--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- *APCNews, the monthly newsletter of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC)* - July 2000 No. 11 - --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- NEWS FROM THE MEMBERS -- -- NEWS FROM OUR PARTNERS -- -- COUNCIL AND STAFF NEWS FROM APC -- -- PROGRAM NEWS -- -- APC ACTION AREA: INTERNET RIGHTS -- -- ONLINE TOOLS -- -- ONLINE EVENTS -- -- SITES OF INTEREST -- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- NEWS FROM THE MEMBERS -- COLNODO, Colombia: APC Latin Americans promote Internet Development For the last four years, Colnodo has been actively supporting the development of Latin American workshops providing technical training to information and communication networks. Colnodo supported the third and fourth 'Latin American School for Networking' - biannual workshops offered by the University of the Andes in Merida, Venezuela - as well as the Workshop on Networking and Internet Technology in Latin America and the Caribbean (WALC), a Spanish-language version of INET. This year's WALC is to be hosted in Mexico City. Read more: http://www.apc.org/english/news/archive/col_007.htm ECONNECT, Czech Republic: Econnect embraces Open Source Econnect has started using a public Apache Web server with PHP and MySQL support in addition to their current MS IIS server. This new server is already hosting the first Websites using the APC-produced Action Applications and will eventually take over as Econnect's primary server. Econnect has also fully deployed Open LDAP as the primary authentication server for UNIX-based services including e-mail, FTP and Web-based, filling an equivalent role to NIS. INTERCOM, Ecuador: APC's Member in Ecuador uses Web Development to promote Protection of Natural Riches INTERCOM - Ecuanex, APC's member organization in Ecuador, is carrying out extensive development of Websites for Ecuadorian NGOs working for the environment, inside and outside Ecuador. INTERCOM's principal objective is to promote development by providing communication facilitation between the different groups working towards the protection of the natural habitat and the management of sustainable resources. Read more: http://www.apc.org/english/news/archive/int_005.htm JCA-NET, Japan: Civil society resists challenges to privacy in communications - Petition for Repeal of Wiretapping Law gets over 100,000 signatures - Police threat to communications privacy - ECHELON in Japan? Read more: http://www.apc.org/english/news/archive/jca_001.htm NICARAO, Nicaragua: Nicaraguan non-profit network reports recent developments Nicarao has reactivated its Women's discussion list, lista- mujeres@nicarao.org.ni. Lista-mujeres will disseminate information about the work of women in networks around Nicaragua, as well as the activities of the APC Women's program. In June, Nicarao began offering Webmail, which allows any Nicarao user to access their email via a Web browser, from any part of the world. Nicarao also debuted a 64K wireless Internet connection, which will improve connectivity and server access for their end-users. On June 29, Nicarao and CRIES (Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Economicas y Sociales)opened its doors to host the first meeting of LINUX.net, a group of free software devotees who are interested in promoting development of applications running on LINUX. There are now two LINUX initiatives in Nicaragua. You can visit them at: http://www.linux.net.ni and www.linux.org.ni. STRAWBERRYNET, Romania: Romanian environmentalists study benefits of the Internet On June 30, StrawberryNet, APC's newest member organization, organized a seminar in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, on the role of the Internet in providing environmental information. Participants included representatives from active environmental NGOs and members of the Ministry of the Environment. StrawberryNet plans to set up a network which will provide their NGO portal with relevant and up-to-date environment-focused information. StrawberryNet NGO Portal: http://www.ngo.ro --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- NEWS FROM OUR PARTNERS -- BLUELINK, Bulgaria: Reporting the Environment On-line - Environmental journalists BlueLinked in Bulgaria Fifteen environmental reporters accredited by the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment and Waters gathered for the first time at a seminar to discuss the challenges in their work. Questions were answered on how to sell environmental issues to disinterested editors, how to use professional tools offered on the Internet, and how to get environmental stories onto the front page. The seminar covered on-line reporting techniques, strategic media uses of the Internet, and electronic communication tools for journalists, media and environmental NGOs. Read more: http://www.apc.org/english/news/archive/bl_001.htm --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- COUNCIL AND STAFF NEWS FROM APC -- APC EXECUTIVE BOARD: Announcement of Posts The Executive Board (EB) for 2000-2001 have designated the following people to each post: Chair: Stefan Hackenthal (Germany) Vice-Chair: Magela Sigillito (Uruguay) Treasurer: Karen Banks (UK) Secretary: Julian Casasbuenas (Colombia) APC STAFF: Don Anderson leaves APC Friday June 30 was Don Anderson's day with APC. His association to the organization stretches back to 1997 when he represented PlaNet, then APC member in New Zealand, at the Council meeting in South Africa. A lawyer by training, during 1998 he led the drafting of APC's Charter and Bylaws, and then joined us on staff as Member and Partner Services Director in May 1999. Aside from his work with members and partners, Don played a key role on the Toolkit Steering Group and provided guidance on a wide range of legal and contractual issues. Don also provided a variety of technical advice, and managed the APC Council representatives mailing list. We will miss Don, and hope that there will be ways in which he can continue to work with the APC. Staff also wish to thank him immensely for hosting the New Zealand staff meeting in February. Don will surely be involved in all sorts of interesting projects in his new life, and we wish him luck! You can reach him at his personal e-mail: but his APC address will remain active for a while. SANGONET, South Africa: David Barnard joins as Executive Director David Barnard became SANGONeT's new Executive Director on June 1. David is well-known in the South African CSO community for having established and maintained PRODDER, a pioneering southern African development information service. Through PRODDER the directory, and e-PRODDER the newsletter, David has demonstrated his knowledge and understanding of the political and socio-economic contexts that influence the development of the southern African region. Most significant for SANGONeT is David's passion and commitment to access to information as a building block for social and economic development and justice. David graduated cum laude with a degree in Development Administration from Stellenbosch University, and ranked highly in Stellenbosch's Top 100 Achievers in both 1989 and 1990. In 1999, he became the first South African to receive an International Fellowship to study at the Centre for the Study of Philanthropy in New York. Besides having published and contributed to 35 publications and presented over 20 papers at leading local and international conferences, David has been the the Coordinator of the Program for Development Research (PRODDER) at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) since its inception. He will bring to SANGONeT his knowledge of the development sector and the southern African region, as well as his experience in integrating a variety of communication and information media - print, email, and online publishing. GREENNET, UK: Joanne Doyle is GreenNet's new Coordinator GreenNet's new coordinator, a significant post in GreenNet's cooperative structure, started in the last week of June. "She is full of energy and ideas and should make a good addition to our team!" Liz Probert, GreenNet Outreach, told APC. Joanne used to work for Coral Cay Conservation, http://www.coralcay.org/ an NGO which sends volunteers to coral reef conservation projects around the world. --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- PROGRAM NEWS -- APC-WNSP: Women's Electronic Network Training (WENT) 2000 The Women's Electronic Network Training (WENT) 2000 workshop kicked off successfully on Monday, June 19, 2000 at Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul, Korea. Thirty-one women from seventeen countries participated in this year's WENT, which is in its second year. In WENT '99, twenty-three women from eleven countries completed the training. This year, participants came from East Asia (Korea, Japan, Mongolia), Southeast Asia (Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia), Mekong (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) and South Asia (India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka), as well as East Timor and Fiji. Read more: http://www.apc.org/english/news/archive/wnsp_003.htm APC-WNSP: Mainstream media involvement minimal at United Nations Women 2000 meeting WomenAction 2000, a global network of women's information and media Organisations co-led by APC-WNSP, continues to receive praise from around the world for providing coverage of the UN Women 2000 meeting held in New York from June 5-9. "Most of the world's press including the New York Times said not a word to herald the launch of the week-long conference," wrote Michele Landsberg, who was kept informed by WomenAction, in the Toronto Star. Read more: http://www.apc.org/english/press/archive/wnsp_p012.htm APC-WNSP: Personal Report from the Internet Café at the 2000 United Nations Conference on Women "The Internet cafe was held on the second floor of the Church Center across from the UN building in downtown New York," wrote Liz Probert outreach@gn.apc.org of APC-WNSP and GreenNet, UK. "It was run by myself and Virtudes Berroa, also a member of WNSP, who comes from the Dominican Republic. We also had the help of the Tech Foundation, who provided about 18 high-end computers for the cafe, and were around to help with technical problems for most of the week. The atmosphere in the cafe was very exciting. Women of all ages and nationalities used the computers mainly to send information back to their countries and organisations, to type up documents from their caucuses, or to find documents on the Web regarding the UN process (often using the WomenAction site to find them!). A projector showing FIRE radio broadcasts, Les Penelopes Interactive TV and the Special Session live from the UN, was very popular. It was a positive experience for