Huawei pushes 5G in SEAsia, brushing off 'tech war' with US

Yahoo – AFP, November 3, 2019

Huawei has emerged as a key protagonist in the wider US-China trade war that
has seen tit-for-tat tariffs imposed on hundreds of billions of dollars worth
of goods (AFP Photo/STEFAN WERMUTH)

Chinese phone giant Huawei said Sunday it was ready to roll out 5G infrastructure across Southeast Asia, dismissing US warnings its tech could be used to hoover up data for Beijing.

The firm has emerged as a key protagonist in the wider US-China trade war that has seen tit-for-tat tariffs imposed on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods.

President Donald Trump's administration has warned Huawei's equipment could allow China to spy on other countries and has effectively blocked American companies from selling US technology to the firm.

But the company has repeatedly denied the accusations, saying it is the victim of tech envy.

Thailand and the Philippines have shrugged off the cybersecurity warnings in a rush to exploit the ultra-fast 5G network promised by the China's biggest smartphone maker, while Vietnam has edged away from Huawei.

"China and the US now is in the trade war and also there is some kind of technology war (which) Huawei is very focused on at the moment," said Huawei vice-president Edward Zhou at the Association of Southeast Asian (ASEAN) summit on Sunday.

"We are here to support the ASEAN (in) the development for the 5G."

Encompassing hundreds of millions of people, the 10-member bloc wants the next-level technology to help businesses, infrastructure and transport compete globally.

Host country Thailand has welcomed Huawei with open arms, allowing it to set up a test bed at a major university near the Thai capital.

A Huawei spokesperson previously told AFP it had invested $5 billion in the trials and has been invited to conduct similar tests in other Southeast Asian markets.

Elsewhere the Philippines' Globe Telecom said this summer it was launching Southeast Asia's first 5G broadband service using Huawei technology.

Both Thailand and the Philippines are historic US allies and some see the tangle over 5G as a challenge of influence between the two powers.

But not all countries have been eager to sign up.

Vietnam has quietly sided with the US on the issue, shunning the Chinese firm in favour of alternative providers for 5G technology, including Ericsson and Nokia.

The country's military-owned telecoms giant Viettel hopes to be the first to roll out 5G in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and has said it plans to to do so without Huawei, citing security concerns.

Zhou reiterated past statements by the company brushing aside the US claims.

"There is not any cybersecurity issues for us. There is no evidence for the US to say that," he said.

'Like' me, 'like' me: Cambodian PM woos youth vote online

Yahoo – AFP, Suy Se, January 18, 2016

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen (R) poses for a selfie with supporters during
 a ceremony marking the 37th anniversary of the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime
in Phnom Penh (AFP Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Looking more avuncular than authoritarian, Cambodian premier Hun Sen crouches for a selfie for his Facebook page with young scouts -- part of a social media blitz selling the strongman's cuddlier side as he seeks to extend a 30-year grip on power.

The 63-year-old, a wily political survivor who defected from the Khmer Rouge to oversee Cambodia's rise from the ashes of war, has vowed to remain prime minister until he is 74.

To do so he will need the support of Cambodia's youth -- a tech-savvy demographic whose votes may well be decisive in the next election, slated for 2018.

Two thirds of Cambodia's 15 million population are aged under 30. Like their contemporaries everywhere they are avid users of social media -- a sphere Hun Sen has until recently viewed with suspicion.

In 2013, young Cambodians voted in droves for the opposition, wearied by the endemic corruption, rights abuses and political repression seen as the hallmarks of Hun Sen's rule.

A self-confessed digital dinosaur, Hun Sen has in recent months launched himself online with an arsenal of new media tools.

Cambodians hold their mobile phones displaying Facebook pages of Cambodian 

Prime Minister Hun Sen (top) and the opposition party leader Sam Rainsy (below)

 in Phnom Penh (AFP Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)

He has just debuted a 'Hun Sen' App for Android and Apple phones -- complementing a new personal website -- to allow the public to "receive news about me quickly".

Meanwhile his official Facebook page, minted in September, already has more than 1.9 million 'likes'.

"Wherever technology goes, we must be there too," Hun Sen said recently, also revealing in a Facebook post that he carries five smart phones to stay connected with his countrymen.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy, whose Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) say they were denied a majority in 2013 by vote rigging, has more than two million 'likes' on his official Facebook page and has long embraced social media to spread his message.

With under three years to the next election, the battle for power looks poised to play out online.

What's the game?

Sebastian Strangio, author of a recent book on the mercurial premier, says Hun Sen's belated embrace of technology once more illustrates the "tactical flexibility" which has kept him in power over the decades.

"Cambodia’s old political battles have simply shifted online," he added.

But Hun Sen's online forays have received a mixed reception from his target audience.

"Awesome for an ex-bumpkin... but nothing special for young generation Khmers! They were there long before him," one Facebook user posted in English on the premier's page.

Others say the strategy is working, bringing the premier into the daily lives of young people.

University student Kea Ny, 26, told AFP many of his peers have changed their attitudes on the back of his social media outreach work.

"Among 10 of my friends, seven of them support him now. Before they all had negative feelings towards the prime minister," he said.

Two thirds of Cambodia's 15 million 

population are aged under 30 and like

their contemporaries everywhere they 

are avid users of social media (AFP

 Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)

While it good news for Hun Sen's social media team, critics say the move is merely another feint by a master manipulator renowned for cracking down on freedom of expression.

The former communist cadre already leans heavily on pliant courts and security forces to keep rivals in check.

His government is now pushing for a cybercrime law, which critics fear will be used to target dissent.

Rainsy is currently in self-exile after a slew of criminal charges were brought against him and other core CNRP officials, which they say are politically-motivated.

An opposition senator has been also arrested over posting a doctored treaty of a highly-sensitive border area with Vietnam on Facebook.

Rainsy has been charged with being accomplice in that case.

Fearing arrest over the post, three other members of Rainsy's social media team have fled Cambodia.

Others were not so lucky -- including those in the age range the ruling party hopes to woo.

In August, a 25-year-old student was charged with incitement to commit a crime over an alleged Facebook post calling for a "colour revolution" in the country.

Another 25-year-old was charged in early January for posting "insults and threats" on Hun Sen's Facebook page.

If convicted, he faces up to two years in jail.

"He (Hun Sen) is taking to social media to show his softer side," Cambodian political analyst Ou Virak told AFP.

"The sinister flipside is of course an increased monitoring of social media, epitomised by the cybercrime law."

Vietnam PM Says Impossible to Ban Social Media

Jakarta Globe – AFP,  Jan 16, 2015

This Jan. 30, 2014 file photo taken in Washington, DC, shows the splash
page for the social media Internet site Facebook. (AFP Photo/Karen Bleier)

Hanoi. Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has conceded it is impossible for the communist country to ban social media, urging officials instead to embrace websites like Facebook to spread the government’s message.

Sites such as Facebook have at times been difficult to access in Vietnam, an authoritarian country which routinely imprisons bloggers and dissidents for criticizing the regime.

“You here have all joined social networks, you’ve all got Facebook up on your phones to read information. So we must make this information correct,” Dung told senior officials Thursday, the Thanh Nien newspaper reported.

“We cannot ban it,” he said at the meeting in Hanoi.

Over the last few years, Vietnam has had one of the fastest rates of Facebook uptake in the world, and now around a third of the country’s population of 90 million have an account on the social network.

The government has always denied blocking the site, and for at least a year Facebook has been easily accessible in Vietnam without a VPN or other measures.

Dung said top officials need to use social media to engage with the population more.

“We must publish accurate information online immediately … Whatever is being said online, people will believe official information from the government,” he said.

Vietnam’s communist party controls all newspapers and television networks, and many citizens prefer to get their news online from blogs or social media, which contain less propaganda.

