Twelve countries names as ‘Enemies of the Internet’ in study

Joining usual suspects like Syria, Iran, China and North Korea among the so-called Enemies of the Internet, Bahrain and Belarus have joined a list of 12 countries, which the international press freedom advocate, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), says are guilty of cyber censorship and restricting the freedom of information. To mark this year’s World Day Against Cyber Censorship (March 12), RSF has released its latest report on the world’s worst offenders of Internet censoship. The “Enemies of the Internet” list includes Bahrain, Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. RSF says Bahrain and Belarus were added to the list after the organization found those countries to have increased efforts to restrict the flow of information. But the countries have not been ranked individually. Matthias Spielkamp from the German branch of Reporters Without Borders says the methods of cyber censorship are too varied and too numerous to allow a clear ranking. For example, China, Iran and Vietnam feature for the imprisonment of 120 bloggers and online activists, while Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are cited for censorship. Several online activists were killed in 2011 in Bahrain, Mexico, India and Syria. A second report just published details those countries which RSF says are “under surveillance.” It includes 14 countries: Australia, Egypt, Eritrea, France, India, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. But the organization admits that even this list is incomplete. Its main report also mentions Morocco, Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Tajikistan

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15802909,00.html

Legal experts fear new case of ‘libel tourism’ as lawyers send out hostile letters to journalists

Saudi businessman who is being sued over a suspected multibillion-dollar fraud is invoking English libel law in what experts say is the latest high-profile example of “libel tourism”. Maan al-Sanea, a member of one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest families, is being sued by banks in New York, Dubai, London and the Cayman Islands over claims he is responsible for more than GBP 15bn of bad debt in banks in Bahrain. But reports of allegations in papers around the world, including the Wall Street Journal and the The National in Abu Dhabi, have resulted in threats of libel action by lawyers in London, the Guardian has learned. Journalists covering the case, which could have damaging repercussions for Saudi Arabia’s business reputation, have received letters from the law firm Harbottle & Lewis warning of a libel suit in the high court unless articles about Sanea are withdrawn. The warnings state the reports are “seriously defamatory” and that material relating to the affair – including statements served in open court in New York and widely available on the web – are confidential. In an explicit reference to the high cost of English libel proceedings, one letter warns that media organisations will have to pay “very substantial damages” if the material is published in England. In February, a parliamentary report criticised claimants with little connection to the country using English courts and said the government should respond. Some US states have passed laws to undo the effect of high court judgments against American citizens

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/apr/18/libel-tourism-sanea-case

Internet agency approves domain names in native language scripts

Four countries and two territories have won preliminary approval to have Internet addresses written entirely in their native scripts as early as this summer. However, proposals for Internet addresses that would say “China” and “Taiwan” in Chinese will require a few more months of technical review. The delay is not over political disputes, but rather because the Chinese language can be written in two ways — using simplified and traditional scripts. Rules are being developed to make sure that addresses in either script go to the same Web sites. Since their creation in the 1980s, Internet domain names such as those that end in “.com” have been limited to 37 characters: the 10 numerals, the hyphen and the 26 letters in the Latin alphabet used in English. Technical tricks have been used to allow portions of the Internet address to use other scripts, but until now, the suffix had to use those 37 characters. With the addition of non-Latin suffixes, Internet users with little or no knowledge of English would no longer have to type Latin characters to access Web pages targeting Chinese, Arabic and other speakers. In January, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as ICANN, paved the way for an entire domain name to appear in Cyrillic for Russia and Arabic for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Added to the list this week are suffixes in Chinese for Hong Kong; Sinhalese and Tamil for Sri Lanka; Thai for Thailand and Arabic for Qatar, Tunisia and the Palestinian territories

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gfqX60XAxGjQhPsneym2EQJIz8ZgD9EL6O7G0