Most Asian nations realising Internet cannot be tamed

  It's not just dictators. Governments around the world, many of them popularly elected, have tried for years to control the Internet and social media, dismayed by their potential to incite violence, spread mischief and distribute pornography and dissent.

But in Asia, home to everything from free-wheeling democracies to totalitarian regimes and others in between, many governments are increasingly realising that controlling online content, including dissent, just will not work.

Even China, which strongly regulates the Internet and is grappling with how to deal with the extremely popular microblogs read by hundreds of millions of its people, is highly unlikely to block them completely.

"Governments are committing quite a bit of resources and time to block websites and I think it's a panic reaction," says Phil Robertson, Bangkok-based deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch.

"They have some temporary, immediate discouraging effect but over the longer term, they won't be effective because people will still find a way to get the news they want to hear.

"Once people have been exposed to the Internet and see the power of getting information free to your computer, it's a very addictive feeling of empowerment."

That snowballing of sentiment has played out this year in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, where governments have been overthrown by movements bolstered by the Internet. The United States tried to block dissemination of the WikiLeaks cables and British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to temporarily censor social networking sites after riots last month.

Asia is also learning first-hand about the ubiquitous power of the wired world.

In India, authorities were taken aback last month when an anti-corruption campaign multiplied on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites and drew tens of thousands of people to protest sites.

But there were no signs the government tried in any way to crack down on the online crusade, even if it could have.

"At the rate in which it gained momentum, I don't think the government actually had the time to ban the movement," said Vijay Mukhi, a cyber-security expert.

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UK to tackle social problems after riots

Britain needs to tackle deep-seated social problems following riots and looting in English cities this week, the centre-right govt said, and a US street crime expert it has brought in said arrests alone would not solve the problem. 

“There are communities that have just been left behind by the rest of the country. There are communities that are cut-off from the economic life-blood of the rest of the country,” Finance Minister George Osborne said.

Prime Minister David Cameron, criticised by some in his Conservative party as being too liberal on crime and punishment, has taken a hard line on rioting in statements this week after returning from his summer holiday and recalling parliament.

He has also come under attack for austerity measures his government is introducing to tackle a huge debt burden.

Osborne said the government intends to press on with deep cuts to police numbers. The Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has said the riots weakened the case for those cuts.

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The riots broke out a week ago after a demonstration against the police shooting of a suspect.

Cameron has said political and economic grievances had little to do with days of looting and violence in which five people were killed, calling it “criminality pure and simple” and saying gang violence lay at its heart.

He enlisted U.S. street crime expert William Bratton on Friday to advise the government on handling it.

Bratton, credited with curbing street crime as police chief in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, told Reuters on Friday he would offer advice based on his experience tackling gangs.

“You can’t arrest your way out of the problem,” he said on U.S. broadcaster ABC on Saturday. “Arrest is certainly appropriate for the most violent, the incorrigible, but so much of it can be addressed in other ways and it’s not just a police issue, it is in fact a societal issue.”

Cities were largely quiet on Friday and Saturday. British police flooded the streets again on Friday night to ensure weekend drinking does not reignite the rioting that shocked Britons and sullied the country’s image a year before it hosts the Olympic Games.

More than 1,200 people have been arrested in connection with violence disorder and looting and hundreds have been charged.

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Soul searching lies ahead as riots cool in Britain

  British Prime Minister David Cameron will face pressure Thursday to soften his austerity plans, toughen up policing and do more to help inner-city communities after days of riots and looting laid bare deep social tensions in a depressed economy.

With the public seething over the looting of anything from sweets to televisions, Cameron has so far dismissed the rioters as nothing more than opportunistic criminals and denied the unrest was linked to the knock-on effects of deep spending cuts.

But community leaders say inequality, cuts to public services and high youth unemployment are also probably to blame for some of the worst violence seen in Britain for decades.

As the clear up continues, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government must find quick fixes to avoid further unrest while also addressing longer-term problems in what Cameron has called "broken Britain."

"There are pockets of our society that are not just broken but frankly sick," Cameron told .
A surge in police numbers helped to calm streets in London and cities across England such as Manchester and Birmingham on Wednesday night, but four days of often unchecked disorder have embarrassed the authorities, leaving communities ransacked and exhausting emergency services.

Police arrested more than 1,000 people across England, filling cells and leaving courts working through the night to process hundreds of cases. Among those charged were a teaching assistant, an 11-year-old boy and a charity worker.

It is unclear whether the peace will hold, but trouble on Wednesday night was limited to the odd skirmish. Businessmen and residents had also come together to protect their areas.

"Blacks, Asians, whites - we all live in the same community - why do we have to kill one another?" said Tariq Jahan, whose son was one of three young Muslim men run over by a car and killed while apparently protecting property in the mayhem in Birmingham Tuesday night.

"Step forward if you want to lose your sons, otherwise calm down and go home, please," he said.

As police investigate that incident and the many other crimes of the last few days, attention is now likely to turn to finding out why the riots and looting erupted and spread and why police were slow to tackle the violence.

PARLIAMENT RECALLED

Cameron has ordered a rare recall of parliament on Thursday from its summer recess to debate the unrest which flared first in north London after police shot dead an Afro-Caribbean man.

The opposition Labor party, eager for the government to take a less harsh approach to dealing with a record budget deficit, said cuts to police budgets had contributed to the escalation in violence.

"The scale of government cuts is making it harder for the police to do their jobs and keep us safe," said Yvette Cooper, Labor's home affairs spokeswoman.

Long-term tensions between police and youth, a dearth of opportunities for children from disadvantaged areas and visible inequalities where the wealthy often live just yards away from run-down city estates have also been highlighted.

Others have sided with Cameron, condemning the groups of youths as thrill-seeking thugs who are indicative of a breakdown in Britain's social fabric and morals.

Tensions have been bubbling in Britain for some time, with the economy struggling to grow after an 18-month recession, one in five young people out of work and high inflation squeezing incomes and hitting the poor hardest.

Finance minister George Osborne will also address parliament Thursday amid growing concern that the widely publicized scenes of rioting could damage confidence in the economy and in London, one of the world's biggest financial centers.

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