But the quality of the blogs and social media postings is uneven. Some dissident-run sites offer nuanced reporting on sensitive political topics, other online commentators spread sensational rumors.

Last week, in a rare move, authorities denied widespread rumors that a popular senior communist party official Nguyen Ba Thanh, a former top official in central Danang City, had been poisoned with radioactive material by a political rival.

“Incorrect information creates social distraction,” Dung said, adding that the government would ask ministries to address incorrect information circulating online.

In the past, Dung has driven through bans on particular blogs, but the move has usually backfired, triggering a surge of interest in the prohibited sites.

The harassment, arrest and prosecution of online activists remain widespread in Vietnam, which is holding scores of bloggers in jail, according to watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

The one-party state is regularly denounced by rights groups and Western governments for its intolerance of political dissent.

Agence France-Presse

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"The End of History"- Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

“ …  The Internet - The first Worldwide Tool of Unification

Now I give you something that few think about: What do you think the Internet is all about, historically? Citizens of all the countries on Earth can talk to one another without electronic borders. The young people of those nations can all see each other, talk to each other, and express opinions. No matter what the country does to suppress it, they're doing it anyway. They are putting together a network of consciousness, of oneness, a multicultural consciousness. It's here to stay. It's part of the new energy. The young people know it and are leading the way.

I gave you a prophecy more than 10 years ago. I told you there would come a day when "everyone could talk to everyone and, therefore, there could be no conspiracy." For conspiracy depends on separation and secrecy - something hiding in the dark that only a few know about. Seen the news lately? What is happening? Could it be that there is a new paradigm happening that seems to go against history? ….“

E-commerce to reinvent Asian cross-border trade

Want China Times, Xinhua 2014-09-21

Two students discuss the design of their online store on Taobao. (File photo/Xinhua)

Every day, peddlers throng in a bustling wet market on a remote section of the China-Vietnam border. Their daily lives may soon be changed by a new age of cross-border trade centered on e-commerce.

Before the four-day China-ASEAN Expo closed in south China's Nanning on Friday, a slew of deals on e-commerce were inked between companies from China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

They include agreements over online sales programs for agricultural products from Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. These schemes will provide more convenient cross-border transaction for both local sellers and Chinese consumers.

IRRESISTIBLE TREND

China and its neighbors to the southwest have a long history of cross-border trade. In ancient times, border residents bartered goods without using a medium of exchange like money.

When money was invented, cross-border trade became more frequent. But the biggest challenge offline transactions encounter lies in trade settlement.

At the Puzhai Border Zone in Guangxi's Pingxiang, three Vietnamese women place a table besides an ATM to provide currency exchange services for merchants and tourists.

In several minutes, they close a deal with two tourists from northeast China, who exchange 3,000 yuan (US$488) for 9.9 million Vietnamese dong (VND).

"Over 100 Vietnamese fruit vendors do business in the zone, and nearly all of them have directly exchanged currencies via this private currency trading emerging since the early 1990s," said Vietnamese fruit peddler Do Thi Ngan.

She said that doing business with Chinese is a good choice, but trading the Chinese currency Renminbi, or yuan, for the VND is not easy. Since exchanges have until recently had to be conducted via the US dollar in local banks, the procedure was very complicated and extra fees were involved.

Good news is an Agricultural Bank of China branch in Dongxing established a currency trading center in April, which allows direct convertibility of the yuan and the VND.

But the border merchants may need more than that. They need a safer and more convenient way to do business. E-commerce may lead them to the dream.

China has been accelerating e-commerce cooperation with the ASEAN by encouraging cross-border transaction settlement in yuan and establishing online payment platforms.

Yao Songtao, deputy head of the financial office in the Guangxi government, said local authorities plan to start approving renminbi settlement accounts set by foreign institutions in the region.

