The Internet in Asia

Iraqi PM and insurgents communication via email

Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki has set up an email account that was flashed during a broadcast Sunday night on state-run al-Iraqiya television. The address was advertised as an email account that insurgents could write to and be assured of confidentiality. The government did not repeat the address after the initial broadcast to prevent it from being flooded with junk mail. Iraqi presidential security adviser Wafiq al-Samaraie said the response so far had been low with only two authentic messages being received in four days.

Singapore's Inteligent Nation 2015 plan

Intelligent Nation 2015 is the Singapore government's 10 year infocomm development master plan aimed at transforming Singapore into a totally wireless, intelligent, economically enriching and competitive nation for Singaporeans from all walks of life. Broadband penetration is expected to increase to 90 % by then to help meet these objectives.  It also aims to  create 80,000 new jobs and double the infocomm industry's contribution to Gross Domestic Product to $26 billion, tripling the country's export  revenue to SGD 60 billion.

Also part of the transformation will be building the Next Generation National Infocomm Infrastructure for a high-speed wired network of up to 1 Gigabit per second islandwide.
33 local and international companies have indicated their interest in the contract to be awarded next year and which will be rolled out by 2012.

Bullies post videos online

Six student bullies were remanded by Malaysian police after they posted a video of them beating up their school mate on-line. The attack received worldwide attention when the footage – purportedly showing the entire incident, which lasted four minutes – was uploaded onto an Internet site and received thousands of hits. The boys are aged between 13 and 15. Although police have not yet determined the motive behind the attack, they have not ruled out the possibility that the bullies were angered when the victim refused to join a secret society.  The bullies have been expelled from school and will be released on bail to their parents.

Such occurrences are becoming more frequent now. A similar incident occur ed in Singapore a few weeks ago, and received the same amount of coverage as people from both countries are asking why are such incidents are so common today?

Malaysian police nab net-gambling ring

Gambling may be banned in Muslim-Malaysia, but this small obstacle has never stopped punters and bookies from doing so. Analyst estimate that more than RM 5 billion exchange hands through illegal betting on the English Premier League and other games annually. The police have stepped up operations during this World Cup season and as a result nabbed 18 illegal bookies operating an on-line gambling operation out of a pig sty. Police suspect that they could have raked in over RM 30 million during the World Cup season so far.

Oman to start e-gov network

As part of the government's plans to realize the Digital Oman initiative and e-governance, senior Omani officials have signed an agreement to set up and implement the Unified e-Government Network. If the project takes of, it will allow electronic transactions to occur between departments. It is expected that the project will take about 18 months to be up and running.

Blogging in the gulf

Blogs are giving those in the Middle East a new way to express themselves, thereby creating a new breed of on-line activists who choose to blog on politics to the social situation there.  According to Haitham Sabbah, a Bahrain-based blogger and Middle East editor for Global Voices, a program launched last year by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, there are now about 1,000 Gulf Arab bloggers-- up five times from 2004.

Saudi Arabia has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the area, and is also home to  the Gulf's biggest blogging community with about 300 bloggers, more than half of them women according to Omran.  Many women here also regularly post to their blogs on topics such as the social expectations of women there. As a result, some blogs such as Saudi Eve have been blocked by the government for immoral content.

World Cup fever goes digital

World Cup fever has definitely hit us -- over the past  12 years, more and more people are turning to the Internet to search for the latest news related to the game. Official World Cup websites were cited as the most likely destinations in Singapore (67%), Malaysia (71%), Thailand (46%) and Australia (57%), but Chinese fans are most likely to head to other sport websites (84%). Many have also turned to their mobile phones to get the latest, which thanks to the help of may mobile operators is something that they can now have access to on the go.

World Cup increases online sales revenue

Online consumption of sports information has increased significantly in India over the past 4 years. The 2006 World Cup in Germany has contributed to a further 15% increase in online ad revenues.  Indian Yahoo! Sales Director expects  an estimated 32 million unique users to consume over 4 billion pages of the 2006 official FIFA world cup site.  Yahoo! hosts the official World Cup site.

Of spoofs and politics

An audio clip written and produced by Mr Brown and Mr Miyagi surrounding the James Gomez saga has resulted in a discussion on whether such parody's detract from main election issues. The clip had the bak chor mee (minced meat noodle) hawker repeatedly demand an explanation from a customer who had given a wrong order - and was proved to have done so by footage from a closed-circuit television camera. The incident mirrors real life where James Gomez (a Workers Party candidate) was questioned by the ruling PAP as to whether he had indeed submitted his minority candidacy papers after he suggested that the Elections Commission had lost them.

Mr Brown and Mr Miyagi said that the production " was meant to entertain", and they did not mean to set any political agenda.  They also added that such parodies could increase Singaporeans interest in politics, instead of consigning them to being politically apathetic.  They did however express concern over the popularity of their sketch (that was heard by over 100,000 people) as it  could raise their fans expectations of future creations, and also brought what he called "unnecessary attention."

Singapore: Bloggers voice opinion that government should engage with and not regulate new media

Singaporean bloggers and journalists have suggested that the government should engage with new media , instead of regulating it- as the blogosphere can regulate itself - for example, websites that feature wild, baseless accusations or irresponsible content will soon lose their readership and credibility, as readers move to other websites and that unfair criticisms will likely draw counter-arguments, sparing the original writer the need to respond to every comment.  However, they also acknowledged the importance of bloggers being mindful of existing laws, and not breaking them. Popular bloggers Mr Brown and Mr Miyagi provided an example - the use of their slogan "prison got no broadband " as an effort to educate bloggers on the importance of following existing rules.

Mr Peter Lim, 67, a former editor-in-chief of The Straits Times,  suggested that the government engage with new media (for example through maintaining their own blogs and participating in on-line-forums) with the aim of eventually leaving the Internet to self-regulate.

Minister for Communication, Information and the Arts, Lee Boon Yang countered the argument by stating that irresponsible comments on race or faith-related issues in multi-racial Singapore could be horrendous and so the matter should be approached with delicacy and sensitivity and be given the importance that it calls for.  On the bright side, he also mentioned the possibility of blogs and other on-line forums being given more leeway during the next Singapore General Elections (politically oriented postings and pod-casts were banned during the most recent one).