‘Internet rights are human rights’ Nigeria yet to endorse protocol

Despite the rapid growth witnessed in the nation’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry, Nigeria is yet to endorse the ‘Internet Rights are Human Rights’ protocol of the United Nations

Protocol is commonly described as a set of international courtesy rules, which have become well-established and time-honored rules, hence making it easier for nations and people to live and work together, according to Dr. P.M. Forni of the International Association of Protocol Consultants and Officers.

ITRealms Online investigations showed that with the 57 countries on the continent of Africa recording 118,848,060 Internet users as at June 30, 2011, a 11.5 per cent penetration rate from the 1,037,524,058 population estimate; Nigeria is rated highest with 44.1 million Internet user as at March 31, 2011, according to the Internet World Statistics.

These figures were followed by Egypt with 20.1 million and Morocco with 13.2m before South Africa with 6.8m and Tunisia 3.6m.

Noteworthy is that these figures were released prior to the recent Arab Spring demonstrations, which saw to the exit from power of Mr. Hosni Mubarak and death of Libyan strongman, late Col Mamman Gaddafi.

Presently some 50 countries globally have endorsed the protocol promoting the protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social, cultural rights and right to development, with only Tunisia endorsing the procedure so far from the African continent.

Other countries as outlined by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations at the end of its eighteenth session recently to include Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala and Hungary.

Also on the list of endorsed countries are Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Moldova.

Additionally Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland made the list.

Summary of the recent report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Mr. Frank La Rue, submitted to the Human Rights Council, showed that the protocol was on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 7 subsection 36.

Specifically, the resolution had requested the Special Rapporteur “to continue to provide his/her views, when appropriate, on the advantages and challenges of new information and communication technologies, including the Internet and mobile technologies, for the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to seek, receive and impart information and the relevance of a wide diversity of sources, as well as access to the information society for all.”

He noted that while the Internet has been in existence since the 1960s, its current use throughout the world across different age groups, and incorporation into virtually every aspect of modern human life, has been unprecedented.

The report quoted the International Telecommunication Union, the total number of Internet users worldwide is current in excess of 2 billion, citing for instance that active users of Facebook, an online social networking platform, grew from 150 million to 600 million between 2009 and 2011.

The Special Rapporteur believes that the Internet is one of the most powerful instruments of the 21st century for increasing transparency in the conduct of the powerful, access to information, and for facilitating active citizen participation in building democratic societies.

“Indeed, the recent wave of demonstrations in countries across the Middle East and North African region has shown the key role that the Internet can play in mobilizing the population to call for justice, equality, accountability and better respect for human rights,” part of the report stated.

The Rapporteur equally stated that as such, facilitating access to the Internet for all individuals, with as little restriction to online content as possible, should be a priority for all States.

Reacting to the development on endorsement the Project Coordinator, Internet Rights are Human Rights at the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Ms. Joy Liddicoat, noted that for some time, APC has been working on global and national strategies for promotion and protection of online freedom of expression and freedom of association,

As part of this strategy, she said, APC has been working with members and networks to promote internet related human rights issues in the United Nations, including the Human Rights Council and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process.

This, she said, resulted from an APC suggestion in HRC 17 in May, which the Swedish government subsequently endorsed and proposed a resolution for which now is enjoying 50 countries support at HRC 18 last September.

She disclosed that APC is preparing for the forthcoming panel and will be submitting suggestions for experts and, if possible, sending human rights defenders to attend and advocate for follow up action and concrete proposals.

Remmy Nweke
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Exploring innovative technologies the Cisco way

A two-day conference organized by Cisco Systems at the South African Sun City was for brain storming capable of bringing experts together to innovate, writes REMMY NWEKE.

Recently, Cisco Systems hosted its annual two-day conference at the Sun City, a countryside of north-west province of South Africa; is reputed as premier holiday resort, offering a myriad of entertainment and relaxation opportunities and crowned as the gambling mecca of South Africa.

Opening remarks at the Sun City for Cisco Expo 2011, Director for Strategy, Internet Business Solutions Group at Cisco Mr. Reshaad Sha said that the event was scheduled to equip people to achieve innovation together.

Welcoming participants, the Managing Director of Cisco System South Africa, Mr. David Meads had noted that the event which began in 2002 when the company launched its value interactive programme while in 2004, this was followed with the unveiling of 20 Yes innovation with 20 communities.

Two years later in 2006, he said, Cisco came up with the revolutionized telepresence while 2007 saw the coming of webbed, even as regional office was opened in India. In 2008, Mr. Meads pointed out that Cisco launched technology leadership with seven formula.