Gao Hongbing, senior vice president of Alibaba Group, the largest e-commerce player in China, said the company has already prepared payment platforms for cross-border transactions.

The United Overseas Bank (China) has also developed a suite of cross-border renminbi solutions, said Eric Lian Voon Fui, the bank's president.

The combination of renminbi cross-border settlement and e-commerce will shorten the distance between China and other countries, prompting fast transactions and saving costs, Yao said.

E-COMMERCE IN THE AIR

E-commerce has gained great popularity in China among enterprises and individuals. Young Chinese are increasingly inclined to shop by clicking their computer mice rather than by selecting in shops.

The combined transaction volume of e-commerce in the Chinese mainland jumped 29.8% from a year ago to 5.9 trillion yuan in the first half of 2014, data from China's Ministry of Commerce showed.

Hutama Sugadhi, president of Indonesia-based Pt Aneka Coffee Industry, came to the China-ASEAN Expo to seek an e-commerce partner to explore the Chinese market. "The market will be broader and e-commerce will inject new vitality," he said.

Like Sugadhi, Chinese e-commerce enterprises are likewise eager to take a share of the emerging ASEAN market after great success domestically. The ASEAN shows huge potential, with around 200 million Internet users in the region, a third of its total population.

Alibaba has turned its attention to ASEAN e-commerce by investing US$249 million in the Singapore Post in May to jointly establish a platform for international e-commerce logistics.

Lee Chee Leong, Malaysia deputy minister of international trade and industry, said there is a clear emerging trend for China-ASEAN trade evolving into electronic cooperation.

China is aiming to elevate bilateral trade with the ASEAN to US$500 billion by 2015.

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Google partners with Chinese telecoms on Pacific cable

Want ChinaTimes, Staff Reporter 2014-08-13

A Google conference held in Beijing in May this year. (Photo/CFP)

Google is partnering with telecom operators and communications companies from five countries, including China Mobile and China Telecom, to lay a US$300 million undersea cable network across the Pacific Ocean. The network will be extended to other Asian countries in the future.

The international units of the two Chinese companies as well as France's Global Transit, Japan's KDDI Corp and Singapore Telecommunication will work with Google on the network, named FASTER. The network will connect major cities along the US west coast including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland to the Japanese coastal cities of Chikura and Shima.

The cable will be able to relay information at 60 terabits per second, 10 million times faster than modems, when the network begins providing services in the second quarter of 2016.

This is Google's third undersea cable network after the Unity cable network that the internet giant built in 2008 connecting Japan and the United States. Google has also invested in another cable network connecting Japan to countries in Southeast Asia including the Philippines and Thailand.

Russia, China to combine efforts in satellite battle with US

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-06-26

A model of China's Beidou satellite navigation system on display
at the Zhuhai Airshow, Nov. 14, 2012 (Photo/Xinhua).

Russia and China are likely to sign a cooperation pact regarding ground operation stations for Russia's GLONASS satellite and China's Beidou satellite, reports Huanqiu, the website of China's nationalistic tabloid Global Times, citing Sergei Savelyev, deputy head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

Savelyev said that Russia expects an agreement with China, which will allow the countries to build three ground operational stations in each other's territory, with the number potentially increasing in the future.

At the St Petersburg International Economic Forum 2014 held in late May, Savelyev also said that Russia is preparing to discuss construction of GLONASS ground operation stations with both China and India and expects to reach an agreement of equal number construction by the end of the year.

The Moscow-based Voice of Russia reported that the number may be more than three, as China initially proposed setting up about a dozen Beidou stations in Russia from the Urals to the Far East, and to host a similar number of GLONASS stations.

A Russian researcher told Huanqui that China and Russia are highly likely to cooperate in a joint satellite navigation system, given that they share a common competitor — the US Global Positioning System (GPS). The wise choice would be for Beijing and Moscow to install each other's devices on the counterparts satellites, the researcher said.

