Amresh, Nitu agree to formally break up

Amresh, Nitu agree to formally break up

THE KATHMANDU POST, JAN. 29

After a long and heated internal conflict, Amresh Kumar Singh and his wife Nitu Singh have finally agreed to break up formally.

Nitu, the Nepali student at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune who was deported back to Nepal by Indian police for her involvement in anti-India activities, had filed a case on Thursday at the Kathamndu District Court seeking divorce.

The couple’s divorce has come closer to fruition after Amresh submitted his readiness to go ahead with the divorce on Friday. Following Nitu filing the divorce case, the court had written to Amresh demanding a reply within 30 days timeline.

“I was under stress since the incident started,” Amresh told the Post. “I hope the divorce will make me stress free so that I can concentrate on my political career.”

Both Nitu and Amresh have mentioned in their respective documents that they are not in a position to put up with the souring relations any longer.

Along with the divorce, Nitu has demanded a portion of the property from her husband. As per the Nepali law (Chapter on husband-wife in Muluki Ain), a wife is conditionally entitled to a portion of husband’s property after getting divorced.

In her divorce document, Nitu has also mentioned that she is not pregnant, which could have taken the case to a different mode. My husband, he document goes, “using his political power made the Indian government deport me back to Nepal on Dec. 9, 2009 on false charges of involvement on anti-national activities. “I have filed this divorce case concluding that it is better to break up than to continue the husband-wife under such condition,” reads Nitu’s divorce paper. She has also mentioned that she agreed to marry Amresh under family pressure and the relations gradually soured after the marriage. She has not citied any reasons why her relations soured.

Amresh, however, has cited that Nitu’s “love affairs with other men” was the main reason that created rift in their relations. Amresh has denied Nitu’s allegations regarding his involvement in her deportation from India. Instead, he has claimed that Nitu had made attempts to hurt him with scissors.

Interview with Buddhi Narayan Shrestha: Nepal doesn't have archives of maps to counter Indian territorial claims

The Kathmandu Post, JAN 25
The border dispute between Nepal and India has gained prominence following the recent visits to border regions by top leaders of UCPN (Maoist) as a part of the party’s fourth phase of protest programme. Though the party on Friday called off its nationwide strike that was supposed to start on Sunday, it has stressed that its campaign for national sovereignty and civilian supremacy will continue. It is in this heated political climate that Pranab Kharel, Biswas Baral and Kamal Raj Sigdel asked Buddhi Narayan Shrestha, the former Director General of Survey Department, to shed light on various border issues.
You have just visited some of the disputed points on the Indo-Nepal border. India has been saying that 98 percent of the strip map is complete and disputes remain only over Susta and Kalapani
Shrestha: Nepal and India share 1808-km long border. According to official estimates, 98 percent of this border has been demarcated and 182 border maps prepared. On that basis, 8,553 border pillars have been erected. Regarding the clarity of these border maps, the then Indian Minister for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee during his official visit to Nepal had stated that since there were some disputes over these maps, they be corrected and forwarded to the plenipotentiaries of both the countries for signature. This also indicates there is some ambiguity regarding the maps. The Constituent Assembly’s (CA) Committee on International Relations and Human Rights visited the border areas from Susta to Tanakpur from Dec. 24, 2009Jan. 3, 2010. We had an officer from the Survey Department who had brought the maps of the disputed areas as requested by the CA committee. Upon tallying the maps in some disputed pocket areas, the team could not find the main boundary pillars — though they existed on the map.
Could you give us some specific examples?
Shrestha: The pillar number 706 located at Kushmaghat of the Bhajani VDC in Kailali district was not found. The pillars, which were erected as per the Survey Map of British India, were not found in their location. For example, pillar no 708 at Kauwakhera of Lalboji VDC of Kailali district was found to be 30 metres inside Nepal. But both the local residents and the visiting CA committee concluded that this could have happened because of the change of course of the Mohana river. Secondly, we found some subsidiary (minor) pillars missing. For example, new pillars numbered 407/1, 2 and 3 between Bhajani and Lalbhoji VDC of Kailali district were not found. In other cases, the minor pillars have been broken. Similarly, the 182 maps show half-km no-man’s land on either side of the border. But no-man’s land was not found in places like the Pyaranala area of the Parasan VDC in Kanchanpur district. At some places the Indian side had encroached upon Nepali territories. In other places, Nepal had encroached upon the border. For instance, a few years ago the no-man’s land area at Belahi border of the Rupandehi district was encroached upon by both Indian and Nepali sides. The District Magistrate from the Indian side and the Chief District Officer mutually agreed to withdraw from the encroached area. The Nepali side withdrew within eight months but the Indian side is yet to complete the withdrawal. Similarly, pillars number 62, 63, and 64 of the Chaugoji area of Gulariya municipality indicated Indian encroachment. In fact, the no-man’s land is inside Nepali territory.
You say the border pillars were not in their designated places. Could it be that some of the pillars were washed away by floods and the rivers, which are on the border?
Shrestha: Out of the 1808-km border, various rivers traverse 650 km and many border pillars have been washed away. But those pillars that are close to human settlements are found to have been removed by the Indians peasants, often in collusion with the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the Indian paramilitary force deployed at the border.
With regard to the strip maps, how were the finalised? And what has been Nepal’s position with regard to these maps?
Shrestha: Border maps are made on the basis of the earlier maps. However, some of these old maps are not acceptable to India while Nepal rejects some others. Therefore, it is important to identify those maps which are acceptable to both the sides and demarcate the borders on the basis of the chosen maps. The tragedy is that Nepal doesn’t have a rich archive of maps. Hence it cannot produce enough maps to counter Indian territorial claims. During the British rule, they themselves conducted the survey and made maps. Nepal received only a few of those maps.
But even during that time, some maps were not acceptable to the Nepali side. When modern maps are made based on these contentious historical documents, there are bound to be problems. With regard to the strip map, the problem lies with cross holding occupation — in a map, certain areas have been demarcated border areas but in reality those have already been encroached upon. The Indians, we say, are engaged in “cross-holding occupation”. Nepal has to find more about its lands through various land surveys done at different times. Also Nepali authorities could trace the Land Owner Certificates issued by the government after the land reform of 1963-64. Based on the findings, they should sort out the outstanding issues before signing the strip map.
If the strip maps have been prepared after consulting authorities on the both sides, why doesn’t Nepal accept it?
Shrestha: The locals told the visiting CA team that the Nepali surveyors lacked professionalism when it came to demarcating the border. In principle, one side opts for demarcating the even-numbered border pillars while other side has to do the odd numbers. During the demarcation, representatives from both sides should be present. But, according to locals, the Nepali side didn’t bother to turn up when Indians were erecting the pillars.
You say the problem lies with the older erroneous maps on which the current strip map has based. But can’t Nepal through its diplomatic channels get hold of the original maps?
Shrestha: Yes, we can. The Library of Congress in America and the British Museum have the maps. But the authorities should take interest in getting hold of them. But even in those libraries, there are not enough maps. When I visited the British Library in London in 1998, I found that some of maps were already handed to Survey of India, Deharadun in 1928. I asked the map curator whether it would be possible to obtain those maps. He said that if there is an effort from the government level, we might get them.
What could be done to address the border issue immediately?
Shrestha: To prevent encroachment we could deploy a border security force. Currently Armed Police Force is doing the job. They have been deployed in 18 districts of Tarai. We should increase their numbers, say to around 4,500. We should have border observation posts at every four to five kilometre. But most importantly, it is important to build a national strategy on border issues. Diplomatic channels could be used to take up the issue at political level. Also we could opt for Track II diplomacy (using non-State actors) to prepare the required documents.