me to see so many women using the technology in a positive way, and to be able to help some less experienced to learn the basics. All the feedback we had was good - the only criticism I remember is that we were not open 24 hours a day!" --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- APC ACTION AREA: INTERNET RIGHTS -- APC-ICANN AWARENESS-RAISING CAMPAIGN: Members and partners' activity update ============================ Who Controls the Internet? ICANN wants to! STOP THE 'WTO IN CYBERSPACE' ============================ Almost half of APC member organizations are currently supporting the APC ICANN awareness-raising campaign, and encouraging their partners and users to register to vote in the upcoming ICANN elections. APC partners are also hard at work. If your organization is not promoting the campaign, there is still time to get involved. - The power of translation It is essential to get our message out in as many languages as possible. APC provided the initial campaign information on the APC Website in English and Spanish. Members and partners have so far translated the complete material into Japanese, German, Bulgarian and Slovak. Major thanks to JCA-NET, ComLink, BlueLink and ChangeNet. An abstract in Czech is available. There is still an urgent need to provide material in other languages, especially French and Portuguese. We need to reach more of our African, and also our Brazilian, counterparts. **Update! July 3 - material arrives in French! Thanks again, Colnodo! - Using our global network Other members across the world - from Romania, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Colombia, Spain, the U.K and the U.S.A - have provided native language links from their home pages to the APC campaign on the APC Website. - Pushing the issue out to local networks ComLink (Germany), GreenNet (UK), and IGC (USA) have provided links to the APC campaign from their home pages. In IGC's case, that also includes the various 'Net' pages (AntiRacismNet, WomensNet, etc.). But most importantly, all three organizations sent out special emails, or announcements in their weekly newsletters regarding ICANN. IGC's newsletters reach over 7,800 activists. - Special Efforts from Colombia, Germany, Japan and South Korea Colnodo, Colombia: Colnodo staff voluntarily decided to design an animated GIF banner for the campaign, which they then offered to produce in multiple languages. Colnodo will provide the banner to whoever wishes to link to the campaign. The banners are linked to a click-through registration system which allows us to keep track of people clicking through to read the information about ICANN. To obtain the banner contact: Ariel Barbosa ariel@colnodo.apc.org ComLink, Germany: ComLink was one of the first APC members to put up information in their native language about ICANN. They have sent 'APC-ICANN Working Group' representatives to ask searching questions (helpfully provided by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) experts on the APC-ICANN list) at the Bertelsmann Foundation Internet Democracy Conference, held on June 15, 2000. ComLink is also facilitating an online discussion forum on ICANN at: http://www.comlink.org/icann/index.htm JCA-NET, Japan and JinboNet, South Korea: Both organizations and their partners are promoting civil society efforts by holding Internet Rights and ICANN-related meetings for the general public, NGOs and IR specialists to coincide with the official ICANN meeting, INET 2000 and Jubilee 2000, all taking place in Japan during July. - Where do we go from here? Members and partners are now waiting for NGO-sector candidates to come forward to be nominated to ICANN's, until now, homogeneous Board of commercial and technological interests. "I hope that someone will suggest good candidates from our regions," wrote Norbert Brazda of ChangeNet, APC partner in Slovakia, "and that we will have time to inform our users how to vote." We should remember that very few voters have registered in both Africa and South America, so that is where our CSO-related registrations will have most impact. We encourage our African and South American colleagues to promote the campaign. Keep watching the APC Internet Rights site for the next steps: http://www.apc.org/english/rights/governance/ ICANN: Yokohama Statement on Civil Society and ICANN Elections The Yokohama Statement on Civil Society and ICANN Elections identifies specific steps to make Internet governance more democratic, and are directly relevant to the upcoming ICANN elections. The Statement, which is still in draft form, has been prepared by the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) with the assistance of individuals from around the world, and will be finalized at the Civil Society Forum on July 13 in Yokohama, Japan. APC representatives, following our close collaboration with CPSR in the last months, are planning to endorse the document at the Civil Society Forum. You can join the discussion as global civil society participates in the first elections in cyberspace. Read the draft: http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/yoko_statement.html Read the draft in Japanese (courtesy of JCA-NET): http://www.jca.apc.org/jca-net/activity/internet/icann/ykhm- statement-draft.html APC on Rotten Radio with Johnny Rotten June 17, 2000 -- Yes, *that* Johnny Rotten - of the 1970's punk band 'The Sex Pistols'. Chris