The United Nations three day summit on the Information Society has opened in Tunisia. The summit aims to assess and put into action UN plans to help poorer countries benefit more from the internet. This report from Pascale Harter:

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Kofi Annan
"The hurdle here is more political than financial. The cost of connectivity, computers and mobile telephones can be brought down. These sources, these bridges to a better life can be universally affordable and accessible. We must summon the will to do it."

The goals include plans to halve extreme poverty, introduce universal primary education and halt the spread of HIV AIDS. A squabble over who runs the internet addressing system, which threatened to overshadow the summit, was narrowly resolved just hours before its opening. The deal reached by negotiators will leave the US not for profit organisation, ICANN, in technological control of assigning domain names. But a forum comprising governments, civil society and the private sector will now share responsibility for policing the internet.

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the telecommunications sector
the area of business which deals with the use of telephone lines

the millennium goals
eight objectives set by the UN in 2000 to greatly improve life for the the world's poorest people by the year 2015

The hurdle
The obstacle, great difficulty

connectivity
the ability to link computers and other electronic equipment to other computers and computer programmes

summon the will to
build up the desire to

A squabble
An argument about something that isn't important

to overshadow
to take attention away from and make less important

narrowly resolved
was sorted out with great difficultly

domain names
internet addresses that are assigned to different countries and types of organisations

policing the internet
making sure that the internet is not being used for illegal or immoral activities

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