Grave space crunch: An unsettling crisis for Nepal's religious minorities

Religious Minority Rights

KAMAL RAJ SIGDEL

KATHMANDU, JAN. 28

With the rapid but unplanned urbanization and increasing population pressure in the ancient city of Kathmandu, the religions minorities like Islam, Christianity, Bahá'í and others, who don’t cremate dead bodies, have started facing a serious crisis of space for burial and cemetery.

 

Since the Hindus, who make up over 80 percent of Nepal’s total population, have the tradition of cremation, it has never been a problem for them. But for the religious minorities with the tradition of burial, finding a little space for the same has been getting increasingly problematic.

 

The Muslims in Kathmandu, for instance, have run out of burial space long time ago. The only one cemetery in Soyambhu area was build decades ago when Kathmandu was a very small town and the population of Muslims was negligible. “As we ran out of burial space, we are compelled to bury one dead person over another excavating the older burials, which are sometimes as fresh as six months,” says Taj Mohammad Miya, coordinator of the United Muslim National Struggle Committee (UMNSC), which successfully lead the Muslim Movement in March last year.

 

In a six-point agreement inked after the Muslim movement on March 16, the government had agreed to address, among others, the graveyard space crisis facing the community through a separate Muslim commission, which is yet to be established.

 

The problem of burial space for Bahá'í community, is even more complicated. In Bahá'í Law, the deceased must be buried no more than one hour's journey from the place of death. Given this law, the community had purposefully bought a patch of land in Kapan, Lalitpur, which has been serving as the only one cemetery for the community for the last three decades.

 

But since last one and half years, the locals have stopped the Bahá'í people from using the cemetery. “It’s really disturbing to admit that we don’t have space to bury if anyone dies,” says a Bahá'í leader Larry Robertson. “We bought the two-Ropani patch of land in Lalitpur for our cemetery as early as in 1977, when there was no house around there. But later on the area got crowded, and now the people don’t allow us to use the cemetery.”

 

Robertson says the government should either provide a place of burial or make a provision in the law which allows religious organisations to set aside land for a cemetery and is recognised as such by the government.

 

The Christian community, who make up about 0.5 percent of the roughly 26 million Nepalis, is also not immune to this problem.

 

“Finding a proper burial place may not be a problem for the members of rich churches, who have bought lands for their cemeteries in the fringes of Kathamndu, but it is a serious problem for the poor,” says Phanindra Bhusal of National Council of Churches of Nepal. There are over 300 churches in Kathmandu alone, who maintain either joint or separate cemeteries, which have now become a source of conflict with the locals as more and more houses are being built around the earlier desolate cemeteries.