Bailey, APC's Internet Rights representative, appeared on Rotten's New York-based radio show to talk about APC and Internet Rights, and GreenNet's fight to bring down anti-privacy legislation in the United Kingdom. Listen to the show: Go to http://www.eyada.com/ and under 'Find a show', select 'Johnny Rotten'. --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- ONLINE TOOLS -- Free Use of Web-to-Email Server The Unganisha, a connectivity project of IDRC has a Web-to-Email server that allows anyone in the world with email-only access to have the text contents of pages from the World Wide Web delivered into your email box. The service can also be used to conduct searches via email and fill out online forms. You can access 100 pages per week using the service, without paying a bean! To obtain a page from the Internet using your email, just send an email to: getweb@unganisha.idrc.ca. Leave the subject line blank, and in the body of the email type: GET [Internet address (URL)] For example, if you would like to see the article on the APC ICANN campaign: you would type in the body of the email: GET http://www.apc.org/english/rights/governance/index.htm This is a service provided by Unganisha, IDRC: http://unganisha.idrc.ca/services.html. The development of the server was carried out in collaboration with Bellanet using Getweb software produced by Healthnet. Time-saving Press Service for Czech NGOs: The Econnect Press Service http://www.ecn.cz/pressservice The Econnect Press Service is a fast, economical and time-saving way for Czech NGOs to deliver their Press releases to the media. An organization which sends 200 press releases to the media via fax will use up eight working hours of one employee's time. If the NGO uses the Press Service, the same number of press releases can be sent in just ten minutes. Using the service also frees up phone lines. The interface of the tool is in Czech. - Put Czech-language NGO press releases onto the World Wide Web: Econnect, APC member in the Czech Republic, runs a daily updated news service. The service mostly receives news from the Czech NGO field, but other parts of the world also play a part. NGOs who want to publish their press releases on Econnect's News service can do so without cost by visiting: http://www.ecn.cz. - Send NGO press releases by fax to multiple destinations in the Czech Republic: The Press Services' fax interface allows NGOs to deliver press releases to a wide selection of the Czech media via fax. The Press Service database currently carries 500 media destinations to which faxes may be sent. Using the database is intuitive and different filters maybe created to control where press releases will be sent. All the filters can be saved and reused for distribution of a later press release. - Send NGO press releases by email to multiple destinations in the Czech Republic: The Press Service e-mail interface shares the fax interface, and delivers NGO press releases to different media destinations in a fast and economic way. But instead of using fax, the press releases are sent by email.[Resource in Czech] --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- ONLINE EVENTS - For information on all these online and ICT events, visit: APC Online Events: http://www.apc.org/english/ngos/calendar/ PREPARATIONS FOR THE ICANN MEETING IN YOKOHAMA ICANN-Yokohama is a short-term mailing list convened specifically for people and organizations preparing to attend this month's Yokohama conference organized by ICANN, or the parallel CSO meetings on the same theme. III WORKSHOP ON NETWORKING AND INTERNET TECHNOLOGY IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN (WALC) July 10 - 15, Mexico City, Mexico ONLINE PREPARATIONS FOR UNITED NATIONS WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM Now until - August 31 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- SITES OF INTEREST -- TechSoup: Technology Expertise for Non-Techies A new Website, TechSoup, is designed to help non-profit professionals find answers to their technology questions -- whether they are technology experts or not. TechSoup is a project of CompuMentor, a San Francisco charity that provides technology assistance to non-profit organizations and schools. On the site, the organization presents its own articles and worksheets on a variety of technology topics, such as technology planning, hardware, and databases, and also links to information on other Web sites. TechSoup: http://www.techsoup.org. The Guardian Newspaper Special Report: Free Speech on the Net Very detailed set of links with a focus primarily on developments in the UK and the USA. Guardian Free Speech on the Net: http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/freespeech/ --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- The material for this newsletter is compiled and edited by the APC Web Editor, Karen Higgs . APCNews, in English, and APCNoticias, in Spanish, are distributed the first week of every month. An archive of APCNews can be found at http://www.apc.org/english/news/apcnews/index.htm Copyright c.2000 Association for Progressive Communications (APC). Permission is granted to use this document for personal use and for training and educational publications and activities by peace, environmental, human rights or development organizations, provided an acknowledgment is given to the Association for Progressive Communications (APC).