TV commentary said Monday’s night-time launch from a Safir-2 rocket was “another achievement for Iranian scientists under sanctions”.

The satellite was designed for research and telecommunications purposes, the television report said.

Iran is subject to UN sanctions as some Western powers think it is trying to build a nuclear bomb, which it denies.

Tehran says its nuclear ambitions are limited to the production of energy, and has emphasised its satellite project is entirely peaceful.

The launch of the Omid (Hope) satellite had been expected and was clearly timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution, says the BBC’s Jon Leyne in Tehran.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the satellite was launched to spread “monotheism, peace and justice” in the world.

Read the full story in BBC here.

The Economist is not correct saying ‘No Evidence’ of Internet blocking in Sri Lanka, and in Laos and Cambodia the Internet usage is low so blocking does not make any difference.

As shown, even in Asia the attitude of officialdom varies when it comes to filtering content of a social nature. In many places agreements are set with service providers to block nasty stuff such as child pornography. In a few countries intervention is stronger, up to the level of pervasive censorship. This week Pakistan’s block on YouTube accidentally caused an international outage for that website. Iran and Saudi Arabia have also prevented their citizens from accessing the video-sharing site.  

Source: The Economist, Chart Gallery 

After almost ten months of research and activities, UNDP-APDIP’s Open Regional Dialogue on Internet Governance (ORDIG*) has produced a two-part report entitled, “Voices from Asia-Pacific: Internet Governance Priorities and Recommendations” – consisting of 1) the ORDIG Policy Brief and Executive Summary, and 2) the ORDIG Input Paper for the UN Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

These documents stem from months of consultations involving stakeholder groups from the public and private sectors, as well as civil society.

ORDIG consulted over 3,000 stakeholders through sub-regional meetings, jointly organized with UNESCAP and others; a region-wide online forum that allowed for open and candid discussions on the issues; and a region-wide, multi-lingual, issues-based online survey that looked at the Internet governance priorities of the region.

The resulting two reports are the synthesis, consolidation, and reading of the voices from the Asia-Pacific region. They outline the principles and dimensions that make up the framework for building recommendations, which are provided in the documents at two levels – general and specific recommendations.

Issues and recommendations covered in the Infrastructure dimension are access costs, VOIP, and wireless networks. Issues and recommendations covered in the Logical dimension are DNS management, IP address management, and technical standards. Issues covered in the Content dimension are content pollution (spam, viruses, spyware, etc.) and cybercrime. Issues covered in the Social/Developmental dimension are culture diversity and participation.

The “Voices from Asia-Pacific: Internet Governance Priorities and Recommendations” documents were shared with and endorsed by delegates at the High Level Asia-Pacific Conference for the World Summit on the Information Society, in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran (31 May-2 June 2005).

Furthermore, these reports will be provided to the WGIG at their upcoming Fourth Meeting (14-17 June 2005), as the Asia-Pacific input for the Working Group’s deliberation.

For all documents, please go to:

ORDIG Policy Brief

http://igov.apdip.net/ORDIG_Policy_Brief.pdf

ORDIG Input Paper

http://igov.apdip.net/ORDIG_Paper.pdf

ORDIG Survey Report http://igov.apdip.net/ORDIG.Survey.Report.pdf

ORDIG Forum Summary http://igov.apdip.net/undp-apdip%20forum%20summary.pdf

Contact:

Phet Sayo, UNDP-APDIP Programme Specialist, phet@apdip.net

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* ORDIG is an initiative of UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (UNDP-APDIP), in collaboration with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), and the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC). It was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada.