What is the ITU? The Struggle for Internet Governance

By Justin Kaufman – Another storm is brewing over Internet governance. Several countries, including Russia, China, and India, have proposed empowering the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) – a specialized agency of the United Nations – to oversee various aspects of Internet governance.

At the WCIT (World Congress on Information Technology), the ITU member states will consider revisions to the ITRs designed to bring various aspects of Internet communications (e.g., spam, cybersecurity, data privacy, online child protection, etc.) and standards (relating to domain names and numbers) within the ITU’s jurisdiction.

The community of nations should be one voice within a multistakeholder model of governance; not the voice. The ITU is not the proper agency to oversee the Internet. more> http://tinyurl.com/cy8mgsn

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Why the Euro Zone Could Unravel Shockingly Fast

By Michael Sivy – Political and financial leaders acknowledge the challenges facing the euro zone. But they continue to insist that solutions will be found to keep the system working.

The trouble is that such schemes to muddle through are no longer adequate. Debt continues to compound for the financially weakest European countries, and sooner or later it will become unsupportable.

An alternative explanation for the E.U. is that powerful elites created the drive for unification to further their own interests, irrespective of the consequences for the citizens of the individual European states. These elites include not just the overpaid bureaucrats and functionaries swanning around Brussels and Strasbourg but also multinational corporations and international bankers who profit from increased trade. Like the U.S. lending money to third-world countries to buy American fighter aircraft, the Germans were basically lending money to Southern Europeans to buy very fine washing machines and coffeemakers. more> http://tinyurl.com/cs72rjf

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Debt crisis: Spain requests bailout to save banks

By Emma Rowley and Bruno Waterfield – After hours of crisis talks between eurozone finance ministers, Spain’s Luis de Guindos confirmed that the country will ask for money to aid its stricken financial sector.

“Since the funds will be asked for to attend to the financial sector’s needs, it has been agreed with the eurogroup that it will be specifically for the financial system only.”

No economic or fiscal reforms are attached. more> http://tinyurl.com/7gbygm5

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IBM of 1956 is much different from IBM today

By Jeff Kiger – Retirees recall company picnics larger than most county fairs, including midway rides and entertainment. The star of the “Lone Ranger” TV show appeared at the 1962 picnic. With its shining blue exterior, the complex was filled with loyal employees wearing suits with white shirts and ties until the 1980s.

The first large-scale example of the change was a company-wide round of layoffs/early retirements of 60,000 employees in 1993 under the watch of CEO Lou Gerstner Jr. Most industry watchers still consider it the largest tech layoff in modern history.

Gerstner is widely hailed as the man who kept the company from becoming obsolete and brought it back into the game. However, he is also known as the man who wiped out much of what the Watsons created in order to save the company.

“He basically destroyed the IBM culture. Two years into his reign, the IBM culture as we knew it was gone, … finished. It never really recovered,” says Bob Djurdjevic of Hawaii-based Annex Research, a longtime technology analyst and expert on IBM. more> http://tinyurl.com/c4oma9t

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