22 June 2008 - Paris ICANN: dot.Africa Initiative announced at ICANN Paris meeting!

Ms. Sophia Bekele, the Executive Director of dotafrica was present in PARIS on behalf of the dot.africa project the DotConnectAfrica organization has been leading. She presented at the public forum the status of the project's progress to the ICANN Board. Meeting scribe here...

Also on new gTLD announcement by ICANN...major highlights.

Left: Hotel de Ville speech by Chairman of ICANN

20 August 2008 - IDN TLD Allocation Implementation Processes

Following the progress on the IDN TLD allocation processes during the ICANN meeting in Paris a new area has been made available to describe IDN policy development and IDN ccTLD allocation developments under ICANN's IDN Area: http://icann.org/en/topics/idn.

At the Paris meeting, the Board approved both of the processes described below for implementation. I n relation to the IDN ccTLD "fast track" process it was resolved that the Board directs staff to: "(1) post the IDNC WG final report for public comments; (2) commence work on implementation issues in consultation with relevant stakeholders; and (3) submit a detailed implementation report including a list of any outstanding issues to the Board in advance of the ICANN Cairo meeting in November 2008."
Fast-track IDN ccTLD Activities

On a related note, the ICANN Board also adopted "the GNSO policy recommendations for the introduction of new gTLDs. And further that the Board directs staff to continue to further develop and complete its detailed implementation plan, continue communication with the community on such work, and provide the Board with a final version of the implementation proposals for the board and community to approve before the new gTLD introduction process is launched." New gTLD Program