[WSIS CS-Plenary] summit - expectations - who's coming...
Dr. Francis MUGUET
muguet at mdpi.org
Sun May 1 16:48:46 BST 2005
Dear Meryem
There are many wild rumors floating around in Tunis as you know full well.
The information that I got was no direct information and as such,
all what I informally posted on some group lists is an information
that must taken with a grain of salt.
> Hi all
>
> I share Robert's cautiousness. I attended a Council of Europe meeting
> on April 6-7, where Mr Geiger has been invited to provide the audience
> with news about WSIS and the summit organization. Recalling that only
> 44 heads of States and heads of governments attented Geneva Summit, Mr
> Geiger informed us that the Tunisian authorities were expecting (at
> that time) the attendance of 50 to 60 heads of states and of
> governments, and were very much hoping a good representation of
> northern countries.
>
Interesting information.
> I see that the level of expectations has been raising (i.e. has
> tripled) between early April and mid-April, when Francis visited Tunis
> and got this new information. This taking into account that when the
> invitation of Ariel Sharon, Israel Prime minister, has been disclosed
> - which has led to many street demonstrations and repression in Tunisia
The situation is quite tense when you speak with people in Tunisia about
this issue.
There is a question that you might clarify for us, since I am not well
versed in politics :
Was Sharon invited by the Tunisian government at the occasion of the WSIS ?
or
Is Sharon planning to come as the head of the Israeli delegation, and
Tunisia has nothing to say about it
since it is a UN summit ?
I heard the two views in Tunisia, and I could not discern which one was
correct ?
Now, since I feel like walking over a minefield, lets be clear that
I am not prepared to discuss on this list whether the fact that Sharon
would come is a
politically, ethically a good/bad thing.
I never alluded to Sharon visit in my post to the Finance group (the one
forwarded by Rik)
or other groups. Now, in relation to the logistics of the parallel
events, I agree
that Sharon as well as Bush possible visits may create extra security
checks
( in case of bombing threats ) and blockade ( in case of demonstrations )
that would create some material problems
that we must prepared to cope with. This is not going to be a tourist
trip.
> - the Tunisian authorities said that about 120 invitations have been
> sent to heads of States/governments. This means that even non directly
> invited heads of states/governments are planning to attend. Good
> achievement indeed.
May be this number of 120 jumped to 150, may be there is some exageration.
> There are other detailed information in Francis message forwarded by
> Rik (thanks for that, Rik, and BTW, Francis, was this visit officially
> related to WSIS ?
No
> I'm certainly not willing to ask private questions about your agenda:
This is the problem of forwarding a mail from one list to another. Rik
left me
no time to send this info ( as I intended ) to the plenary with more
cautious words
and cross-checking. One may express oneself more spontaneously and more
jokingly in Group lists than on the Plenary list, and
I would appreciate in the future that this kind
of "scoop" reporting/forwarding shall not be reproduced, all the more adding
some comments with the forward that should have been sent first on the
list where
it was originally posted.
Jean-Louis asked me the same question on the Finance list
with his direct and humourous way.
Let me forward my own anwer ( translated from French ) to the plenary :
---------------
>>
>> Thanks Francis for this reporting ; I hope that the National Tourist Office of Tunisia paid for your trip ( friendly joke ).
>>
>
>
In fact, it is almost the case ! (Note for plenary: joke, of course this was not the case )
I went to Monastir within the framework
of a scientific collaboration ( research on the structure of liquid water )
the trip was paid by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
( Note for Plenary : scientific cooperation, nothing to do with politics )
and my stay was paid by the Monastir Rectorate.
Coming back from Monastir to Paris, I stopped in Tunis
This is for the transparency of my financing, which in many cases,
is from my own pocket, as you know full well.
end of translated forwarding
--------------
Just for extra info, for those who might be under the impression that
Monastir is only a place for tourists :
the site of "Faculté des Sciences de Monastir"
http://www.fsm.rnu.tn
( English visitors do not get a wrong impression,
the site in English is rudimentary,
only the site in French is complete and quite well made,
French is the official language of Science Higher learning in Tunisia )
and for those who might be under the impression that everything is known
about liquid water http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/index.html
which is a major scientific enigma yet to be understood, and
very strangely enough not much publicized.
The visit to the Foire du Livre in Tunis was quite interesting,
roughly half of the books were in French, the other part in Arabic,
and I bought there technical and science books there at lower price
than in Paris. There was a booth about the WSIS and a WSIS-related
digital culture exhibition in the Foire
(see my pictures http://www.wsis-pct.org/kram-apr05.html
) and I spoke rather extensively with the people
on both booths about the planned WSIS organization.