During the 2nd Technoprom International Forum held in Novosibirsk in Russia on June 5-6, Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin said that cooperation between Russia and China in the field will not be limited to ground operational stations, but will also include reception devices and related infrastructure. "Our system is more suitable for northern, polar latitudes. The Chinese system is more southern. Their complementary natures would result in a biggest and most powerful competitor to any navigation system," he said.

Meanwhile, Sergei Ivanov, chief of staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia, said that in addition to ground operational stations in China, Russia plans to construct 50 GLONASS ground operation stations with 36 countries. He said that negotiations with Nicaragua, Vietnam, Iran and Indonesia are underway, while agreements with Cuba and Spain have already been reached.

Roscosmos also proposed to construct six ground operational stations in the US, but the plan was turned down due to national security concerns, while the US has already set up 11 GPS stations on Russian soil.

However, Russia announced in May that it would suspend the operation of all 11 GPS stations from June 1 due to poor progress in Russia-US talks over the construction of Russian ground stations in the US. The GPS ground operational stations will be permanently shut on September 1 if the two countries fail to reach a consensus by then, according to Huanqiu.

Ex-Apple chief plans mobile phone for India

Yahoo - AFP, 19 April 2014

An Indian Sikh devotee takes a photograph on her mobile phone in the front

 of the illuminated Sikhism's holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar

on the April 18,2014

Former Apple chief executive John Sculley, whose marketing skills helped bring the personal computer to desktops worldwide, says he plans to launch a mobile phone in India to exploit its still largely untapped smartphone market.

Inflexionpoint, an information technology supply company co-founded by Sculley, will start selling the smartphones next month in India under the new Obi Mobiles brand, the Singapore-based firm said in a statement emailed to AFP Saturday.

"The smartphone share in India is only 20 percent, leaving the larger part of the ground with opportunities yet to be tapped," said Sculley, 75.

John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple, 

attends the Allen & Company Media

 and Technology Conference on July 9,

2011 in Sun Valley, Idaho

Sculley, who served as chief executive of Apple from 1983 to 1993, famously clashed with technical visionary Steve Jobs over strategy, leading to the Apple co-founder's exit from the company.

Jobs, who returned to head up Apple in 1997 and turned out a string of blockbuster products, died in 2011 after battling cancer.

Inflexionpoint plans to invest $20 million this year to set up a supply chain, design centre and offices in India, producing "affordable smartphones with superior technology", Sculley said in the statement.

Smartphone shipments in India tripled from 16.2 million in 2012 to 44 million in 2013, International Data Corporation says, and analysts expect similar growth this year.

Sculley said he hopes Obi's phones will lure premium phone buyers away from players like Samsung and Apple. Samsung dominates India's smartphone market by sales, followed by Sony and Apple.

"We feel there is an opportunity to build another brand in India that would combine global branding skills... (and) go into price points that are more like the local brands -- in the 5,000 to 8,000 rupee ($83 to $133) range," he said.

Obi's devices will be sourced from China and after setting up in India, the company aims to expand to other growing markets in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Latin American regions.

Sculley said that his old company, Apple, now has a dilemma over whether to lower the prices of its products.

"Either they miss the (emerging) market where 70 percent of the industry is, or risk the falling of their stock price dramatically if they go after the market," he told the Economic Times newspaper in an article on its website Saturday.

"But one company's dilemma is another company's opportunity," Sculley said.

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Acer unveils US$115 budget tablet

Want China Times, CNA 2014-02-27

The Iconia One7. (Photo/Acer)

Taiwanese computer maker Acer unveiled its cheapest tablet computer to date Wednesday when it announced the Iconia One7 with a price tag of just NT$3,490 (US$115).

Taking aim at the low-cost tablet market favored by price-sensitive customers, Acer said in an emailed statement that it began shipping a "limited volume" of the One7 to local distributors Wednesday and expects the 7-inch tablet to go on sale in early March in Taiwan and later in the month in China and other Asia-Pacific markets.