 

Bhusal says the problem is not endemic to Kathmandu alone as it has created problems in districts as well and if this issue is not addressed in a systematic manner, it is likely to create further tensions among the people of different religions.  “We are hopeful that the new constitution would ensure our rights, including right to burial space.”

(Source: The Kathmandu Post, Jan 28, 2010: http://www.ekantipur.com/2010/01/28/headlines/Minority-Rights-Unsettling-crisis-for-religious-groups/307209)

Bhutanese Diaspora in Europe form Advocacy Forum to fight for human rights in Bhutan

Munich, Germany 22st January 2010

Munich, Germany, January 22: Europe-based Bhutanese including those who participated in the Geneva campaign last December have declared Bhutanese Advocacy Forum Europe (BAF Europe) to raise the issue of human rights and democracy in the international forums.

Bhutanese living in various parts of Europe have come under such a platform following serious need to raise a single voice against atrocities of the Bhutan regime.

According to chief coordinator, Mr. Durga Giri, the forum was formed on the historic eve of December 4th when dozens of Bhutanese demonstrated against Bhutan in front of the UN building in Geneva, and Bhutan presented its Human Rights Report 2009 for the first time. However, the formal announcement came following its legal registration and other technical reasons.

"The Bhutanese in Europe have come together to give continuity to such advocacy programs in the international forums to make the Bhutanese regime realise the moral obligation to respect the human rights instruments and civil liberties," said Giri in the statement.

Based on working guideline of human rights and democracy in Bhutan, BAF Europe will take decisive steps to internationalise the Bhutanese issue from Europe.

All the 16 Bhutanese who participated in Geneva demonstration has remained as founding members of the forum led by Giri in Germany.

Likewise, Ram Bahadur Karki Chhetri, Suren Ghalley and Ramesh Gautam have been elected as country coordinators from The Netherlands, Germany and Norway respectively.

"The forum has received commitments for active participation from many Bhutanese across the European countries," said Giri adding, "It shall supplement and compliment the Bhutanese advocacy works in all the other continents."

Supported by exiled leaders, rights defenders, academicians and youths, the forum works towards the creation of a global platform of Bhutanese before it gets merged into the main stream of international campaigns as and when the global platform comes into existence.

The forum is working for the 13th Human Rights Council meeting scheduled for March 2010 in Geneva where Bhutan is responding to the queries raised by various country representatives in the last December. Forum is begining its International campaigning in Europe scheduled to start from early next week.

The Bhutanese Advocacy Forum Europe (BAF Europe) is also organising awareness programs in Europe to garner solidarity from the European people towards the long-standing refugee imbroglio.

BAF Europe has expressed its deep sorrow on the unfortunate fire incidence that took place in Beldangi I yesterday night. It has called upon the entire Bhutanese community to stand as one Bhutanese with the fellow citizens of Beldangi at this hour of grief. It has thanked the fire fighters and relief agencies for providing emergency support to the fire victims.

(For Further Information: Durga Giri, Chief Coordinator, Bhutanese Advocacy Forum Europe, 82110, Germering, Munich, Germany.)

Remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Internet Freedom

January 21, 2010, The Newseum, Washington, D.C.

SECRETARY CLINTON:  Thank you very much, Alberto, for not only that kind introduction but your and your colleagues’ leadership of this important institution.  It’s a pleasure to be here at the Newseum.  The Newseum is a monument to some of our most precious freedoms, and I’m grateful for this opportunity to discuss how those freedoms apply to the challenges of the 21st century.

Although I can’t see all of you because in settings like this, the lights are in my eyes and you are in the dark, I know that there are many friends and former colleagues.  I wish to acknowledge Charles Overby, the CEO of Freedom Forum here at the Newseum; Senator Richard Lugar* and Senator Joe Lieberman, my former colleagues in the Senate, both of whom worked for passage of the Voice Act, which speaks to Congress’s and the American people’s commitment to internet freedom, a commitment that crosses party lines and branches of government.

Also, I’m told here as well are Senator Sam Brownback, Senator Ted Kaufman, Representative Loretta Sanchez, many representatives of the Diplomatic Corps, ambassadors, chargés, participants in our International Visitor Leadership Program on internet freedom from China, Colombia, Iran, and Lebanon, and Moldova.  And I also want to acknowledge Walter Isaacson, president of the Aspen Institute, recently named to our Broadcasting Board of Governors and, of course, instrumental in supporting the work on internet freedom that the Aspen Institute has been doing.

This is an important speech on a very important subject.  But before I begin, I want to just speak briefly about Haiti, because during the last eight days, the people of Haiti and the people of the world have joined together to deal with a tragedy of staggering proportions.  Our hemisphere has seen its share of hardship, but there are few precedents for the situation we’re facing in Port-au-Prince.   Communication networks have played a critical role in our response.  They were, of course, decimated and in many places totally destroyed.  And in the hours after the quake, we worked with partners in the private sector; first, to set up the text “HAITI” campaign so that mobile phone users in the United States could donate to relief efforts via text messages.   That initiative has been a showcase for the generosity of the American people, and thus far, it’s raised over $25 million for recovery efforts.

