>From: Declan McCullagh
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Sent: 21/06/00 07:20
>Subject: FC: U.N. report says governments should guarantee Net access by
>2005
>
>*********
>Below article is at:
>http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/071816.htm
>See background from July 1999, "UN wants to tax the Net":
>http://www.politechbot.com/p-00492.html
>And "UN retreats from email tax":
>http://www.politechbot.com/p-00502.html
>
>Call me heartless, but as much as I'd like to see everyone in the world
>hooked up to the Net (which will of course eventually happen, at least
>for
>97%+ of us), I'm not sure that additional taxation or even partial
>government funding is the way to do it. Technologies take a while to
>trickle down from the rich to the poor -- who had refrigerators, indoor
>plumbing, televisions first? The process is a natural, organic one; it
>takes time, and in the end it's the most efficient way. I don't see much
>
>recognition of this in these U.N. pronouncements (though I haven't been
>able to find the actual text of this particular report online). If
>anything, the Net seems to be spreading much faster than its related
>predecessors, which is a cause for not alarm but celebration. --Declan
>*********
>
>Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 18:07:24 -0400 (EDT)
>To: [log in to unmask]
>From: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Experts urge U.N. to assure Internet access to all by 2005
>
> Posted at 6:33 a.m. PDT Tuesday, June 20, 2000
>
> UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- By 2005, everyone in the world should have
>access
>to the Internet even if they have to walk for half a day to the nearest
>computer or cell phone, experts said in a report to the United Nations.
>
> ``It is incumbent on us, and we feel that it is entirely possible
>...
>that by the end of 2004 a farmer in Saharan Africa should be able to get
>to
>a point of access, let's say in half a day's walk or riding on a bullock
>
>cart,'' said Chuck Lankester, a U.N. consultant on information
>technology.
>
> But Lankester's panel warned that action was urgently needed to
>reach
>this goal and to stop the rapidly growing ``digital divide'' between
>rich
>and poor countries.
>
> The panel, which included government ministers from Africa, Asia,
>Eastern Europe and representatives of private businesses and
>foundations,
>presented its report at a news conference Monday.
>
> Currently less than 5 percent of the world population is
>benefiting
>from the tens of billions of dollars of E-commerce, the report said, and
>
>developing countries risk not ``just being marginalized but completely
>bypassed'' by the new global market.
>
> ``The panel calls on all actors to unite in a global initiative to
>
>meet the following challenge: provide access to the Internet, especially
>
>through community access points, for the world's population presently
>without such access by the end of 2004,'' the report said.
>
>[...]
>
>The world's seven leading industrialized nations and Russia will review
>the
>report when the Group of 8 summit takes place in Okinawa, Japan, in
>July.
>
>[...]
>
>Address of original story:
>http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/071816.htm
>
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