Cisco, he said, is the leader in storage market share with its technology innovation as a means of evolving through with over 20,000 engineers globally, adding that internally, the company’s innovation is second whereas it has done some nine commercial acquisitions.

In the next 12 to 18 months, he said that apart from Cisco South Africa assisting the government to have an all-inclusive Information and Communication Technology (ICT) agenda for the citizenry, 

Cisco intends to work on core transformation including digital inclusion, cloud service, smart, and connected communication, sociology economic development among others.

This agenda, he said, also include partnership for transformation, expanding strategic relationships to name a few with some 125 acquisition in 18 years.

The head of architectures and enterprise for the emerging markets at Cisco, Mr. Den Sullivan, pointed out that innovation is what impact technology has on our life, stressing that mega challenges of opportunity for transformation include the insatiable desire for rich media which has significant network implications.

Technology, he said, has been designed for the enterprise involving security, reliability, scalability and availability.

He maintained that today’s demand in the business environment is huge, thus attracts great minds, stressing that Cisco is a huge innovator that commenced business in 1999 with Internet Protocol (IP) telephony.

Ever since, he said, Cisco has been offering this architectural approach for business transformation, so Cisco works on borderless, and data center to name a few.

In addition, he said, Cisco has developed energy wise to save energy usage and cost too for its customers, declaring, “We are unleashing telepresence.”

Mr. Sullivan said that as technology innovates, more and more data will be on the cloud, hence the need for businesses to look towards cloud investment.

Climaxing this was the launch of Jabber WebEx at the Sun City event, described as its latest in stock version of telepresence, according to the director, Global Collaboration Solutions at Cisco Systems, Mr. Michael Smith, who noted that the launch which coincided with the firm collaboration summit in Florida, where Jabber WebEx which is an online presence was unveiled.

He also said that WebEx could be accessed anywhere and at anytime on any smart device, adding that the beta version would be available by December this year, while the general availability starts first quarter of next year.

WebEx, Mr. Smith further said could be accessed using iPad, Blackberry, iPhone to name a few smartphones, just as this service, involves Cisco integration of single identity and administration even as he listed some of e-benefits to include improving of productivity and saving time as well as enhanced efficiency.

“As far as we are concerned, the security of this service is well secured,” he said.

Additionally, Mr. Smith said migration from hitherto telepresence of Cisco could be achieved in two ways, namely by automatic upgrade or by way of grade by grade.

He further said that Cisco has advanced the workspace by changing the meeting experience with the newest release of Cisco WebEx, which redefines the meeting lifecycle.

“Cisco is giving customers a way to not only share data easily during a meeting but also before and after, through a persistent meeting space that enables cross company collaboration anytime,” he said.

Mr. Smith also said, Cisco WebEx provides new levels of integration between Cisco WebEx and 

Cisco’s overall collaboration portfolio, including Cisco Telepresence and several Cisco Unified Communications products, which avails the extending of the power of online meetings while helping customers maximize existing investments.

As said by him, WebEx elevates the video and mobile experience through the provision of high definition (HD) video and pervasive meeting experience with two-way video even when on the go.

“WebEx mobile meetings are available on more mobile devices than any other enterprise meeting platform in the market today,” he reiterated.

Elucidating that with Cisco WebEx basic edition, Cisco will be offering a free version of WebEx in the first quarter (Q1) of 2012 for three users or less to allow new users to experience a web conferencing solution that enables collaboration and helps make their meetings be more productive and efficient.

Equally, Cisco launched collaboration with the Vodacom and NIL for the first real public cloud offering in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region (EMEA).

By joining forces with Vodacom, leading provider of converged mobile communication solutions in Africa and NIL, a leading global provider of unified computing solutions, to launch the availability of the first office in the cloud, tagged ‘Vodacom Office in the Cloud’ will avail users the virtualization technology and hosted applications, to bring enterprise class IT services to businesses from small to large.

The Executive Head, Hosted Services, Vodacom, Mr. Richard Vester, affirmed this recently in Sun City, South Africa during the 2011 Cisco Expo, saying that Vodacom, Cisco and NIL already have a long established strategic business partnership with in South Africa and their three-way collaboration will strengthen this relationship and ultimately us to deliver innovative cloud services and solutions within the joint markets.

He explained that ‘Vodacom Office in the Cloud’ is a complete managed office solution which enables customers to rent everything they  need for a fully functional office resulting in lower costs, less problems and allowing them more time for their core business.

The solution, he said, is primarily intended to support businesses by providing them with enterprise-class IT services that would otherwise not be available to them because of high costs such as high availability using redundant equipment, high performance, advanced security.

Cloud computing, he said, is profoundly transforming the way information and services are consumed and provided. With this new paradigm shift comes the opportunity to dynamically scale IT resources and make applications and services easier than ever to access.