Information networks have also played a critical role on the ground.  When I was with President Preval in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, one of his top priorities was to try to get communication up and going.  The government couldn’t talk to each other, what was left of it, and NGOs, our civilian leadership, our military leadership were severely impacted.  The technology community has set up interactive maps to help us identify needs and target resources.  And on Monday, a seven-year-old girl and two women were pulled from the rubble of a collapsed supermarket by an American search-and-rescue team after they sent a text message calling for help.  Now, these examples are manifestations of a much broader phenomenon.

The spread of information networks is forming a new nervous system for our planet.  When something happens in Haiti or Hunan, the rest of us learn about it in real time – from real people.  And we can respond in real time as well.  Americans eager to help in the aftermath of a disaster and the girl trapped in the supermarket are connected in ways that were not even imagined a year ago, even a generation ago.   That same principle applies to almost all of humanity today.  As we sit here, any of you – or maybe more likely, any of our children – can take out the tools that many carry every day and transmit this discussion to billions across the world.

Now, in many respects, information has never been so free.  There are more ways to spread more ideas to more people than at any moment in history.  And even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable.

During his visit to China in November, for example, President Obama held a town hall meeting with an online component to highlight the importance of the internet.  In response to a question that was sent in over the internet, he defended the right of people to freely access information, and said that the more freely information flows, the stronger societies become.  He spoke about how access to information helps citizens hold their own governments accountable, generates new ideas, encourages creativity and entrepreneurship.  The United States belief in that ground truth is what brings me here today.

Because amid this unprecedented surge in connectivity, we must also recognize that these technologies are not an unmitigated blessing.  These tools are also being exploited to undermine human progress and political rights.  Just as steel can be used to build hospitals or machine guns, or nuclear power can either energize a city or destroy it, modern information networks and the technologies they support can be harnessed for good or for ill.  The same networks that help organize movements for freedom also enable al-Qaida to spew hatred and incite violence against the innocent.  And technologies with the potential to open up access to government and promote transparency can also be hijacked by governments to crush dissent and deny human rights.

In the last year, we’ve seen a spike in threats to the free flow of information.  China, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan have stepped up their censorship of the internet.  In Vietnam, access to popular social networking sites has suddenly disappeared.  And last Friday in Egypt, 30 bloggers and activists were detained.  One member of this group, Bassem Samir, who is thankfully no longer in prison, is with us today.  So while it is clear that the spread of these technologies is transforming our world, it is still unclear how that transformation will affect the human rights and the human welfare of the world’s population.

On their own, new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress, but the United States does.  We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas.  And we recognize that the world’s information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it.  Now, this challenge may be new, but our responsibility to help ensure the free exchange of ideas goes back to the birth of our republic.  The words of the First Amendment to our Constitution are carved in 50 tons of Tennessee marble on the front of this building.  And every generation of Americans has worked to protect the values etched in that stone.

Franklin Roosevelt built on these ideas when he delivered his Four Freedoms speech in 1941.  Now, at the time, Americans faced a cavalcade of crises and a crisis of confidence.  But the vision of a world in which all people enjoyed freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear transcended the troubles of his day.  And years later, one of my heroes, Eleanor Roosevelt, worked to have these principles adopted as a cornerstone of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  They have provided a lodestar to every succeeding generation, guiding us, galvanizing us, and enabling us to move forward in the face of uncertainty.

So as technology hurtles forward, we must think back to that legacy.  We need to synchronize our technological progress with our principles.  In accepting the Nobel Prize, President Obama spoke about the need to build a world in which peace rests on the inherent rights and dignities of every individual.  And in my speech on human rights at Georgetown a few days later, I talked about how we must find ways to make human rights a reality.  Today, we find an urgent need to protect these freedoms on the digital frontiers of the 21st century.

There are many other networks in the world.  Some aid in the movement of people or resources, and some facilitate exchanges between individuals with the same work or interests.   But the internet is a network that magnifies the power and potential of all others.  And that’s why we believe it’s critical that its users are assured certain basic freedoms.  Freedom of expression is first among them.  This freedom is no longer defined solely by whether citizens can go into the town square and criticize their government without fear of retribution.  Blogs, emails, social networks, and text messages have opened up new forums for exchanging ideas, and created new targets for censorship.

As I speak to you today, government censors somewhere are working furiously to erase my words from the records of history.  But history itself has already condemned these tactics.  Two months ago, I was in Germany to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  The leaders gathered at that ceremony paid tribute to the courageous men and women on the far side of that barrier who made the case against oppression by circulating small pamphlets called samizdat.  Now, these leaflets questioned the claims and intentions of dictatorships in the Eastern Bloc and many people paid dearly for distributing them.  But their words helped pierce the concrete and concertina wire of the Iron Curtain.

The Berlin Wall symbolized a world divided and it defined an entire era.  Today, remnants of that wall sit inside this museum where they belong, and the new iconic infrastructure of our age is the internet.  Instead of division, it stands for connection.  But even as networks spread to nations around the globe, virtual walls are cropping up in place of visible walls. 

Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks.  They’ve expunged words, names, and phrases from search engine results.  They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech.  These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which tells us that all people have the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”  With the spread of these restrictive practices, a new information curtain is descending across much of the world.  And beyond this partition, viral videos and blog posts are becoming the samizdat of our day.

As in the dictatorships of the past, governments are targeting independent thinkers who use these tools.  In the demonstrations that followed Iran’s presidential elections, grainy cell phone footage of a young woman’s bloody murder provided a digital indictment of the government’s brutality.  We’ve seen reports that when Iranians living overseas posted online criticism of their nation’s leaders, their family members in Iran were singled out for retribution.  And despite an intense campaign of government intimidation, brave citizen journalists in Iran continue using technology to show the world and their fellow citizens what is happening inside their country.  In speaking out on behalf of their own human rights, the Iranian people have inspired the world.  And their courage is redefining how technology is used to spread truth and expose injustice.

Now, all societies recognize that free expression has its limits.  We do not tolerate those who incite others to violence, such as the agents of al-Qaida who are, at this moment, using the internet to promote the mass murder of innocent people across the world.  And hate speech that targets individuals on the basis of their race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation is reprehensible.  It is an unfortunate fact that these issues are both growing challenges that the international community must confront together.  And we must also grapple with the issue of anonymous speech.  Those who use the internet to recruit terrorists or distribute stolen intellectual property cannot divorce their online actions from their real world identities.  But these challenges must not become an excuse for governments to systematically violate the rights and privacy of those who use the internet for peaceful political purposes.

The freedom of expression may be the most obvious freedom to face challenges with the spread of new technologies, but it is not the only one.  The freedom of worship usually involves the rights of individuals to commune or not commune with their Creator.  And that’s one channel of communication that does not rely on technology.  But the freedom of worship also speaks to the universal right to come together with those who share your values and vision for humanity.  In our history, those gatherings often took place in churches, synagogues, mosques and temples.  Today, they may also take place on line.

The internet can help bridge divides between people of different faiths. As the President said in Cairo, freedom of religion is central to the ability of people to live together.  And as we look for ways to expand dialogue, the internet holds out such tremendous promise.  We’ve already begun connecting students in the United States with young people in Muslim communities around the world to discuss global challenges.  And we will continue using this tool to foster discussion between individuals from different religious communities.

Some nations, however, have co-opted the internet as a tool to target and silence people of faith.  Last year, for example, in Saudi Arabia, a man spent months in prison for blogging about Christianity.  And a Harvard study found that the Saudi Government blocked many web pages about Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and even Islam.  Countries including Vietnam and China employed similar tactics to restrict access to religious information.

Now, just as these technologies must not be used to punish peaceful political speech, they must also not be used to persecute or silence religious minorities.  Now, prayers will always travel on higher networks.  But connection technologies like the internet and social networking sites should enhance individuals’ ability to worship as they see fit, come together with people of their own faith, and learn more about the beliefs of others.  We must work to advance the freedom of worship online just as we do in other areas of life.

There are, of course, hundreds of millions of people living without the benefits of these technologies.  In our world, as I’ve said many times, talent may be distributed universally, but opportunity is not.  And we know from long experience that promoting social and economic development in countries where people lack access to knowledge, markets, capital, and opportunity can be frustrating and sometimes futile work.  In this context, the internet can serve as a great equalizer.  By providing people with access to knowledge and potential markets, networks can create opportunities where none exist.

Over the last year, I’ve seen this firsthand in Kenya, where farmers have seen their income grow by as much as 30 percent since they started using mobile banking technology; in Bangladesh, where more than 300,000 people have signed up to learn English on their mobile phones; and in Sub-Saharan Africa, where women entrepreneurs use the internet to get access to microcredit loans and connect themselves to global markets.

Now, these examples of progress can be replicated in the lives of the billion people at the bottom of the world’s economic ladder.  In many cases, the internet, mobile phones, and other connection technologies can do for economic growth what the Green Revolution did for agriculture.  You can now generate significant yields from very modest inputs.  And one World Bank study found that in a typical developing country, a 10 percent increase in the penetration rate for mobile phones led to an almost 1 percent increase in per capita GDP.  To just put this into context, for India, that would translate into almost $10 billion a year.

A connection to global information networks is like an on-ramp to modernity.  In the early years of these technologies, many believed that they would divide the world between haves and have-nots.  But that hasn’t happened.  There are 4 billion cell phones in use today.  Many of them are in the hands of market vendors, rickshaw drivers, and others who’ve historically lacked access to education and opportunity.  Information networks have become a great leveler, and we should use them together to help lift people out of poverty and give them a freedom from want.

Now, we have every reason to be hopeful about what people can accomplish when they leverage communication networks and connection technologies to achieve progress.  But make no mistake – some are and will continue to use global information networks for darker purposes.  Violent extremists, criminal cartels, sexual predators, and authoritarian governments all seek to exploit these global networks.  Just as terrorists have taken advantage of the openness of our societies to carry out their plots, violent extremists use the internet to radicalize and intimidate.  As we work to advance freedoms, we must also work against those who use communication networks as tools of disruption and fear.

