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Deutsch: Kulturausschuss des Europäischen Parlaments – Gutachtenentwurf zu I...

The European Parliament (EP) has started its deliberations on a non-binding report on "Internet governance, the next steps", following the Commission's Communication on this topic in 2009.

The draft Opinion of the European Parliament's Culture Committee has been published.

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Deutsch: Finnland: Breitbandinternet als ein Allgemeindienst eingeführt

According to a decree issued by the Finish Ministry of Transport and Communications, starting with 1 July 2010, a 1 Mbit Internet connection will be defined as a requirement of the Universal Service. Thus, Finland becomes the first country in the world to make access to broadband Internet a legal right.

The decree states that by the end of 2009, the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority will establish which of the telecom operators will be imposed this universal service obligation.

ITU and UNCTAD announced the publication of the World Information Society Report 2007
http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/worldinformationsociety/2007/r...

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The London School of Economics has commenced a project to help pave the way for strengthened constitutional rights in Britain. The initiative is to be conducted over the next two years by the School's newly formed Policy Engagement Research Group that was founded earlier this year by Privacy International's Simon Davies and Gus Hosein.

The issue of constitutional reform, particularly a Bill of Rights, is on the agenda of the main political parties. This year, Opposition Leader David Cameron has made a commitment to replace the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights, while the Liberal Democrats are committed to a written constitution. Currently Britain relies on the Human Rights Act as the basis

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More then 350 participants from 10 different countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Czech Republic and Ireland) participated at the second International E-Society.Mk Conference organized by Metamorphosis Foundation in Skopje from 15-17 November 2006.

The focus of the conference was regional approach to ICT policy creation. The conference provided broad participation of experts, policymakers, advocacy groups and other stakeholders from Macedonia, the South-East European (SEE) Region and EU to share knowledge and experiences through series of panel discussions and workshops. It provided an excellent opportunity for different stakeholders from the region to discuss challenges

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On 20 June, Rikke Frank Joergensen (Digital Rights Denmark) and Meryem Marzouki (Imaginons un réseau Internet solidaire, IRIS - France) participated as EDRI observers to the 5th Council of Europe meeting of the Group of Specialists on Human Rights in the Information Society (MC-S-IS). Among the many points on the agenda, the following news are worth reporting at this step.

The draft Recommendation on empowering children in the new information and communications environment has been submitted to the CoE Steering Committee on the Media and New Communication Services (CDMC), where some member states (France, Germany, Russia) expressed their willing to make further comments before having it adopted.

The Internet Governance Forum Advisory Group (IGF AG) to the UN Secretary-General, selected by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 17 May, met in Geneva on 22-23 May to discuss the agenda and the programme of the Athens Meeting (31 October - 3 November 2006).

Members of the group and observers had a two-day meeting meeting under the leadership of Nitin Desai and Markus Kummer.

In an open and transparent discussion, the draft of the program included main topics for each day of the coming IGF meeting in Athens. These are :
- Access ( Internet connectivity, policies and costs with following workshops on: open (file) standards, investment incentives, etc.)
- Security ( building trust online, protecting users from spam, phishing, viruses, maintain security while protecting privacy and workshops with

A special panel discussed the role of the developing countries in the WSIS panel at this year conference Computers, Freedom and Privacy 2006 (CFP 2006) that took place in Washington DC between 2-5 May.

The participants tried to identify what was the place of the developing countries in shaping the future of the Internet in the WSIS debate and what were the results of the debate in these countries, but also the role the Internet could have in the economic and democratic development of these countries.

Bill Drake, director of the project on the Information Revolution and Global Governance, summarized some of the benefits of the WSIS process, among them noticing the first high level dialogue in the international arena on the information society and its role in bringing together civil society active