Ben Ali opens second world information technology summit
Regional-Tunisia, Politics, 11/17/2005

The Tunisian president ZIne al-Abidine Ben Ali opened on Wednesday in Tunis, works of the second world IT summit which aims at bridging the digital gap between poor and rich countries.

In his inaugural speech, Ben Ali said that the gap between the north and the south is a developmental one, rather than digital, calling for the participation of all sides in dealing with the issues debated by the IT society, including the identity, variety and the question of cultural peculiarities of peoples.

He also called on the participants on the need to "control global moral criterion that are the preventive barrier for our societies in the negative use of modern communications means," stressing simultaneously the need for a future vision that guarantees for all people the opportunity to get access to the information technology.

The summit includes 170 countries including heads of states and governments from Africa and the Middle East.

The IT conference started since two years in order to bridge the technological gap between the poor and rich countries, but the US control of the Internet naming mechanism was opposed from countries demanding that the system should be run by the UN or an international commission. US succeeded at the summit to keep its control of the domain name system.

Previous Stories:
  US keeps control of internet, favors innovation over politics   (11/16/2005)
  On eve of UN summit, progress made on global information, tech agreements   (11/16/2005)
  UN experts call on Tunisia to respect human rights as information summit opens   (11/16/2005)
  In Tunis, Annan for concrete action to technology access for poor   (11/16/2005)
  Citizen's summit challenges UN summit in Tunisia   (11/4/2005)
  Judicial organizations criticize Tunis's hosting of the second media summit   (2/24/2005)

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