The summit host country Tunisia has not tried to improve its human rights record, and the Tunisian authorities are actively obstructing the work of civil society groups – even in Geneva. Western governments are currently preparing a strong reaction, and independent activists are thinking about not going to the summit at all. They are also looking for signatures for an open letter to Kofi Annan.

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Here are the notes from Report from SubCommittee A, 27 September

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26 sept - internet governance subcommittee notes

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Here are the notes from Report from SubCommittee A, 23 September

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here are my notes from today's Internet Governance - subcomittee notes

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President Karklins encoutered a strange roadblock during the Plenary this afternoon when trying to have his new GFC (Group of Friends of the Chair) formulation adopted as basis for discussion for Sub-Committee B.

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Minutes of the first meeting of the Civil Society Bureau (CSB) @ WSIS PrepCom-3 yesterday (18
Sept.

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Please take a look at the webdialogue project's website, they are
trying to bring as much information as possible from the prepcom
about Internet governance, and will also hold a series of interactive
sessions, etc.

<http://www.webdialogues.net/cs/dialogue-wgig/view/di/70?x-t=home.view>

Great credit to Derrick Cogburn. the Internet Governance Project and
all involved in helping people follow what's going on at the prepcom
remotely and generally enriching the discussion

Technorati Tags: prepcom, WSIS

PrepCom3 has started – fights about Internet Governance and Implementation expected
19 September 2005. The third and last meeting of the Preparatory committee for the WSIS (PrepCom-3) has started two hours ago. The upcoming two weeks will see major struggles around the hot topics Internet Governance and summit follow-up. The chances for progress are less than slim, and civil society is already discussing if and when it should leave the official drafting exercise. In the meantime, the PrepCom was almost blocked over the non-accreditation of the NGO Human Rights in China.

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WSIS Prepcom III, 19-30 September 2005, Geneva
First Plenary Session, 19 September, 1000 – 1300 hours
Hall des Assemblees, Palais des Nations
Notes by Rik Panganiban. CONGO

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Rik Panganiban just posted the information on and about the Prepcom. 

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We’ve had a good discussion on the process for selecting speakers for the Tunis Summit from civil society.
 
Although there was consideration of having an online voting mechanism, and a random lottery selection, there was general support for the idea of using a similar process as the WGIG selection process – i.e. a nominating committee composed of reps from the caucuses and open nominations coming from anyone in civil society.
 
Since that discussion, we have received more information on the speaking slots for Tunis. Specifically, these are 34 speaking slots:

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The WSIS Executive secretariat has finally published the list of NGOs, civil society and business sector entities recommended for accreditation.

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In a report to be presented at the World Bank today, a group that includes senior government officials from 13 countries will urge nations to adopt open-information technology standards as a vital step to accelerate economic growth, efficiency and innovation

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/technology/09open.html

Chantal Peyer just posted a summary on the plenary list of the GFC meeting that was held today.

Things don't look good for follow-up and civil society will have to be very active at prepcom3 if we want to save a minimum of political debate after the Tunis Summit.

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The list of accepted parallel events have now been published on the Tunis WSIS website

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Philipple Dam of CONGO@WSIS just posted the following summary of today's Group of Friends of the Chair (GFC) meeting...

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The Conference of NGOs (CONGO) is organizing an Orientation Session for PrepCom-3, which will be held on September 18, 2005 in Geneva from 10:00 to 18:00 at the ITU Building room B or C.
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Committment to Implementation and Multi-Stakeholder Approach dropped from Documents, Civil Society Groups Voice Protest

Civil society groups active in the WSIS have voiced their protest against a serious development related to the Tunis summit outcomes. The latest draft for the summit document on implementation and follow-up is lacking a meaningful commitment to implementation, and they also are a serious setback for the multi-stakeholder approach. The official WSIS website does not even list the Geneva civil society summit declaration anymore.

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The next Public Voice call will take place on Friday, September 9, at 1000 EST / 1500 UTC.
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