--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- *APCNews, the monthly internal newsletter for all of the APC* - September 1999 No. 3. - --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- NEWS FROM THE MEMBERS -- -- ICT EVENTS -- -- SITES OF INTEREST -- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- NEWS FROM THE MEMBERS - FROM CHASQUE - OUR MEMBER IN URUGUAY - Chasque adds online bookstore to national search engine Chasque launched a virtual bookstore last week as part of a joint venture of UruguayTotal, a Uruguayan search engine hosted by Chasque, and a local publishing company (www.entrelibros.com.uy). "UruguayTotal is becoming the place that sells Uruguayan cultural goods," Magela Sigillito, Chasque's director told us, "and we wanted to add books to what we sell already. The next step is music." As well as a useful income source for Chasque, more importantly, UruguayTotal is a service to the one-fifth of the population living abroad who otherwise wouldn't have access to books, CDs, videos and music produced in Uruguay. http://www.uruguaytotal.com/ FROM COLNODO - OUR MEMBER IN COLOMBIA - Colombian Portal Launched Since October 1998, Colnodo has been working with Global Network Inc to develop a search engine portal exclusively of Colombian content. Orientation Colombia is hosted at Colnodo and the Colnodo team is responsible for maintaining and updating it, including weekly news updates and a monthly selection of the best sites on the Colombian Internet. The Website has been well-received in Colombia following a recent publicity campaign and Colnodo has high hopes for its 'Sights and Sounds' project - a database which will hold the copies of the best photographs and music available in Colombia. http://www.orientation.com.co - Colnodo Kit Colnodo has produced a selection of the best freeware including browsers, anti-virus software and HTML editors on CD-ROM. It's now been made available directly online too, at the following address: http://kit.colnodo.apc.org FROM COMLINK - OUR MEMBER IN GERMANY - Resuscitating Crosspoint Comlink are connecting some of their users working in Kosovo, with email via satellite-phone using the 'old' point program, Crosspoint. Normal PPP-connection won't work over satellite-phone lines, but old DOS point programs aren't nearly so irritating! For more information contact FROM GREENNET- OUR MEMBER IN THE U.K. - GreenNet continues Internet Rights Campaign Legislation currently being formulated by the Home Office in the U.K. represents a serious threat to the civil rights of Internet users. The definition of "serious crime" warranting the interception of communica- tion will include "offences involving a large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose". Civil liberty groups, have already condemned this definition as a posing a danger to civil rights. In some countries, campaigning for social justice or working to establish even the most basic democratic rights is classed as a criminal act and can result in harsh penalties, even death. Given that the British police routinely provide information to law enforcement bodies in other countries, including many considered to be undemo- cratic, information provided through police interception here could pose grave dangers to networks outside the UK. Read the GreenNet submission to the Home Office: http://www.gn.apc.org/activities/IOCA/iocasubm.html FROM IGC - OUR MEMBER IN THE U.S.A. - IGC completing transition from ISP to Portal IGC is focused on the transition from being an Internet Service Provider to a membership-based non-profit gateway site. They are currently converting their access accounts over to Mindspring, a task that will be completed by the end of September. IGC member accounts are being shifted to MindSpring in a two-phase plan that will assure as smooth a transition as possible. Members 'opt-in' to the transition by filling out a consent form on the web or contact- ing IGC. They then have functioning accounts at IGC and MindSpring for a period of time while they acquaint themselves with MindSpring's service. After October 1, when IGC and MindSpring complete the transition, access will be available only via MindSpring accounts. Members will retain their @igc.org addresses. Note also that mail to user@igc.apc.org will continue to work. "While such transitions are never easy, we have successfully converted one-third of our individual users in just the first 2 weeks," says Deborah Farrell, Member Service Director. "Initial feedback from our members has been mixed, with many members welcoming the improved serv- ice they will see, while others have expressed concerns about IGC's new direction." Complete details on this new direction for IGC can be found at http://www.igc.org/igc/transition. - IGC Portal demonstration available Concurrently, IGC are developing their gateway site which they hope to roll-out on or near October 1st. There is an online tour of some of the site features and benefits of membership available at http://www.igc.org/igc/igcdemo. IGC would welcome your comments on their work-in-progress. Please send your feedback to Patti Mallin, Program Director at IGC . FROM INTERCOM - OUR MEMBER IN ECUADOR - Connectivity changes Roberto Roggiero of INTERCOM writes: "We have moved our servers and connection lines to the headquarters of our ISP which has great infrastructure. We now have more and improved telephone lines for dial-up service, increasing the number of digital lines from 20 to 30. These changes imply more bandwidth for our users and for our Web server." - Location change The offices of Ecuanex have moved to a new address. Check out the APC Website for changes: http://www.apc.org/english/about/members/ FROM JCA-NET - OUR MEMBER IN JAPAN - JCA-Net fights Wiretapping Bill Tomo Inyaku writes to us: "As you might know, a national wiretapping was approved by the Diet (Japanese parliament) this month. We have been involved actively in anti-wiretapping movements here in Japan and we wrote a protest manifesto criticizing the