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Bush Hails Estonia's Tech Progress
by Winter Casey
President Bush on Tuesday hailed Estonia's tax system and progress in electronic governance. Bush also said he discussed reforming the U.S. system for granting visa waivers during his meeting with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.
"I appreciate the fact that you got a flat tax, you got a tax system that's transparent and simple," Bush said during a press conference at the National Bank of Estonia, according to a White House transcript. "I also am amazed by the e-governance you have here in your country. You really are on the leading edge of change, and you're setting a really strong example."
Bush said earlier in a greeting with promoters of democracy that Estonia's e-government system should be "the envy of a lot of nations" and noted that Estonians can file their taxes online.
Estonia, a member of the European Union since 2004, has been widely regarded as one of the most technology-savvy countries in Europe, according to a 2004 European Commission newsletter.
For more than a decade, Estonia has emphasized making the best use of technology to further government and business, the newsletter said. In 2004, it said that most government business was already taking place electronically. Estonia also is a pioneer in the development of electronic identity cards for secure access to e-government services.
Bush also said he and Ilves addressed the possibility of Estonians being able to travel to the United States without visas, as is the case with other countries friendly toward America.
"I am pleased to announce that I'm going to work with our Congress and our international partners to modify our visa-waiver program," Bush said. "It's a way to make sure that nations like Estonia qualify more quickly for the program and, at the same time, strengthen the program's security components."
The U.S. president said he will assure members of Congress that "in loosening the visa-waiver issue ... that we'll still be able to protect our country from people who would exploit the visa-waiver program to come to our country to do harm."
Bush noted that "the new security component of the visa-waiver program would use modern technology to improve the security regime for international travelers to and from the United States." Bush highlighted the importance of information sharing between nations.
Ilves said his country also has been in discussions with the European Parliament concerning security requirements for passports.
Estonia has been a member of the World Trade Organization since November 1999, and the country's economy benefits from strong electronics and telecommunications sectors, according to the CIA World Factbook.
Africa Struggles In Telecom Growth
Africa still suffers from higher prices for telecom services and the sector continues to lag behind those in other regions, according to a World Trade Organization working paper released earlier this month. More competition and improved regulation of the sector, however, is resulting in greater overall telecom penetration and lower prices.
"Competition in most Africa regimes only began to be introduced around the year 2000," according to the paper. Africa has moved from state-owned telecom monopolies to numerous privatization and liberalization initiatives. As monopolies have been opened, foreign investment has increased, the paper found.
In other Africa telecom news, Science Applications International Corp., a leading provider of technical services for the U.S. government, announced last week that the Supreme Court of South Africa has ruled in favor of an international arbitration award previously given to one of the company's subsidiaries.
SAIC said it received the arbitration award in 2002 from the International Chamber of Commerce, stemming from a contract dispute with Telkom South Africa, which was then the state-owned monopoly provider of wireline telecom in South Africa. Following the chamber's decision, Telkom South Africa challenged the award in court.
A lawyer for SAIC said the company believes the "South African Supreme Court ruled in a completely evenhanded manner."
Women Dominate Asian Blogosphere, Report Says
Nearly half of cyber surfers in Asia have a Web log, according to new research released Tuesday from Microsoft's Windows Live Spaces.
The report found that young people and women dominate the blogosphere in Asia except in "India, where it is overwhelmingly a male domain, and Korea, where blogging is a part of everyday life for all."
According to the findings, 50 percent of the people that took part in an online survey of more than 25,000 MSN portal visitors across seven markets consider blog content to be as reliable as traditional media. The research also found that 74 percent of cyber surfers find blogs by friends and family to be the most interesting, and 41 percent of the population spends more than three hours a week blogging.
"Blogging as a corporate or business tool still appears to be nascent in most markets, with little interest from consumers in blogs from business or political leaders," the report said. "The exceptions are online powerhouse Korea, where blogging has permeated all aspects of life, and India, where a culture of self improvement is seeing business-related blogs become very popular."
According to the research, most blogs have a small audience. "Politicians fared poorly across the region, with only 14 percent interested in reading their blogs, except in Malaysia, where they were quite popular with 20 percent listing this type of blog as being of interest."
"Innovative advertisers in the region such as Lenovo in Singapore and ANZ in Australia are already tapping into the blogging phenomenon and targeting campaigns to users of Windows Live Spaces," Alex Stewart, director of Microsoft's online services business for the Asia Pacific, said in a statement. "We expect as blogging becomes an even bigger part of the social fabric of communities across Asia that more and more big-brand advertisers will begin to use this dynamic advertising medium."
Grants To Aid Mideast Communications
The State Department's Middle East Partnership Initiative will fund four new grants totaling more than $1.1 million for partnerships between colleges and universities in the United States and the Middle East.
The funding will support the integration of new communications technology to train journalists at Qatar University. The initiative also will support a project by Michigan State University and the Lebanese American University to create an information and communications technology education program.
Another grant will bring academics from the Arab Chamber of Commerce and the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Service together to focus on ways to modernize business and economic education at the University of Garyounis in Libya.
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