Silicon Valley luminaries on a State Department-sponsored trip to Iraq are already making observations and floating ideas through Twitter and blog posts about how to bring the war-battered country up to web 2.0 speed. How bad is it? Almost no one in Iraq has internet at home thanks to years of censorship under Saddam Hussein's rule — making cellphones the platform for engaging the public in the occupied country.

Rumours of state censorship in Germany may turn out to have been just a little exaggerated. However, plans for putting their child abuse blocklist on a legal footing may yet have far-reaching consequences for internet users in that country. Earlier this week, we were hearing reports that wikileaks.de – the German offshoot of Wikileaks – had been blacklisted in its home country as a result of publishing the list of sites on the Australian Government’s ban list. This follows a raid last month, and search of the homes of the German Wikileaks domain sponsor, Theodor Reppe, by German Police. Official documentation of this event confirms that it was Wikileaks publication of Australia's proposed secret internet censorship list that triggered this intervention, although the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) have since claimed that they did not ask the German government to take action.

Democracy activists are urging the Obama administration and industry leaders to prevent Cuba from restricting Internet access, as the United States moves ahead with plans to offer expanded telecommunications services in that country. But the administration says it is too early -- and could be legally difficult -- to broker preconditions barring Cuba from suppressing political dissent on the Internet. U.S. "companies can make all kinds of decisions now to protect users' access. But the most powerful lever here is the Obama government," said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Reporters Without Borders has been selected, along with Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, to receive the Roland Berger Human Dignity Award 2009. The prize, totaling 1 million euros ($1.3 million), is to be presented to the honorees by German President Horst Koehler on April 21. Founded in 1985, Paris-based Reports Without Borders has made it its mission to document and publicize violations of press freedom and to support journalists and media workers in trouble. "Freedom of expression and free access to information are human rights and serve as the foundation of a functioning democracy," Roland Berger said in a statement. "As long as people are being punished for expressing their opinions or exposing violations of human rights, we must act to protect frreedom of the press."