US Wont sign ITU telecom treaty in current form

The United States, Britain and Canada refused to sign a new global telecommunications treaty, warning it would provide a mandate for governmental regulation of the internet, potentially ending 11 days of fractious talks in Dubai. 

In pre-written statements, the three countries informed a summit of the International Telecommunications Union of their decision, with Denmark, the Netherlands, and Kenya making similar announcements. 
The summit chairman broke up the meeting for an hour of private negotiations to try and revive the treaty, but with the United States announcing a press conference at 1900 GMT it seems Washington is in no mood for compromise. 

"It's with a heavy heart and a sense of missed opportunities that the US must communicate that it's not able to sign the agreement in the current form," said Terry Kramer, the US ambassador to the UN body. 

"The internet has given the world unimaginable economic and social benefit during these past 24 years. All without UN regulation." 

The United States and its allies have fought to ensure the new treaty, which is being revised for the first time since 1988, only applies to traditional telecommunications. 

A large bloc of countries led by Russia supports adding language to the treaty that could open the door to more regulation of cyberspace on issues from spam, security and the assignment of addresses to web pages. 

The US bloc's coordinated snub followed a vote that approved an African proposal to add a sentence in a treaty relating to human rights. 

Western delegates believe this effectively reintroduced a contentious proposal that said no country should be allowed to unilaterally deny another country access to communications networks. 

"We prefer no resolution on the Internet at all and I'm extremely concerned that the language just adopted opens the possibility of Internet and content issues," Simon Towler, head of the British delegation, said after the Africa proposal was passed. 

Here is a look at internet restrictions and availability at selected countries and regions around the world: 

North Korea
Internet use is extremely restricted with many of North Korea's 24 million people unable to get online. Some North Koreans can access an internal Intranet that connects to state media. Members of the elite, resident foreigners and visitors in certain hotels are allowed full access to the Internet. 

Iran
Most Western social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are blocked in Iran, as well as political opposition and sexually explicit websites. But proxy server sites and other methods are widely used to get around the official restrictions. Iran has announced plans to create its own domestic Internet with fully monitored content, but international experts question whether such a complete break from the worldwide Net is possible. Earlier this week, Iran accounted it had developed its own YouTube-style video sharing site. 

China
There are more than 500 million Chinese online but they contend with an extensive Internet filtering and censorship system popularly known as the "Great Fire Wall." Censors police blogs and domestic social media for content deemed pornographic or politically subversive and delete it. Many foreign websites, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and the New York Times are blocked. Searches for controversial topics such as corruption scandals or jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo return error messages. Users evade controls using proxy servers. 

Cuba
Tight control, slow connections and high costs mean only around 5 percent of Cubans have access to the global Internet, with another 23 percent relying instead on a government intranet with very limited content. Web access is mainly via public facilities where people must first register with identification. 

Gulf Arab States
Political sites deemed threats to the state are often blocked. Since the Arab Spring, authorities across the Gulf have stepped up arrests of bloggers and others for posted considered offensive to rulers or advocating political reforms. 

Central Asia
Internet censorship is prevalent across former Soviet Central Asian republics, but the strongest restrictions have been recorded in Iran's authoritarian neighbors to the north, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Controls are strictest in Turkmenistan, where social networking sites Facebook and Twitter are out-of-bounds, as is video-sharing site YouTube and numerous news websites. Uzbekistan has taken a less extreme approach, but sites critical of the government are blocked as a matter of course. Tajikistan, which is like those countries also ruled by an unchallenged strong-man ruler, has twice this year barred access to Facebook after web-surfers used the site to post material critical of government officials.