undemocratic process in the Diet. The JCA-NET staff have been working like crazy trying to produce an English version of this manifesto but we realized that it is not easy to explain what has happened there. We are very concerned that this law might have a huge influence not only in Asia but also in other parts of the world. JCA-NET will continue to focus on this issue and keep you all informed of what is going on." Tomo has an article from the Japan Times which is in English and explains the situation clearly. However, for legal reasons he is concerned about publishing it. You may however contact him for private copies of it. There is also some information on this issue on the JCA-Net Website: http://www.jca.apc.org/index-en.html/ FROM LANETA - OUR MEMBER IN MEXICO - LaNeta receives major funding for online tools expansion Jacques Lefevre at LaNeta shared the excellent news with us that in early August LaNeta received a Ford Foundation grant for US$220,000 to support a two year project entitled "Follow-on support to update & expand access to electronic networking tools for civil society organizations throughout Mexico". "This grant is a great support for us, mainly to develop greatly our on-line content and to set-up 'focal points' in five Mexican regions," wrote Jacques. We look forward to receiving regular updates of the good work that's going on! [Editor's Note: You may have the idea that the amount of news from the Members is increasing. Well, you'd be right. The first ever APCNews in July contained news contributions from three members, four members wrote in last month, and this month, we have news from eight members. APCNews also appears in Spanish. It's a happy fact that half of this month's news contributions are from Spanish-speaking countries.] --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- ICT EVENTS -- 20 August - 26 September, Australia: Resistant-Media Using the model of resistant media and electronic disturbance as expounded by visionary theorists/activists Hakim Bey and Critical Art Ensemble, Resistant Media intends to provide a space for artists and cultural activists working with tactical media to conceptualise activist stra- tegies. The project exists solely on the Internet as Web exhibitions of work by participating artists , and a listserve where artists will have an opportunity to discuss the politics of art and the internet and develop tactical media strategies collaboratively. How artists and cultural activists deal with this challenge varies hugely. The intention is to discuss the tactics, failures and suc- cesses employed by net activists, and to develop actions for planning and producing media action. http://www.anat.org.au/resistant-media --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- SITES OF INTEREST - AUSLANDER UND STAATENLOSE 'Auslander und Staatenlose' follows the afterlife of an Eastern Euro- pean refugee, who passes away in a camp after countless years of rest- less travel and ruthless persecution. Andrew Garton, of Australian member c2o, has just been awarded the John Bird prize for excellence and innovation in online projects for 'Auslander und Staatenlose' which he produced as part of his Master of Arts by Research course in Animation and Interactive Media. The award comes exactly ten years after Andrew used his first modem to create text-based, real time interactive prose. This led him to work with low cost computer networking initiatives in South East Asia, which directly informed the cultural and political themes explored in his online opera. Also a special mention to Bruce Morrison (some of you will have met him in the Prague World Techie Meeting in May) who hand coded all the animation!!! You can read about Andrew's award at: http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~rpyjp/JBaward99.html and view the prize winning production at: http://www.toysatellite.com.au/auslander/ [English language Website] [Mirrored by GlasNet, APC Member in Russia.] LOUDSPEAKER Nodo50's collection of information on freedom of expression and freedom of communication includes this month: UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM (UNDP) REPORT ON INTERNET USAGE "The gap on a global scale between those who have and those who have not, and those who know and those who do not know is widening." INTERVIEW WITH PHILIP ZIMMERMAN - INVENTOR OF PGP "The project consisted in creating an instrument for grass-root and human rights organizations." http://www.nodo50.org/altavoz/ [Spanish language Website] [Produced by Nodo50, part of IPANEX, APC member in the Spanish State] NO MORE! (No Mas!) Information System on Kidnapping and Disappearances in Colombia. http://www.colnodo.apc.org/nomas [Spanish language Website] [Produced by Colnodo, APC member in Colombia] PINOCHET BEHIND BARS has a new section: CHILE AND THE UNITED STATES: DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS ON THE CHILEAN MILITARY DICTATORSHIP 1970-1976 http://www.nodo50.org/entrerejas/usadocs/nsaebb8.htm [Spanish language Website] [Produced by Nodo50, part of IPANEX, APC member in the Spanish State] TIBINFO - TIBET INFORMATION SYSTEM TIBINFO is a resource centre for Tibetan culture, Tibetan Buddhism and the situation in Tibet and is the first Website of its kind to deliver information on Tibet to the Czech public. It covers diverse areas such as geography, Buddhism, culture and history, politics, travel, and information resources. http://www.lungta.cz [Czech language Website] [Produced by Econnect, APC member in the Czech Republic] --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- APCNews, in English, and APCNoticias, in Spanish, are distributed the first week of every month. Copyright c.1999 Association for Progressive Communications (APC). Permission is granted to use this document for personal use and for training and educational publications and activites by peace, environmental, human rights or development organizations, provided an acknowledgement is given to the Association for Progressive Communications (APC).