I'm totally confused. There are really strange things going on here at the WSIS Intersessional Meeting. During the lunch break, the new version of the Declaration of Principles was handed out. I expected a slightly changed document, that took into account the comments made by governments yesterday evening in the Plenary. But to my surprise (and not only mine) the document suddenly included obervers' contributions as well. How did that happen? The observers didn't have speeking rights yesterday evening and above all, there were never any oberservers' contributions included in the documents before. And I'm not sure if all the governments will like that. It must have happend because of the chair's mood - there is no other explanation. Anyway, I don't want to complain about observers' contributions being included in the document - civil society has been struggling to be heard ever since. But I am complaining about the following youth paragraph, that was proposed by "observers/Youth Commission, UN Volunteers" (?????): "Young people constitute a significant proportion of the world's population, and are the leading workforce. Because young people also represent some of the earliest adopters of ICTs, they can constitute an important volunteer resource necessary for bridging the digital divide, especially in developing countries, and must therefore be empowered as learners and creators of informaiton." First, this paragraph was definately NOT proposed by us. Second, the proposal Abel made to the paragraph wasn't taken into account in this version. Third, and most strikingly, this paragraph is horrible!!! I really wonder how this could happen and I hope we can get Abels paragraph in. To let you know, this is his suggestion: "Young people constitute a significant proportion of the world's population, and are the future workforce and leading creators and adopters of ICTs. They must therefore be empowered as learners, developers, contributors, entrepreneurs, and decision makers, especially those in developing countries." Ah, and another change happend: They replaced the paragraph from the key principles to "Our Common Vision of the Information Society". This can also not be in our interest. I have to go in now and see what happens. Keep you updated. Franziska

I'm here in Paris at the WSIS Intersessional Meeting and wanted to give a brief update to everybody who is interested in the Worldsummit - especially, those of you being part of the Youth Caucus. At 4 o'clock the drafting group handed out the revised version of the Declaration of Principles, based on the discussions in the Plenary and ad hoc groups during the last two days. Those of you who are involved in the Summit might know that the European Union proposed, in their contribution to the documents, to delete the Youth Paragraph. Fortunately, this hasn't happend! However, the paragraph was changed and cut to half its size. This is the current version of it now: "Young people constitute a significant proportion of the world's population, and are the future workforce and leading creators and adopters of ICTs. They must therefore be empowered as learners, especially those in developing countries." The old version, as of May 30th, was as follows: "Young people constitute the majority of the world's population, and are the leading creators and adopters of ICTs. Yet too many of them, especially those in developing countries, remain disadvantaged and disconnected. More and special attention must be given to empower young people as learners, the future workforce, and citizens with special needs." The version, as adopted at the moment, is actually a proposal made by Mexico. But our friend Abel, from Fidji, already expressed in the plenary, that he is not satisfied with this version and that he will prepare a new and slightly changed paragraph. The final document of the Intersessional Meeting will be presented tomorrow morning and I will keep you posted about what is happening here. Greetings from Paris to everybody out there :) Franziska