ranks 155 countries according to their levels of ICT access, use and skills, and takes account of 2011 and 2010 scores.

The next four countries – Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland – were also unchanged from the year before, while the United Kingdom, which moved from 14th place in 2011 to ninth in 2012, was the only new arrival in the top ten.

European countries also filled eight of the top ten spots, with Japan, ranking eighth, as the only non-European country at that level besides top-placed Republic of Korea. All the top 30 were high-income countries, which, ITU said, underlined the “strong link between income and ICT progress.”

ITU noted the report’s findings also include that countries marking the most progress in terms of ICT development were mostly in the developing world. It cites “strong performers” as including Bahrain, Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia.

“Mobile-cellular subscriptions registered continuous double-digit growth in developing country markets, for a global total of six billion mobile subscriptions by end 2011,” ITU said, noting that China and India each account for around one billion subscriptions.

“Mobile broadband continues to be the ICT service displaying the sharpest growth rates,” ITU added. “Over the past year, growth in mobile-broadband services continued at 40 per cent globally and 78 per cent in developing countries. There are now twice as many mobile-broadband subscriptions as fixed-broadband subscriptions worldwide.”

The increase in developing world connectivity rates has taken place alongside a rise in the affordability of telecommunication and Internet services.

“The price of ICT services dropped by 30 per cent globally between 2008 and 2011, with the biggest decrease in fixed-broadband Internet services, where average prices have come down by 75 per cent,” ITU said.

Still, ITU highlighted that fixed-broadband services remained “too expensive” in most developing countries, explaining that the price of a basic, monthly fixed-broadband package represented more than 40 per cent of monthly gross national income per capita at the end of 2011, compared to 1.7 per cent in developed economies.

“The government has long imposed restrictions on how Jordanians may express their thoughts and opinions,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Now it is trying to extend those restrictions to online expression.”

The measure would apply the restrictions in Jordan’s existing Press and Publications Law to online media. Those include prohibitions on insulting the royal family, publishing anything counter to “national obligation” and “Arab-Islamic values,” inciting sectarian strife or stirring discord or violence, and slandering any public officials or foreign heads of states, according to a release by CJP.

“If passed, these amendments would represent a huge step backward in Jordan’s press freedom record,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “Jordan would be joining a list of authoritarian countries that use Internet censorship as a form of media repression.”

The response to the proposed amendment from Jordan’s media and information technology professionals has been overwhelmingly negative. Tariq Momani, head of Jordan’s press syndicate, told Human Rights Watch he urged withdrawing the proposal. The prominent NGO Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists presented a detailed legal memorandum contending that the proposal did not make sense legally and was unworkable. The Coordination Group of Electronic Websites, representing 21 news websites, condemned the proposals on August 25, while another trade group, the Jordanian Electronic Press Association, rejected the authority to block websites, while welcoming efforts to apply the same legal standards to electronic publishing that exist for print media.

The proposal, which comes as an amendment to the 1998 Press and Publications Law, would require every online media outlet to register with the government and obtain an official license, similar to print publications, according to news reports. The legislation would also grant the government the right to block any website in violation of the law, including non-Jordanian websites, without a court order, the reports said.

Under the proposed amendments, electronic media owners and their employees would be responsible for ensuring that all comments published by their readers do not violate any laws, according to news reports. They would further be required to maintain a record of all comments posted on their site for at least six months, the reports said. The amendments also prohibit the posting of any comments not related to the published article.

If a website is found in violation of posting a comment not in accordance with the proposed regulations, it could face fines of up to 10,000 Jordanian dinars (US$14,000), news reports said.

The Jordanian government approved a draft of the bill on August 22, according to news reports. If the lower house passes the legislation, it will go to the upper house for review.

On the same day, the reports said, at least 500 websites featured a black home page with the following message: “You may be denied access to the content of this website under amendments to the Press and Publications Law as a result of government control over the Internet.”

Many analysts say that Jordan has maintained free and open access to the Internet, a policy that stands in contrast to other countries in the region.