Governments and citizens must have confidence that the networks at the core of their national security and economic prosperity are safe and resilient.  Now this is about more than petty hackers who deface websites.  Our ability to bank online, use electronic commerce, and safeguard billions of dollars in intellectual property are all at stake if we cannot rely on the security of our information networks.

Disruptions in these systems demand a coordinated response by all governments, the private sector, and the international community.  We need more tools to help law enforcement agencies cooperate across jurisdictions when criminal hackers and organized crime syndicates attack networks for financial gain.  The same is true when social ills such as child pornography and the exploitation of trafficked women and girls online is there for the world to see and for those who exploit these people to make a profit.  We applaud efforts such as the Council on Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime that facilitate international cooperation in prosecuting such offenses.  And we wish to redouble our efforts.

We have taken steps as a government, and as a Department, to find diplomatic solutions to strengthen global cyber security.  We have a lot of people in the State Department working on this.  They’ve joined together, and we created two years ago an office to coordinate foreign policy in cyberspace.  We’ve worked to address this challenge at the UN and in other multilateral forums and to put cyber security on the world’s agenda.   And President Obama has just appointed a new national cyberspace policy coordinator who will help us work even more closely to ensure that everyone’s networks stay free, secure, and reliable.

States, terrorists, and those who would act as their proxies must know that the United States will protect our networks.  Those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society or any other pose a threat to our economy, our government, and our civil society.  Countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences and international condemnation.  In an internet-connected world, an attack on one nation’s networks can be an attack on all.  And by reinforcing that message, we can create norms of behavior among states and encourage respect for the global networked commons.

The final freedom, one that was probably inherent in what both President and Mrs. Roosevelt thought about and wrote about all those years ago, is one that flows from the four I’ve already mentioned:  the freedom to connect – the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the internet, to websites, or to each other.  The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace.  It allows individuals to get online, come together, and hopefully cooperate.  Once you’re on the internet, you don’t need to be a tycoon or a rock star to have a huge impact on society. 

The largest public response to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai was launched by a 13-year-old boy.  He used social networks to organize blood drives and a massive interfaith book of condolence.  In Colombia, an unemployed engineer brought together more than 12 million people in 190 cities around the world to demonstrate against the FARC terrorist movement.  The protests were the largest antiterrorist demonstrations in history.  And in the weeks that followed, the FARC saw more demobilizations and desertions than it had during a decade of military action.  And in Mexico, a single email from a private citizen who was fed up with drug-related violence snowballed into huge demonstrations in all of the country’s 32 states.  In Mexico City alone, 150,000 people took to the streets in protest.  So the internet can help humanity push back against those who promote violence and crime and extremism.

In Iran and Moldova and other countries, online organizing has been a critical tool for advancing democracy and enabling citizens to protest suspicious election results.  And even in established democracies like the United States, we’ve seen the power of these tools to change history.  Some of you may still remember the 2008 presidential election here.  (Laughter.)

The freedom to connect to these technologies can help transform societies, but it is also critically important to individuals.  I was recently moved by the story of a doctor – and I won’t tell you what country he was from – who was desperately trying to diagnose his daughter’s rare medical condition.  He consulted with two dozen specialists, but he still didn’t have an answer.  But he finally identified the condition, and found a cure, by using an internet search engine. That’s one of the reasons why unfettered access to search engine technology is so important in individuals’ lives. 

Now, the principles I’ve outlined today will guide our approach in addressing the issue of internet freedom and the use of these technologies.  And I want to speak about how we apply them in practice.  The United States is committed to devoting the diplomatic, economic, and technological resources necessary to advance these freedoms.  We are a nation made up of immigrants from every country and every interest that spans the globe.  Our foreign policy is premised on the idea that no country more than America stands to benefit when there is cooperation among peoples and states.  And no country shoulders a heavier burden when conflict and misunderstanding drive nations apart.  So we are well placed to seize the opportunities that come with interconnectivity.  And as the birthplace for so many of these technologies, including the internet itself, we have a responsibility to see them used for good.  To do that, we need to develop our capacity for what we call, at the State Department, 21st century statecraft.

Realigning our policies and our priorities will not be easy.  But adjusting to new technology rarely is.  When the telegraph was introduced, it was a source of great anxiety for many in the diplomatic community, where the prospect of receiving daily instructions from capitals was not entirely welcome.  But just as our diplomats eventually mastered the telegraph, they are doing the same to harness the potential of these new tools as well.   

And I’m proud that the State Department is already working in more than 40 countries to help individuals silenced by oppressive governments.  We are making this issue a priority at the United Nations as well, and we’re including internet freedom as a component in the first resolution we introduced after returning to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

We are also supporting the development of new tools that enable citizens to exercise their rights of free expression by circumventing politically motivated censorship.  We are providing funds to groups around the world to make sure that those tools get to the people who need them in local languages, and with the training they need to access the internet safely.  The United States has been assisting in these efforts for some time, with a focus on implementing these programs as efficiently and effectively as possible.  Both the American people and nations that censor the internet should understand that our government is committed to helping promote internet freedom.