I got the latest WSIS white T-shirt and a cap.
>), but just wanting to know if some WSIS CS people were invited there.
No, but I took the opportunity to meet Tunisian people involved in the
WSIS process.
>
> This detailed information relates to the organization. I noticed that
> almost all Tunis hotels are said to be already booked, that 18.000
> participants have already registered (these people are really far
> sighted, specially since - correct me if I'm wrong, registration forms
> for the summit are not yet available.
My understanding, but again it is more a guess than a certainty,
is that this number is related to the members of the state delegations,
which are making their registration very early with other channel than the
general public.
Now the distinction between conference registration and Hotel reservations
may have been blurred.
Lets have a look at the statistics in Geneva, we had
/
Attendance/ Number of Participants Number of Entities Represented *
States* 4590 176 *
International Organizations* 225 50
*UN Bodies* 620 37 *
UN Agencies* 347 13
*Non-Governmental Organizations* 3310 481 *
Business* 514 98 *
Guests* 471 *
Media* 970 631
*TOTAL* 11047 1486
We can see that in Geneva the NGOs only comprise about 30% of
the participants. We had about 7700 non-NGOs participants.
If those 18,000 participants are mostly related to delegations, then it
means that would
be more high profile govermental attendance in Geneva.
> They also are rich,
goverments are filthy rich ! and large official delegations filled
with non-essential bureaucrats are quite
often customary in sunny spots on winter time !
I would add that the Tunisia goverment is making a much stronger
diplomatic campaign to have a very large
diplomatic attendance than the more distributed Swiss government did for
Geneva.
In Tunisia, the WSIS is the *big event* as it can be seen to any person
coming at the Airport.
> if they made hotel reservation through the hotels proposed at
> www.smsitunis2005.tn) and I'm pleased to learn where the US delegation
> will stay.
This, I cross-checked with other sources. The fact that the US embassy
booked the whole Hotel in front
of its location does not mean necessarily that President Bush will come,
only that a high ranking US official would come,
certainly of a higher rank than the Science adviser that was dispatched
in Geneva.
> However, I see that this leads the organizers to envisage the
> accomodation of other participants in Hammamet and to bus them daily.
> Although Tunisia is not so large, and the distance between Tunis and
> Hammamet is only about 60km, I see this situation would really be a
> problem for people lodging in Hammamet to fully be able to decide by
> themselves of where and when they're willing to go.
That's true, and this why I issued this warning for the parallel events
organizers who must be on site,
early in the morning, and stress the need of local organizers.
Now, with the Tunisians, according to their long experience with their
Tourist industry
( what a big business opportunity that this WSIS is going to generate
! ),
a good organization should be expected.
I was told that participants are to be welcome directly at the Airport
(rather small, likely to be congested ? ) , badges, hotel bookings
will be issued directly there.
Now, I guess there are, on this list, quite a significant number of CS
people from Tunisia,
or that are coming back and forth to Tunis, and lileky to know a lot
more that
has been disclosed here. I would be good that those people would inform
us from
time to time of the evolution of the situation in Tunis in relationship
with the WSIS preparation.
Best regards
Francis
>
>
> Best,
> Meryem
>
> Le jeudi, 28 avr 2005, à 21:43 Europe/Paris, Robert Guerra a écrit :
>
>> I read in an earlier post - perhaps it was Francis - where it was
>> stated that some 150 heads of state would be coming to the summit.......
>>
>> hmmm.. i really doubt it. One must recal that during the first phase
>> an equal # (or higher) was also envisioned, but in the end - the
>> reality was quite different.
>>
>> I think it is way too premature to discuss which heads of state will
>> be coming. At least now. Let's wait for PC3
>>
>> --
>> ###
>> Robert Guerra <rguerra at privaterra.org>
>> Privaterra - <http://www.privaterra.org>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
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>
--
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Francis F. MUGUET Ph.D
MDPI Foundation Open Access Journals
Associate Publisher
http://www.mdpi.org http://www.mdpi.net
muguet at mdpi.org muguet at mdpi.net
ENSTA Paris, France
KNIS lab. Director
"Knowledge Networks & Information Society" (KNIS)
muguet at ensta.fr http://www.ensta.fr/~muguet
World Summit On the Information Society (WSIS)
Civil Society Working Groups
Scientific Information : http://www.wsis-si.org chair
Patents & Copyrights : http://www.wsis-pct.org co-chair
Financing Mechanismns : http://www.wsis-finance.org web
UNMSP project : http://www.unmsp.org
WTIS initiative: http://www.wtis.org
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