At the International Conference "Africa Parliamentary Knowledge Network – Building together Open and Learning Parliaments in Africa", hosted by the People’s Assembly of Egypt on 4 and 5 June 2008, participants reiterated the need for the establishment of the Africa Parliamentary Knowledge Network for sharing knowledge, experiences and practices, and agreed on the text of the Charter for the Network to be submitted to their respective parliaments for endorsement. 
Chair Summary >>
APKN Charter >>
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• The Dutch Lower House has begun a small-scale Open Source desktop trial. Read more...
• Members of the Parliament of France have easily adapted to Open Source desktop. Read more...
• European Parliament is testing the Open Source desktop. Read more... 
• To learn more about the features of the Open Source desktop (Ubuntu) see this link
  

25 June 2008 - The European Commission, Directorate General for Informatics (IDABC), organised a special event in Brussels aiming to present and inform on the new version of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) intended to support the European Union's strategy of providing user-centred eGovernment services by facilitating, at a pan-European level, the interoperability of services and systems between public administrations, as well as between administrations and the public.
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The EU Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, publicly supported the use of open source software in eGovernment, in a public speech at a seminar hosted by OpenForum Europe in Brussels on 10 June 2008.
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A report of the Home Affairs Committee shows concerns that Britain might be in danger of becoming a Big Brother type of state and calls on the UK ministers to take the necessary measures to provide safeguards and minimize the amount of the citizen's information collected and stored in databases.
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The EC-funded MeAC project ("Measuring Progress of eAccessibility in Europe") has published a first series of eAccessibility Country Profiles. They provide an overview of relevant policies and levels of eAccessibility actually achieved in nine EU Member States, as well as the United States.
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The draft longterm strategy for e-voting, put forward by the Chief Electoral Office, favours trials of phone and Internet voting in three elections starting in 2014, before a decision is made on whether tooffer that as an option to all voters.
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Clear, simple guidance for civil servants on how they should interract with the social web and how the Civil Service Code applies to online participation.
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8-13 September 2008 - The LEX school aims at providing knowledge of the most significant ICT standards emerging for legislation, an understanding of their impact in the different phases of the legislative process, awareness of the tools based on legislative standards, and the ability to participate in the preparation and use of standard-compliant documents throughout law-making process.
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