The Iconia One7 packs a Cortex-A9 dual-core 1.5GHz chipset from Taiwan's VIA Technologies, a 1024x600-pixel screen, 16GB of built-in memory and a micro-SD card slot. The company said it supports high-definition 1080p video playback, despite the relatively low WVGA screen resolution.

The One7's specifications hold up to competitors in the 7-inch low-price bracket, including its cross-town rival Asustek Computer's US$139 MeMO Pad HD 7 and US online retailer Amazon's US$139 Kindle Fire HD.

Acer shares closed flat at NT$18.05 (US$0.59) Wednesday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange ahead of the announcement.

The struggling Taiwanese PC maker has aimed for explosive growth in its tablet computer business for 2014 despite intensified competition from other low-cost Android tablet vendors.

Maverick Shih, president of Acer's BYOC (Build Your Own Cloud) and Tablet Business Group, told the media on Feb. 5 that the company "will be working hard to achieve aggressive growth" and is eyeing 10 million tablets shipped this year.

For comparison, the Commercial Times estimated that the company shipped only half of that number last year, citing sources within Acer.

A Dec. 3 report by research firm IDC noted that while the worldwide market has embraced 7-inch tablets, they will have to compete with the increasingly large smartphones, some of which are nearly as big at 6 inches.

Beijing urges fairness after Australia maintains Huawei ban

Want China Times, Xinhua 2013-10-31

Huawei's company logo. (Photo/Xinhua)

China on Tuesday urged joint efforts with Australia to provide a fair environment for enterprises from both nations after Australia maintained a broadband ban on Chinese telecom firm Huawei.

"China has always opposed pleading national security as an excuse for disturbing normal economic and trade cooperation between two countries," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily news briefing.

"We hope that both countries can work together to create favorable conditions and a fair environment for enterprises from both sides to conduct cooperation based on mutual respect and equality in line with the principles of market economy," Hua told reporters.

Australia on Tuesday maintained a ban issued by the previous Labor administration to bar Huawei from bidding for the country's high-speed national internet program.

Hua said China and Australia have kept close contacts since the new Australia administration was established in September.

As important countries in the Asia-Pacific region, China and Australia share broad common interests, she said, adding that it accords with both sides' core interests to conduct mutually beneficial cooperation based on equality and mutual respect.

Huawei Australia was banned by the former Labor administration earlier last year from tendering in the National Broadband Network project over security reasons. Shortly after that, the United States also issued a congressional report, saying that Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese telecom company, pose a security threat to the United States and should be barred from US contracts and acquisitions.

The US report was dismissed by Huawei Australia chairman John Lord as "protectionism," not security.

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CIA 'black bag' operations hacked Chinese computers: report

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-07-24

No computer is safe from the CIA's remote and manual hacking.
(File photo/CFP)

The United States government has been conducting highly classified "black bag" operations to manually hack into computers and servers in China, according to the Washington DC-based Foreign Policy magazine.

The July 17 article alleges that the CIA, in concert with the secretive National Security Agency, has been carrying out what is referred to as "black bag" operations around the world when they cannot hack into a computer or server remotely.

In such an operation, a crack CIA team would break into the target's premises and do things such as install spyware, bug phones, hack data switching centers, and copy backup files and disks, the report said.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the CIA developed a series of hacking tools that can allow the US government to easily override commercial computer software, clone mobile phone data and retrieve communication records in other countries, meaning black bag operations have become necessary generally only in regions where the US does not have an embassy, such as Iran or North Korea. US embassies in many Middle Eastern countries, for example, already have signal monitoring stations that can eavesdrop on all telecommunication signals within a 100 mile radius, according to the report.

Over the past 10 years, black bag operations have taken place in the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia, especially in China, the report added.

Spying and hacking activities by the US government has always been a sensitive topic, though this is not stopped the CIA from expanding its toolkit in a post 9/11 world. Last month, ex-CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden also lifted the lid on the NSA's Prism telephone and internet surveillance program, which has further placed scrutiny on US hacking activities both domestically and abroad.

