Technology & Telecommunications

International policy-makers this week ended a round of talks aimed at setting common rules affecting online trade and commerce, but they made little progress in bridging divisions that threaten to delay the pact. Read More

The undersigned civil society organisations strongly disagree with the main messages contained in the UNDP Human Development Report 2001. The report taken in its entirety forms an unabashed pat on the back for the hi-tech bandwagon on which a minority of powerful elites are galloping to even greater riches, even more power. Read More

Realising that the state is lagging behind other provinces in India's great information technology (IT) race, the rulers of Kerala have shed off ideological opposition to high technology. Read More

Arriving in Buenos Aires from the pampa hinterland is like playing a simulation game called First World. The concentration of capital, concrete and a third of the Argentine population is dizzying for anyone approaching from the small farming towns of the province or from the far-flung villages of empty Patagonia and the northern altiplano. Read More

We want to firmly and unequivocally state our intention not to participate in the World Bank Development Gateway project. That while the Development Gateway purports to promote local community organisations and their information initiatives, its true intention is to control the development information discourse to promote its own particular perpectives. Read More

Despite improvements in labour market performance in industrialized countries and the growing potential of information technology to create jobs and spur development, the global employment picture remains ''deeply flawed'' for workers in many parts of the world, according to a new report by the International Labour Office (ILO). Read More

In a landmark ruling, a French court on Monday ordered Yahoo! to block French Web users from its auction sites selling Nazi memorabilia. Read More

Non-governmental organisations and academics are alarmed over the Global Gateway, a portal website project which the Bank says will be the ''the premier web entry point for information about poverty and sustainable development'' but which the NGOs say is flawed and non-participatory. Read More

South Asia has emerged as the most promising region for sourcing information technology (IT) expertise, but this is an achievement that is of use only to the rich nations, say critics. Read More

It is the new Cold War. The United States intelligence agencies, facing downsizing after the fall of the Berlin wall, have found themselves a new role spying on foreign firms to help American business in global markets. Read More