Until it does, people won’t be tempted to deal with it online,” he says.Mr Kearns suggests that the Government’s internet strategy is aimed at the wrong type of person. “UK Online is an admirable effort, but it has failed as it is not having an impact on the digital divide. Why? Because the low paid, the elderly and the disadvantaged are the heaviest users of public services. These people don’t necessarily have ready access to the online services.
The entire online strategy is not aimed at the people who most use public services.”The Government has, however, had some successes. In his monthly report to the Prime Minister, the e-Envoy reveals that 99 per cent of schools now have access to the internet, compared to 28 per cent in 1998. Recent studies have also shown that children perform better through Key Stages 2, 3 and 4 of the National Curriculum when computers and the internet are used as part of the teaching. Seizing on this, Tony Blair has promised that every school should have broadband internet by 2006.
But this creates more problems as telecoms firms are reluctant to provide broadband in remote and uneconomic locations.At least the Government has three years to deal with this issue More pressing is salvaging the reputation of UK Online.. With Saddam Hussein wiped out of power in Iraq, another of America’s bogeymen in the Middle East is feeling the heat. The powerful Opec cartel is facing a massive upheaval as Iraq’s oil industry prepares to return to the international stage after years of neglect, underfunding and sanctions. Internally, there is the prospect of Iraq’s resurgence as a member that could arguably come to rival Saudi Arabia’s power. Externally there is the developing threat of Russia – a market on which BP has splashed out £4bn through its recent deal with domestic firm TNK. Then there is the risk that Iraq, at least initially, could be by run by a US-backed government. All this is enough to prompt some industry experts to question if Opec can survive.Of course, no one expects the rehabilitation of Iraq’s oil industry to happen overnight.
It is likely to take at least three months just to return fields to the pre-war production levels of two to 2.5 million barrels per day.The next stage is lifting that to around three to 3.5 million by repairing and improving existing fields. That will be a boom time for oil service companies around the world, while the Western majors will step in at the final stage: the exploration of Iraq’s undeveloped fields. There is, for example, a strip along Iraq’s border with Saudi Arabia that some believe could contain some 200 million barrels. Proven reserves in Iraq already exceed 110 million barrels, making it second only to Saudi Arabia in oil wealth.ExxonMobil, TexacoChevron, BP and Shell are keen to play a part in this final stage, although smaller players such as Russia’s Lukoil and France’s TotalFinaElf are also in the frame. Full production is many years away, well towards the end of this decade. But the oil is there, and with the current regime apparently at an end, it is now a question of when Iraq’s output will start to boom, not if.That will be a mixed blessing for Opec. On one level, a core Gulf state will eventually return to dominance, giving the cartel control over more of the world’s oil supplies.