Legislation to give US telecommunications giant Verizon Communications and Google legal protection for sharing cyber-attack information with the US government has stalled after Snowden's revelations, which revealed that the companies are already turning over private user data.

Backed by the Net, Infoladies help rural women

Deutsche Welle, 13 June 2013

They bike hundreds of miles to bring advice and medicine to thousands in remote, impoverished villages. DW has honored the work of Bangladesh's 'Infoladies' with the 2013 Bobs online activism award.

Mahfuza Akter would have rather gone to university, but her family couldn't afford the fees. After finishing high school, the country girl had practically no chance of getting a job in her native district of Gaibandha in northern Bangladesh. But luck stroke in 2010 when she managed to get a job as a so-called "Infolady." For this extraordinary profession, the 25-year-old requires a bicycle, some high-tech devices and plenty of organizational skills.

Warm-hearted welcome

Equipped with a laptop, a digital camera and an Internet-connected mobile phone, Akter rides to towns within her community every day and offers a variety of ICT-based services as well as legal advice to villagers at their very doorstep. For instance, she helps people communicate with relatives via Skype, finds solutions to agricultural and development issues, and even assists young villagers in writing job application letters.

She also helps the elderly measure their daily blood sugar levels and visits pregnant women who want to manage their weight. If required, Akter even accompanies them to the local administration office to apply for financial assistance.

 Infoladies provide a variety of
services to people in remote villages

As few doctors ever travel to the regions InfoLadies regularly visit, the women are often the only form of medical advice available and when they get stuck on a case, they can call a team of experts ready to assist them wherever they may be.

For her services, Akter is often "paid more than the standard rate," she says. Sometimes customers even invite her to stay in for lunch. "I enable people to do things they would otherwise find difficult to do," she explains, adding that villagers often hold Infoladies in higher regard than even teachers or doctors.

Reaching out to women

Only about five percent of the South Asian country's population has access to the Internet. The government has set up rural information centers called "Pallitathya Kendra," but they are not used frequently.

"With the help of the Infoladies people living in remote areas now have the same sort of access to information and services as people living elsewhere," says Hossain Mosharrof, deputy director of Dnet, a Bangladeshi company specializing in social projects.

Dnet is the company that launched the InfoLady initiative in 2007. There are currently around 70 Infoladies working mainly with women and girls as well as with disabled and elderly people, connecting them to the rest of the community.

The fact they are all women is not a coincidence. "The project is about women helping one another and leading self-determined lives," adds Mosharrof, stressing the importance of mutual support, particularly in Muslim communities.

For Akter, becoming an Infolady wasn't easy. She had to undergo a strict assessment process to see if she had the skills required to work with different interest groups in the country side such as farmers and the unemployed. But after completing a 30-day training program she was ready to go. "My mother broke out in tears when I handed over my first pay check," she remembers. Today she makes around 140 US dollars a month, enough to put some money aside.

'A revolutionary project'

The Infoladies project won DW's 2013 The Bobs award for the best in online activism in the Global Media Forum category, which focuses on "the future of growth."

"It is a revolutionary project which closes social, cultural and digital gaps," said jury member Shahidul Alam. "Because of the Infoladies, many people now have access to their fundamental rights."

Dnet aims to have 12,000 Infoladies by 2017

The project founders are convinced of the iniative's potential. "The model is both financially and socially sustainable," says Mosharrof. Since the central Bangladesh Bank acknowledged the project as an innovative and viable model, the Infoladies have received "special conditions" for loans at local banks.

Dnet is seeking expand and increase the number of Infoladies to 12,000 by the year 2017. There are also plans to export the model to other countries such as Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Sri Lanka.