“We are taking the concept of cloud computing and offering it in a turnkey solution that fits any business, regardless of size ...,” he said.

From start-up to established business, the customer can decide how many workstations are required, with which applications, and pay only for what they use,” he said.

Equally commenting, the head of Managed Services, NIL, Africa, Mr. Brett Orwin, said that his team at NIL has provisioned the cloud solution to allow Vodacom to deliver an affordable and efficient cloud solution over their infrastructure immediately as well as  providing a flexible and scalable portal to deliver a ‘choose and click’ suite of popular office and business applications.

The three-way collaboration between Cisco, Vodacom and NIL, he said, would enable companies to leverage next generation Cisco technology, both in the core switching, security and routing environment as well as the Unified Computing System server blade infrastructure.

And for channel director, Cisco South Africa, Mr. Stefano Mattiello, the collaboration delivers a cloud infrastructure is an important milestone for all three companies in South Africa.

In addition, he said, the collaboration is to server as organic to innovation, pointing out that for some time now Cisco has been partnering closely with service providers around the world to provide the cloud infrastructure that they can use to deliver innovative services including security, video and unified communications to their customers.

“By providing rich services within the cloud, the network becomes a platform – and a building block – for providing real value for customers. Our professional services approach involves helping customers build the cloud solutions they need to support their operations and customers,” he said.

Above all, participants who confided to ITRealms Online said they look up to another session of Cisco Expo.

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3,046 online petitioners against HIV-AIDS discrimination

Discrimination against a young boy in the United States at the Milton Hershey School, for being Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive is attracting 3,046 online petition.

HIV is a lentivirus; a member of the retrovirus family that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive.

The campaign to petition against the discrimination being supported by Change.org is intended to drum support for people living with AIDS and probably to literally change the minds of the school management over the action.

Change.org is an online advocacy platform that empowers anyone, anywhere to start, join, and win campaigns for social change. Millions of people sign petitions on Change.org each month on thousands of issues, winning campaigns every day to advance change locally and globally.

At Change.org, this campaign petition will be optimized with 5,000 signatories or petitioners.

ITRealms Online investigation gathered that recently Lawrence Stallworth II, a 20-year-old who learnt he was HIV-positive while a senior in high school, by taking a stand against discrimination, stigma and fear. Demand that the Milton Hershey School publicly apologize for discriminating against a 13-year-old HIV-positive student.

Commenting on the development, Mrs. Maria Jackson described this as absurd and so backwards, alleging that at a recent conference, she heard of students in Nigeria being turned away for their HIV-positive status.

“This was the example given of the extreme discrimination of those with HIV in Nigeria. Come on, we are better than this,” she decried.

Also speaking, Mr. Thomas Schumacher said he had personal experience living with someone who was HIV+, stressing that the fear of risk is directly relative to ignorance of scientific fact.

Children, he said, has continued to be without rights in this society, hence he advocated that all children in this society are guaranteed a reasonable voice that will represent them, regardless of health, intelligence or ability.

For Ms Gloria Osborne, because this thinking is archaic, she noted that not only has transmission of HIV + status not been found among siblings, as a pediatric nurse who has worked with AIDS and HIV+ children, she never heard of cross contamination except in the rare case of an accidental needle stick of a caregiver from a contaminated needle.

So, she wondered how a child can transmit HIV-AIDS to anyone.

“This thinking is absurd and the folks who share this fear have been grossly misinformed and are exhibiting their profound ignorance,” she declared.

ITRealms Online gathered that the Milton Hershey School promises to “nurture and educate children in social and financial need to lead fulfilling and productive lives” -- unless you happen to be living with HIV.

The school, however, recently rejected the application of a 13-year-old young boy, publicly citing his HIV-positive status as the reason for the rejection.

In a written statement, ITRealms Online learnt, the school attempted to justify their illegal action, saying “In order to protect our children in this unique environment, we cannot accommodate the needs of students with chronic communicable diseases that pose a direct threat to the health and safety of others.”

According to experts at Change.org, people living with HIV do not pose any kind of health threat to those around them.

“Educators, in particular, should know better -- this is 2011, not 1985! We don’t know what kind of sex education they teach at the Milton Hershey School, but it might be time for the administrators and admissions staff to retake the class,” suggested member of Change.org.

The Change.org team revealed that the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania has since joined this young boy and his family as they fight for his right to education unhindered by ignorance and fear.

“It is particularly disappointing to see such small-minded bigotry promoted by an educational institution,” the team said.

Remmy Nweke

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Etisalat explains debut of Geek Force

Chief executive officer of Etisalat Nigeria Limited, Mr. Steven Evans has said that Geek Force was launched to boost the customer service experience on the network.

