At A Glance

LONDON: British Prime Minister Tony Blair promised on Monday to set an example to all those daunted by the Internet by fitting a firstinformation technology lesson into his busy schedule this week. Writing in The Guardian newspaper, Blair said he was ashamed of his own ignorance of the world wide web and even elementary word processing and so would knuckle down to a first lesson in the basics. 8220;I8217;m embarrassed about my lack of knowledge, so this week I8217;ll be taking my first IT lesson and hope to learn the basics of word-processing and to explore the Internet,8221; Blair wrote. And he urged his fellow Britons to follow his example, so as not to be Left behind by the 8220;new industrial revolution8221;.

8220;We need as a country to overcome our fear of these new technologies if we are to catch up with the United States and parts of Scandinavia,8221; Blair said.