waldron@newport.rutgers.edu (James Waldron) (08/12/89)
*Part 2 of a 3 Part series. Prepared by: Dr. James Waldron, Director UNITEX Network A. NEWS GROUP OVERVIEW UNITEX supplies and disseminates information that we obtain from United Nations mainframe databases and related sources. We have been a major advocate for the distribution of 'raw', uncensored and un-edited material obtained from official UN sources and are playing a key role in the acquistion and distribution of this information. It consists of UN press Releases, UN Radio News, UN International News, UNICEF Press Releases, Electronic Publishing (DIPA) and related UNICEF documents and Wordwide Disaster News and Relief Plans from UNDRONET. The UNITEX conference was established over two years ago on microcomputer distributed networks and had a limited distribution in the United States, Canada and Australia. We maintained approximately 12 to 16 direct links at any given time. In fact UNITEX was originally 'labeled' as part of the "Socially Conscious 7" since we were the only USA link with 3 from Canada and 3 from Australia. All the 'connected' seven systems at that time were specialized in ways that were relevant to various social issues, such as, disarmament, environmental and ecological issues, human rights, etc. Due to the interest generated in general and to the timely international news coverage in specific, vis a vis Soviet-US current affairs, Nobel Peace Prize Award to UN, a renewed interest in the US space efforts, etc., there has been a mushrooming effect resulting in many more direct links. We now have a gateway to several networks, including BITNET, UseNet, PeaceNet, GreenNet, EcoNet, etc and have several thousand users that access this information . B. CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION The issues that UNITEX presents are many and are dependent on current political topics of interest and timely international news. The key areas that we focus on are the following: Human Rights, Disarmament, Amnesty International (Action Alerts), African News, news from and about 3rd World and Developing Countries, World Peace Issues, Space News/NASA and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Worlwide Disaster News & Relief Programs, Technology Transfer and Information Exchange, International Ecological and Environmental Issues, World Health Organization Reports (International health issues, vaccines, etc), Reports from the General Assembly and World Bank (International finance, multi-national and inter-governmental joint ventures, etc) C. CONFERENCE GUIDELINES and RULES Currently, the readers of UNITEX are concerned scientists, educators, teachers and students, as well as governemnt officials, UN delegates and news journalists. Through the vehicle of this conference, UNITEX provides information and promotes information and data exchange on a two-way basis. One should exercise a certain level of 'diplomacy' when addressing issues or people in this conference. There is much to be gained by good-will, patience and understanding and nothing to be gained by rash, insensitive and mindless chatter. Think before you write and try to make intelligent thought provoking commentary and stay focused on the issues presented. UNITEX welcomes reader replies and user feedback. It is not a Read-Only NewsGroup *but* due to the sensitive nature of many of the international issues that are addressed and the scope and breadth of the distribution, we feel the need to moderate this conference, at least in the beginning stages of this newsgroup's development. If we set some standards early, and if the readers feel they would like the newsgroup unmoderated, we will go that route. D. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND and PERSPECTIVE The United Nations plays a key role in several areas, such as, population and agricultural studies, world health and medical issues (imunization, new vaccines, treatment programs, etc), international peace agreements, treaties and security, international laws, peaceful uses of outer space, egual rights, human rights and the disemmination of information and international news. UNITEX is an advocate for these issuses and is also strongly commited to modern computer applications in the areas of software design and network development. Apart from our main goals as technology and information providers, UNITEX helps to make the goals and efforts of the United Nations more widely known, adds to international understanding and reduces misunderstandings. International news and new technological developments occuring in both the industrialized nations and in the developing nations is transmitted, distributed and disseminated by UNITEX to all direct private & public links via distributed network technology. E. PURPOSE INFORMATION and THE CHALLENGE OF THE 90's The following is a summary of several points that were introduced and discussed at the United Nations Special Session on Information on June 13 - June 27, 1988: Advances in communications technology have exacerbated the gap between the developed and developing countries. Information and communications in an interdependent world affect the economy, trade, culture and the development of a nation. Aside from this, confusion about the United Nations is enormous. The ever widening gulf that exists between the developed industrialized nations and the undeveloped countries has been referred to as the "North-South information inequality". A pre-occupied concern of the developing countries is freedom of information (article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and the information inequality that currently exists. To address these specific areas of concern, the UN has referred to the general topic of international co-operation and communication as the "New World Information and Communication Order." Co-operation between the North-South will provide the developing countries with up-to-date know-how and assist in the dissemination of fair coverage of the news about developing nations. Hopefuflly, UNITEX and the associated systems which link into this newsgroup/conference can help narrow this gap using effective, low-cost communication technology and decentralized wide-area networks that are a trademark of both the microcomputer networks (FidoNet) and the uucp networks (UseNet, etc). Thank you for your help in assisting us with the above guidelines. Date: Thursday, 10 August 1989. Time: 17:07:48. Dr. James Waldron waldron@newport.rutgers.edu Director, UNITEX ------------------------------ Ported to USENET from UNITEX NETWORK via UNITEX BBS: 201-795-0733 We want ** your ** news bulletins: (FAX: 212-787-1726 : Attention: James Waldron) or ...!uunet!rutgers!rubbs!unitex