Trio of bloggers recounts perils of writing in Asia

Deutsche Welle, 10 May 2013

What's it like to blog in Asia? It depends where you are: in high-tech India, most people remain offline; China's Internet is heavily monitored; and death threats are made against bloggers in Bangladesh.

At the re:publica Internet conference - which has become an important forum for online activists and bloggers - a panel sponsored by DW highlighted what it's like being a blogger in the Asian countries of India, China und Bangladesh.

India: high-tech but offline

Ravish Kumar, a television host and journalist in India, described a paradox in his country: Although the Internet connection is quite fast, only a small circle of elites uses it. "India is known as an IT power, but it's still an offline country," Kumar said. 

Kumar's "qasba" website is among
the best-known Hindi blogs

With 60 percent of the country's population in rural areas, mobile phone penetration is at around 80 percent. And although these aren't smart phones that connect to the Internet, "you can find download vendors at every corner of the streets" where people can pay a small fee to load videos onto their mobile phones via Bluetooth or USB sticks, Kumar said.

Online activism is playing an ever-larger role in India, Kumar said. Politicians have discovered the opportunities for propaganda offered by Twitter, Kumar said.

Right-wing groups - which are growing in India - are also using social media to their advantage, while those who express criticism of the ruling powers can find themselves subject to mobbing.

Bangladesh: 'Enemy of Islam'

Bloggers in Bangladesh could face a worse fate, according to blogger and activist Shahidul Alam. The main problem in the largely Muslim country is that you don't know which media you can trust, he said.

"Mainstream media is so completely dominated by corporations or political parties, it's very difficult for people to believe what the channel is talking about," Alam said. Word of mouth has therefore become very important there, he explained.

"You trust people who have over a period of time established credibility - and that is what makes blogs so important," Alam said. 

Alam shares his experiences
at talks around the world

"Of course the blogosphere has its own share of propaganda, of partisanship and extremism," Alam said. But people within the blogosphere who over time have been reporting authentically have built a community around them. This "gives them power, and makes them dangerous," he said.

Bloggers who are critical of Islam are often arrested, Alam said. Last year's winner of DW's blog awards "The Bobs" - Bangladeshi Asif Mohiuddin - has been sitting behind bars since February - that's after he found himself on a extremist kill list and survived a stabbing attack in January. Especially young bloggers need to be protected, Alam concluded.

China: writing between the lines

Internet users use several strategies to get around censors in China, where practically all public online communication runs over the Chinese micro-blog platform Sina Weibo.

Hu Yong, a journalism and communications professor at the University of Beijing, described how social media was used to support 'Net activist Ai Weiwei.

After Ai Weiwei's blog was shut down, Twitter remained as the only platform for communication. People used Twitter to gather enough money to bail him out after he was arrested over alleged tax debts, Hu said. 

Hu Yong's blog has 3.5 million readers
- he was also on The Bobs 2013 jury

With China's heavy news censorship, social media represents an important means of sharing information, discussing, and criticizing the government. Critics who are caught must often go to jail or work camps.

Among the tactics to evade censors is the centuries-old tradition of writing between the lines. "Even in ancient times, Chinese people couldn't express themselves freely," Hu Yong said. So a special euphemistic writing style developed using symbolic characters.

In the Internet age, Hu Yong said, "people still have this tradition - even netizens are using the very ancient Chinese language to try to escape from the censorship." Surveillance software is not able to detect and interpret exactly what is written in this ancient language. Codes hidden in pictures, music or videos are also used.

On Sina Weibo, another trick is the "long weibo," where an image containing text is attached to a post, bypassing the censorship leviathan.

Continued importance of Internet

To all three re:publica panelists, it's clear that the situation in their countries isn't going to change soon, or easily. They each emphasized the importance of educating people around the world about the situation of bloggers in Asia.

Kumar looked to the future in saying that the Internet provides a power to change lives - so encouraging access to the Internet is a first step.

Hu said although the Internet won't necessarily change politics, it will promote a stronger civil society that will be harder to make back down.

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