During the UN CEB meeting held at UNESCO in Paris, Dr Touré took the opportunity to have extensive talks with French Government officials and industry Leaders, touching upon issues of great importance to both France and ITU: The negative impact of the economic crisis on the ICT sector as well as the solutions and opportunities ICTs present for global economic revival. The promotion of the forthcoming ITU Telecom World 2009 was received positively.

Emergency workers searching for next-of-kin contact information for an injured person now have a globally recognized way of doing so, thanks to a new standard from ITU.

By simply prefixing the Arabic numericals 01, 02, 03, and so on to a nominated contact, such as "01father", "02wife" or "03husband" written in any script in the mobile telephone directory, will help emergency workers in any part of the world identify contacts in order of priority and notify them.

ITU will work with non-profit organization ICE4SAFETY to promote this new way of identifying an emergency contact in a mobile handset's directory.

"In Case of Emergency" — or ICE — has emerged in some English-speaking countries encouraging people to list emergency contact numbers in their mobile phone’s directory in the form of "ICE father", for example, or "ICE doctor". However, this precludes people who do not use or recognize the Roman script from readily identifying what the term "ICE" represents. ITU members expressed the need to identify emergency contacts independent of language or script. [More...]

The International Telecommunication Union and Andorra's telecommunications operator, Servei de Telecomunicacions d'Andorra (STA), have signed a non-exclusive partnership cooperation agreement to help boost access to telecommunication and information and communication technology (ICT) services in least developed countries and Small Island Developing States. In particular, the two parties will work together to develop and implement projects that aim to improve rural or outer island communication infrastructure; provide basic telecommunications, as well as high-speed Internet services; strengthen local capacity in information technology skills; and enhance ICT capacity, especially for emergency and disaster preparedness and management. [More...]