We want to put these tools in the hands of people who will use them to advance democracy and human rights, to fight climate change and epidemics, to build global support for President Obama’s goal of a world without nuclear weapons, to encourage sustainable economic development that lifts the people at the bottom up.

That’s why today I’m announcing that over the next year, we will work with partners in industry, academia, and nongovernmental organizations to establish a standing effort that will harness the power of connection technologies and apply them to our diplomatic goals.  By relying on mobile phones, mapping applications, and other new tools, we can empower citizens and leverage our traditional diplomacy.  We can address deficiencies in the current market for innovation.

Let me give you one example.  Let’s say I want to create a mobile phone application that would allow people to rate government ministries, including ours, on their responsiveness and efficiency and also to ferret out and report corruption.  The hardware required to make this idea work is already in the hands of billions of potential users.  And the software involved would be relatively inexpensive to develop and deploy.

 

If people took advantage of this tool, it would help us target our foreign assistance spending, improve lives, and encourage foreign investment in countries with responsible governments.  However, right now, mobile application developers have no financial assistance to pursue that project on their own, and the State Department currently lacks a mechanism to make it happen.  But this initiative should help resolve that problem and provide long-term dividends from modest investments in innovation.  We’re going to work with experts to find the best structure for this venture, and we’ll need the talent and resources of technology companies and nonprofits in order to get the best results most quickly.  So for those of you in the room who have this kind of talent, expertise, please consider yourselves invited to help us.

In the meantime, there are companies, individuals, and institutions working on ideas and applications that could already advance our diplomatic and development objectives.  And the State Department will be launching an innovation competition to give this work an immediate boost.  We’ll be asking Americans to send us their best ideas for applications and technologies that help break down language barriers, overcome illiteracy, connect people to the services and information they need.  Microsoft, for example, has already developed a prototype for a digital doctor that could help provide medical care in isolated rural communities.  We want to see more ideas like that.  And we’ll work with the winners of the competition and provide grants to help build their ideas to scale.

Now, these new initiatives will supplement a great deal of important work we’ve already done over this past year.  In the service of our diplomatic and diplomacy objectives, I assembled a talented and experienced team to lead our 21st century statecraft efforts.  This team has traveled the world helping governments and groups leverage the benefits of connection technologies.  They have stood up a Civil Society 2.0 Initiative to help grassroots organizations enter the digital age.  They are putting in place a program in Mexico to help combat drug-related violence by allowing people to make untracked reports to reliable sources to avoid having retribution visited against them.  They brought mobile banking to Afghanistan and are now pursuing the same effort in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  In Pakistan, they created the first-ever social mobile network, called Our Voice, that has already produced tens of millions of messages and connected young Pakistanis who want to stand up to violent extremism.

In a short span, we have taken significant strides to translate the promise of these technologies into results that make a difference.  But there is still so much more to be done.  And as we work together with the private sector and foreign governments to deploy the tools of 21st century statecraft, we have to remember our shared responsibility to safeguard the freedoms that I’ve talked about today.  We feel strongly that principles like information freedom aren’t just good policy, not just somehow connected to our national values, but they are universal and they’re also good for business.

To use market terminology, a publicly listed company in Tunisia or Vietnam that operates in an environment of censorship will always trade at a discount relative to an identical firm in a free society.  If corporate decision makers don’t have access to global sources of news and information, investors will have less confidence in their decisions over the long term.  Countries that censor news and information must recognize that from an economic standpoint, there is no distinction between censoring political speech and commercial speech.  If businesses in your nations are denied access to either type of information, it will inevitably impact on growth.

Increasingly, U.S. companies are making the issue of internet and information freedom a greater consideration in their business decisions.  I hope that their competitors and foreign governments will pay close attention to this trend.  The most recent situation involving Google has attracted a great deal of interest.  And we look to the Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough review of the cyber intrusions that led Google to make its announcement.  And we also look for that investigation and its results to be transparent.

The internet has already been a source of tremendous progress in China, and it is fabulous.  There are so many people in China now online.  But countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century.  Now, the United States and China have different views on this issue, and we intend to address those differences candidly and consistently in the context of our positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship.

Now, ultimately, this issue isn’t just about information freedom; it is about what kind of world we want and what kind of world we will inhabit.  It’s about whether we live on a planet with one internet, one global community, and a common body of knowledge that benefits and unites us all, or a fragmented planet in which access to information and opportunity is dependent on where you live and the whims of censors.

Information freedom supports the peace and security that provides a foundation for global progress.  Historically, asymmetrical access to information is one of the leading causes of interstate conflict.  When we face serious disputes or dangerous incidents, it’s critical that people on both sides of the problem have access to the same set of facts and opinions.

As it stands, Americans can consider information presented by foreign governments.  We do not block your attempts to communicate with the people in the United States.  But citizens in societies that practice censorship lack exposure to outside views.  In North Korea, for example, the government has tried to completely isolate its citizens from outside opinions.  This lopsided access to information increases both the likelihood of conflict and the probability that small disagreements could escalate.  So I hope that responsible governments with an interest in global stability will work with us to address such imbalances.

