A Russian-led coalition has withdrawn a controversial proposal to turn Internet governance over to a United Nations agency, a plan opposed by Western governments during ongoing talks over an international communications treaty.
The proposal, supported by China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and others, would have called on the U.N. to help member states seize control of key Internet engineering assets, including domain names, addresses, and numbering. The United States, Canada, France, Sweden, and others opposed the proposal, fearing that it could do grave harm to the current free and open Internet.
Today in Dubai, an 11-day meeting begins that may result in an Internet-regulation proposal standstill.
The U.N. conference will be centered on updating telecommunications codes, including global communications cooperation, but concerns are growing within a U.S. delegation that plans to oppose U.N. proposals which may impose further controls on Internet commerce and communication.
However, the 123-member strong U.S. group joins envoys from tech firms including Google and Microsoft, who express concern that potential security oversights could also be exploited by nations -- including Russia and China -- to justify the next step on the Internet control … Read more
While individual countries grapple with their own laws over limitations on the Internet, the United Nations is also looking at possible amendments to a telecommunications treaty that could amount to worldwide Internet censorship.
The World Conference on International Telecommunications is to be held in Dubai this December and more than 190 countries are expected to attend. One of the matters to be discussed at the conference is changes to a 24-year-old telecommunications treaty called the International Telecommunications Regulations, according to the Associated Press.
In preparation for the meeting, dozens of countries have been debating possible changes behind closed doors, according … Read more
The reason for the holdup was the router's initial versions of the firmware had a few known bugs. I tested it with the latest, version 3.0.0.3.108, and while I could still find some minor quirks, the router proved itself to be one of the best N900 routers on the market.… Read more
A global deal on a pact to succeed the U.N.'s main climate agreement is still within reach but will not be struck this year, with the pace of talks still far too slow, New Zealand's top climate negotiator said today.
Inevitably, there would be a gap after the Kyoto Protocol's first period expires in 2012, Minister of Climate Change Negotiations Tim Groser said in an interview after delegates from 35 nations attended two days of climate talks in Auckland.
Disputes between rich and poor on sharing curbs in greenhouse gases mean gridlock over the Kyoto Protocol, … Read more
Renewable sources such as solar, wind, and hydropower could fulfill almost 80 percent of the world's energy demand by 2050 with the right policies, according to a U.N. report which won backing from governments today.
The 26-page study, by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), broadly matched a draft written by scientists. It was approved by government delegates at talks in Abu Dhabi.
Environmental groups hailed the report as a guide to the shift from fossil fuels to combat climate change, a process set to cost trillions of dollars. But they said some draft … Read more
Governments are looking at ways to keep the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol going beyond 2012 in some form to defuse a standoff between rich and poor nations that threatens efforts to tackle global warming.
Negotiators from almost 200 nations will meet in Bangkok from March 3-8, after side-stepping the Kyoto issue at their last meeting in Mexico in December.
"There is some creative thinking going on" about Kyoto's future, said Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program of the Washington-based World Resources Institute.
The Kyoto Protocol obliges almost 40 industrialized nations to cut greenhouse … Read more
The Satellite Sentinel Project, launched today, will be monitoring Sudan from above and sharing information with the world in near real-time in an effort to deter violence.
The oil-rich southern region of Sudan is poised to hold a referendum on January 9 that could decide whether Sudan remains one country, or becomes politically divided into north and south entities. Many expect that there will be violence leading up to the vote, as well as after it, and that the Sudan could once again descend into chaos as it did during its 20-year war in which an estimated 2 million people … Read more
International cyberwar would be "worse than a tsunami" and should be averted by a global cybersecurity peace treaty, according to the head of the International Telecommunication Union.
Hamadoun Touré, who has been secretary-general of the U.N. agency since 1999 and is up for re-election in a few weeks' time, has targeted cybersecurity issues in his electoral pledges. Speaking at a London roundtable on Thursday, he said he had proposed such a treaty this year, but it had met "a lot of resistance" from industrialized nations.
COPENHAGEN--U.N. climate talks ended with a bare-minimum agreement on Saturday when delegates "noted" an accord struck by the United States, China, and other emerging powers that falls far short of the conference's original goals.
"Finally we sealed a deal," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. "The 'Copenhagen Accord' may not be everything everyone had hoped for, but this...is an important beginning."
A long road lies ahead. The accord--weaker than a legally binding treaty and weaker even than the "political" deal many had foreseen--left much to the imagination.
It set a target of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times--seen as a threshold for dangerous changes such as more floods, droughts, mudslides, sandstorms, and rising seas. But it failed to say how this would be achieved.
It held out the prospect of $100 billion in annual aid from 2020 for developing nations but did not specify precisely where this money would come from. And it pushed decisions on core issues such as emissions cuts into the future.
"This basically is a letter of intent...the ingredients of an architecture that can respond to the long-term challenge of climate change, but not in precise legal terms. That means we have a lot of work to do on the long road to Mexico," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.
Another round of climate talks is scheduled for November 2010 in Mexico. Negotiators are hoping to nail down then what they failed to achieve in Copenhagen--a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. But there are no guarantees.… Read more
What's the #1 music streaming-app for iOS? Who wins in an iPhone v. S4 faceoff? We've got it covered with iPhone news, rumors, app recommendations, and more.
Manage updates with the Download App