According to him, it is all about commitment to innovation, customer focus and improved quality of service.

With the launch of Etisalat’s Geek Force, he said, the mobile operator has taken its innovation a step further.

The Geek Force teams, he said, are technology savvy, intelligent and courteous Etisalat employees trained to resolve technical issues on various devices at designated Etisalat Experience Centres.

Also, he said that Etisalat is a customer-focused business dedicated to providing innovative and quality services to its subscribers.

“Our approach to innovation is holistic. It reflects in the features of our products, the devices we offer, they way we communicate, as well as the way we serve our customers,” he said.

Evans also said that Etisalat pioneered several innovative products and services since its commencement of operations three years ago, setting the tone for competition.

“Some of these include the 0809uchoose, Easylife, Homezone, Receiver pays, Recharge others, Bonus on incoming calls, You & me, Missed call notification, Dotme, Etisalat Dual SIM phones, and the Etisalat 3G Andriod Gaga smartphone,” he said.

Equally, he said, that with the launch of Etisalat’s 3.75G High Speed Packet Access (HSPA)+ network, the mobile operator intends to play significantly in the development of data services in the country.

He pointed out that as more Nigerians embrace the use of data services, more 3G-enabled devices would flood the market and there would be an increasingly need to manage device-related queries.

Evans further said that in order to make certain that Etisalat’s customers continue to enjoy the best quality services in the area of data or voice, hence the launch of Geek Force.

Equally, he said, Geek Force has been designed to make our customer’s communication life easier as well as give them a total experience; going beyond the sale of SIM and recharge cards.

The Chief Commercial Officer, Mr. Wael Ammar said that for all reported cases at designated Etisalat experience centres, the Geeks would perform level-1 trouble shooting on devices, and resolve and return the device to the customer.

Where a device is diagnosed by the Geeks as requiring further repairs, subscribers have the option to drop off their devices for level-2 troubleshooting and resolution by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEMs) or their official after sales service providers.

“This scenario will apply to devices under warranty,” he said, adding that the Geek Force teams would be available at designated Etisalat Experience Centres in major cities across the country including Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Ibadan, Benin, Enugu, Warri, Aba, Uyo, Kaduna, Asaba and Ughelli.

He attributed this plan to the fact that Etisalat has roots across the country, therefore, the Geeks will definitely spread across the country in the coming months.

Remmy Nweke

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

ICANN releases IDN implementation guidelines

The Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) received boost recently with the release of its implementation guidelines by the world coordinating agency of the Internet, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

This is coming as the deadline for the extended comment on the Emergency Back-End Registry Operators (EBEROs) ended Monday, December 5, 2011.

Information available to ITRealms Online showed that as part of the outcome of ICANN’s board’s acceptance at the October 2011 meeting in Dakar, Senegal, it has decided to provide notice of implementation for version 3.0 of the Guidelines for Implementation of Internationalized Domain Names.

The IDN guidelines, ICANN said are a list of general standards that many top-level domain registries deploying IDNs are required to follow based on the Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA) protocol standard from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

The document developed by IDN Guidelines Revision Working Group made up of the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) and generic TLD (gTLD) registry representatives with IDN experience supported by ICANN staff.

The new version, ICANN said, modified the current Version 2.2 to reflect the IDNABIS revision (“IDNA2008 protocol”) of the initial IDNA protocol (“IDNA2003”).

ICANN said it had previously published a draft version of the guidelines for public comment, adding that its Board of Directors endorsed version 3.0 of the IDN Guidelines during their meeting on 28 October 2011.

The registries offering IDN registrations, ICANN said, should begin transitioning to version 3.0 of the IDN guidelines.

ITRealms Online recalls that the Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA) protocol is the technical standard for the implementation of IDNs for TLD registries, registrars and software developers that make IDNs available for their customers.

In a related development, the deadline for the extended comment on the Emergency Back-End Registry Operators (EBEROs) has ended on Monday, December 5, this year.

According to the director, media affairs at ICANN, Mr. Brad White, ICANN had a question and answers teleconference with interested parties on November 16, 2011 and received a higher number of questions than expected.

For this reason, ICANN extended the deadline for the Emergency Back-End Registry Operator Request for Information (EBERO) Request for Information (RFI) till Monday, December 5, 2011 at 5:00 PM pacific time.

ITRealms Online recollects that the original deadline was November 30, 2011, which allowed RFI respondents to review the Q&A and better prepare.

ICANN said it was looking forward to receiving comprehensive information from the potential candidates, even as negotiations with certain respondents to the RFI that provide comprehensive information will be initiated for the purpose of creating process details and entering into an agreement to provide backend services.

Remmy Nweke

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D