For companies, this issue is about more than claiming the moral high ground.  It really comes down to the trust between firms and their customers.  Consumers everywhere want to have confidence that the internet companies they rely on will provide comprehensive search results and act as responsible stewards of their own personal information.  Firms that earn that confidence of those countries and basically provide that kind of service will prosper in the global marketplace.  I really believe that those who lose that confidence of their customers will eventually lose customers.  No matter where you live, people want to believe that what they put into the internet is not going to be used against them.

And censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere.  And in America, American companies need to make a principled stand.  This needs to be part of our national brand.  I’m confident that consumers worldwide will reward companies that follow those principles.

Now, we are reinvigorating the Global Internet Freedom Task Force as a forum for addressing threats to internet freedom around the world, and we are urging U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments’ demands for censorship and surveillance.  The private sector has a shared responsibility to help safeguard free expression.  And when their business dealings threaten to undermine this freedom, they need to consider what’s right, not simply what’s a quick profit.  

We’re also encouraged by the work that’s being done through the Global Network Initiative, a voluntary effort by technology companies who are working with nongovernmental organizations, academic experts, and social investment funds to respond to government requests for censorship.  The initiative goes beyond mere statements of principles and establishes mechanisms to promote real accountability and transparency.  As part of our commitment to support responsible private sector engagement on information freedom, the State Department will be convening a high-level meeting next month co-chaired by Under Secretaries Robert Hormats and Maria Otero to bring together firms that provide network services for talks about internet freedom, because we want to have a partnership in addressing this 21st century challenge.  

Now, pursuing the freedoms I’ve talked about today is, I believe, the right thing to do.  But I also believe it’s the smart thing to do.  By advancing this agenda, we align our principles, our economic goals, and our strategic priorities.  We need to work toward a world in which access to networks and information brings people closer together and expands the definition of the global community.  Given the magnitude of the challenges we’re facing, we need people around the world to pool their knowledge and creativity to help rebuild the global economy, to protect our environment, to defeat violent extremism, and build a future in which every human being can live up to and realize his or her God-given potential.

So let me close by asking you to remember the little girl who was pulled from the rubble on Monday in Port-au-Prince.  She’s alive, she was reunited with her family, she will have the chance to grow up because these networks took a voice that was buried and spread it to the world.  No nation, no group, no individual should stay buried in the rubble of oppression.  We cannot stand by while people are separated from the human family by walls of censorship.  And we cannot be silent about these issues simply because we cannot hear the cries.

So let us recommit ourselves to this cause.  Let us make these technologies a force for real progress the world over.  And let us go forward together to champion these freedoms for our time, for our young people who deserve every opportunity we can give them.

Thank you all very much.  (Applause.)

(Senator Lugar was not a co-sponsor of the VOICE Act. Senator Kaufman was one of the co-authors and leading co-sponsors.)

Cellphones use help HIV/AIDS positive living in Kenya: a new study shows

BY SARAH KARANJA

Weltel will launch its preliminary results on 27th of this month (4pm to 5:30pm). The event will be held at The Holiday Inn, Westlands.

Weltel is an initiative to harness mobile telephones’ use by HIV/Aids patients to be reminded by nurses and doctors to take ARVs and thus help patients to best manage their own health in resource-limited settings.

The principal investigator and initiator of this study Dr.Richard Lester from Canada will announce the results.

The event will be conducted within the annual international collaboration meeting of university of Manitoba and Nairobi.

Reputable clinicians and scientists in HIV/Aids research from around the world will attend this meeting.

Weltel was conceived by clinicians and scientists working in HIV/AIDS care in Kenya, who noticed the impact mobile communications, had on the daily lives of people in the region.  The vast majority of the population in Africa went from no telephone access, to accessing the cutting-edge technology of mobile telephones to manage their personal and business lives.  We believe that mobile phone communications can strengthen health management and thus help save lives. 

Weltel has been studying the use of cell phones to improve health outcomes for People Living with HIV on ARVs.

Currently, we have been conducting a clinical trial that has been measuring the effectiveness of using SMS in improving patient adherence and response to highly-active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).  This has been operating at two sites in Nairobi and a site in Kajiado District.

The aim has been to assess if weekly text messages sent to patients on HAART will improve their adherence to ARV medication.

Data collection and cleaning has been ongoing for the past year and this conference will be an event set to disseminate preliminary study results.

However, preliminary data has shown that the intervention was popular with both patients receiving it and health care workers using it.

Our mission is to provide innovation in mobile phone communications to patients in resource-limited settings, guided by thorough evidence-based evaluation.

The ultimate wayfoward is to scale up this technology tool to be used in the whole country in partnership with government, corporates and other stakeholders.

This will ease burden of overstretched health systems and provide rapid access to healthcare as well as provide long life for PLHIV.

We will continue transitioning Weltel from research to action and hope to scale-up operations throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

Journalists are invited to find more about use of cellphones in HIV/Aids management by patients.

(See a feature story on same issue: http://lookandgaze.blogspot.com/2009/11/cell-phones-saving-lives-in-kenya.html)

(Sarah Karanja, University of Manitoba/Kenya Aids Control Project)

 

 

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